To let some of our folks get themselves seated. I have some minor chores to attend to so ill do that while they are getting seated. First of all, as you all know, please turn off your phones. Thats sure number one. And number two, i want to remind you that no flash photography is permitted during either of the presentations. As is usual, after the presentations, there will be a book signing in the lobby, youre invited to bring your books and have them autographed by our distinguished jurists. And finally, tell your friends and if you want to hear it again, youtube, you can listen to this and all the programs of the library and the library podcast. Andyou can find that at free library. Org. So having exposed a couple of chores, let me welcome you to the free library and introduce myself, im marie levine and im the library junkie. I love libraries, i live not far from here for many years and spent many long hours and as i look across the audience, i see im not the only junkie here. So i think many of you are familiar with many programs here. The library, thats dedicated to them. To literacy, to writing little kinds of innovative learning programs. And of course, the programs like this author series are marvelous and great contribution to our quality of life. I want to invite you to also take a look at the free library. Org. If you feel so inclined. The contribution of whatever you feel would be appropriate would be most welcome to help continue the great work of the library. Having done my chores, i like to get to the fun part and introduce are very distinguished guest. Its really a pleasure to bring them to you. Two brilliant author professors , william, whos sitting right down here and he will speak second but why dont you get away. I want to get a shout out to his wife jane who is in the front row also. The distinguished scholar of russian studies as well in her own right. Both in her own purpose. Then in a few minutes i will call out our first speaker who is Yuri Slezkine and you will find that both of our speakers can bring a wealth of interesting and deep understanding of their subject. Let me say a word first of all about william talman. Bill published a book, i think its about 14 years ago , it seems to specialize in the most important people who undermined salmon and his first book was about chris jeff. And it was an amazing book and an amazing success. Its Still Available and you can read here today. And it one among other things the Pulitzer Prize biography and i believe it won the National Book award. For the National Book critics award. So having done that, its a little bit hard to come up with a second act that i think hes done it. Hes last on to still another really giant soviet politics again, you worked so hard to change what stalin had wrought and of course thats the subject of his new book and the subject of his talk tonight and thats Mikhail Gorbachev so this new book which is gorbachev, his life and times is available here. Its getting uniform rave reviews. Let me review what the New York Times said. That was a masterly new biography that will surely stand as the definitive englishlanguage chronicle. Of the most intriguing figure or many years to come. I think it probably would have done translated into russian, it would be standard russian as well. And then joining would be our first speaker is Yuri Slezkine. Yuri is aprofessor of history at the university of california berkeley. We may have given enough emphasis to the fact that he and his wife jane are at amherst and bill over the years specialized in interdisciplinary russian studies. You really is a wellknown historian of russian history and in addition to his work at berkeley hes a fellow of the Hoover Institute at stanford some years ago i think it was about 12, 2005, he published a book called the jewish century which is an amazing story of the role of jews primarily in the Eastern European countries over a whole century and like bills book, yuris book garnered all manner of prizes including the National Jewish book award for book of the year. He has a new book also, we are lucky that two important authors each who published major works on russia this year, his new book is the house of government a saga of the russian revolution. And it basically tells the story of some very high ranking soviet officials who lived in this important and imposing building in moscow. Only to find that most if not all of them and victims of stalin purges. So i think you will do yourself a favor to get and read both of these. The london review of books as described yuri as a master stylist and they described his book as a soviet war and peace. So thats pretty high praise. Im going to ask you to join me in welcoming and giving around of applause to both of our speakers and then i will invite yuri to come out and begin our program. [applause] thank you all for coming. So between 1928 and about 1932, the soviet government built a new socialist state. And a new nationalist economy. At the same time, it built a house for itself. It was called house government and it was located in that lowlying area. The largest residential building in europe at the time, it combined 1205 apartments with a large number of public spaces including a cafeteria, theater, movie theater, walk in clinic, daycare center, kindergarten and tennis court, bank, laundry. Post office, solarium. And a couple dozen roofs for the area including two playing, and orchestra. Sharing those facilities, reading their families, moving from apartment to apartment to keep up with promotions were peoples commissars which is to say soviet government ministers. Industrial managers, red army commanders, police officials. Socialists writers. And these were including the man who involved lenins body. The man who wrote the soviet national anthem, and secretary of stalin himself, remain in the kremlin across the river. So this was the vanguard and thats what they call themselves, the vanguard of the working class. They had a dormitory where all Public Officials lived with children, neighbors. The place where revolutionaries came calling and as i say in the book, the revolution came and died. In the mid1930s, this was the core of the storm in the 1930s. There were 2600 registered tenants living here in this house, but 700 of them were high officials assigned to particular places. The rest were in attendance including about 600 students and serving them and maintaining the building as guards and guardians and gardeners and for loggers warehouse employees. Including about 50 administrators. And then during the great. , about 800 of them were in existence and accused of degeneracy. , counterrevolutionary activities. And just general unreliability. They were all found guilty one or another. About, sc at about 344 people are known to have been executed. The rest of the 800 were sentenced in prison. My book, the history of the building from the time it was conceived in the mid1920s to the time most of the residents worked are from the building and the building itself stop being a government. It was just a regular high status building. But we knew that was the original plan. The more memoir, diaries. Which is i read. The more convinced i became that the story had to begin. That i had to start in this war. In the return of the 20th century. When the future high officials of the soviet government first reverted to socialism and joined. The bolshevik party. Except that it was not really a party. Not in other words an organization intended to making progress in the existing day. It was a sect, by most definitions. It was a faithbased group in constant with the world, with volunteer embassies contingent on personal conversion and a strong sense of ethical austerity. Beyond the condition for joining with a condition states, was a total destruction of the existing order of things. Accompanied by a bloodied range of the strong. And to quote from internationality, those who mean to become nothing become everything. In short order by a collective this salvation led to a described state of absolute perfection. And in most statistics, the Court Members were young men. Who had abandoned their fathers, mothers, wives, children, sisters and yes, their own life. Joining a charismatic leader who represented the system. Lenins nickname was the old one. X women made up a very small proportion of the membership and performed important auxiliary roles as model moderates. One of the top bolsheviks, associated the coming of communism with the day it would become reunited with his secret lover. Communism he said in his private letters was a kingdom of eternal love. He wrote to such an love will be all of it with profound entities and one of the top bolsheviks, a man by the name of alexanderfellowship. Associated the coming of the revolution with the chance summation of the entire world into a enormous fraternal sect. So communism as he described it was the kingdom of universal fancy. His best friend was his High School Classmate and primus were by the name of korea. The prophecy in truth, is not known. A true system on monday 1917. When lenin rode into petrograd to train, they believe that the prophecy had been fulfilled and the present generation was on its way into oblivion. As for those socialists we have here, he knew that they were neither hot nor cold so he was going to get out of his mind. The revolution was for young people. At the time, by the time he was 30 years old, the secretary was under. His best friend who had in the meantime changed his name to molotov were 27. The old man was 47 years old. Cheesecake moved to caracas to be with anna and then left her again to preside over the civil war and the building of the soviet economy. And the supreme council, the national council. Youre just became one of the leaders of the bolshevik revolution in moscow. He became a member of the revolutionary committee. In petrograd after the revolution of the czar. The revolution was followed some of you may know by something called the new Economic Policy which was proclaimed a retreat. And was analogous with the american story, he is known on october 22, he became 24,000 of waiting for the world to end. Realized it hadnt and went about putting it to work anyways until it paid off. The figure of the prophecy coincided with the profits, trump didnt attend lenins funeral because of the serious illness. In 1927, 1300 i think, one bolshevik state of the lenin number one outside moscow. It was found to be healthy. And there were various sorts of psychic nora stevia. One public party member couldnt stop crying for several months. Therefore suffered from traumatic neurosis and about bolsheviks called neurosis. The surviving bolsheviks moved into the kremlin or several downtown moscow buildings that had been converted known as houses of soviet. In general they were filled with doubting and selfloathing communal domesticity. Visiting each other, so for instance drinking strong tea, smoking cigarettes, having sex, arguing abouthistorical necessity. And the official soviet literature in 1920s consisted of graphic scenes about communists being pursued by vampires in dorms that look like the capital or more often of bolshevik men being held prisoner by females presiding over the suffocating. [inaudible] soft pillows and i quote, the porcelain cast, not all of them saw porcelain casks so one of the most prominent representatives of this particular literary trend was alexander. With who would have been the universal friendship. It was about this time that the bolsheviks left their congress, the youngers went in, most of them recent recruits to proliferating the commissary and overextending the soviet state. Parties ideological narrative decided it was his best friend and chairman of the settlement of jewish slums on the land near his daughter and the chairman of the macs name and the chairman of the military board of soviet Supreme Court married the daughter of sedona white. He took one step into the mothers room and they continue to share the same apartment and one of the offspring of this union was the great soviet writer demetrios. Whose novella the house of mismanagement, was my inspiration for writing this book. In 1925 which was the lowest point in the history of soviet appointments, and perhaps most surprisingly the highest among communist officials. A jet ski finally left his wife to be with anna and left on her to return to his wife and son. He finally married someone else and had a son meaning worldwide for worldwide revolution. And then several years later, he and anna ran into each other at an official function and she was taken to a hospital , and one of her originalrecommenders was called upon to reconfirm his endorsement. They said again. [inaudible] they got married, had three daughters and shortly thereafter she accepted the cleanup at the and his daughter left her for another Party Official who had abandoned his wife and three children in order to be with her. Solzhenitsyn was sent to progress so that ambassador to czechoslovakia. He married a woman by the name of gertrude who was the daughter loved to hate. And then the day gone. If you remember how i began, in 1928, the soviet government built a new socialist state and nationalist economy and built a house for itself. The house was classified as a building of transitional type. Halfway between communalism based explicitly on whose law housing organized around family. It was a compromise. Early soviet communalism was about interchangeable individuals living in elastic public buildings. The question really was whether individuals still would be attached to wrong corridors and dormitory public buildings, communal buildings or to endless roads traversing this sort of Community Center landscape. Some people envisioned floating and flying in these new dwellings and bathing as one ideological prisoner. So soviet collectivism of individuals in bourgeois individualism divided. The point was the need from the forum, what they called a kingdom of necessity. The success of that transformation would rest on the final solution to the problem of planning. The key problem for any in this case, the question was whether it was possible to know communism and live in famine at the same time. In the meantime, the house of government was compromised combining 505 apartments and all of thoseproblem buildings , those spaces that virtually no one except for the children. Some critics actually argued that the house of government was functioning similar to the dakota building. In new york city. But they realized their mistake was as the socialists , whether the economic foundations were being built. And thats what stalin proclaimed. The economic foundations had been built and in the 1930s were ultimately about selfconfident expectations of the inevitable. The soviet post section production page. As the writer said that the first hundred soviet writers. First layer of scaffolding had been taken down from the house of socialism. Only the most nearsighted people failed to see its necessity. We are all witnesses to the fact that the soviet people have been written by a powerful union of physical points. Thats why the top soviet officials moved into their new building. When they did, most of the men were in their 40s or 50s, most of the women were in their early 30s or most of the children were between the ages of five and 10 and most of the examiners. They were young men, women in their early 20s. Refugees from grist farms that they matched as recently. Now, the apartments younger people elected the family hierarchy. The full extent of every apartment in the largest room was the private space. With walls , covered with dark oval bookcases from floor to ceiling, most of the books combinations or the massive gold leather edition of bogus of running encyclopedia. Which he said what you see from other tenia publishers and collected works by Charles Dickens foremost among them. So to conclude. The building was transitional on another sense. And that it was part neoclassical, particularly in part constructivist. And people you did their best to make it less drive. By bringing in old beds and chairs and desks. With photographs and paintings or carpets or rugs. Men really early on switch to some technical boots, women and as one of them put it suddenly discovered that they were beautiful. Many of them have been impressed by government specifically. They drew the line of curtains. And as many as an ultimate syllable of the laws. And for women, it was seen as a symbol of bourgeois eroticism but no one knew what to do about it. And what kind of eroticism was not bourgeois. In the worst kind of domesticity was social. And the reason for that is that marxism had a very broad conception of human nature. So that revolution in property relation was the only necessary precondition for revolution of the human heart. Really no one in the house was even leaving their house. To work a good socialist family was supposed to look like, what a good socialist brother or my mother or father was supposed to belike mark. And everyone was gripped by this powerful feeling of capability and by the equally powerful feeling of confusion and guilt at the same time. Ive always kept watching he kept writing to anna but less and less frequently. I always had seen molotov but less and less frequently. Leaving his wife or the writings you wouldnt put down surrounding them and bring molotovs wife, the head of the soviet bursting with exemption for the collapse of their friendship. And then finally, the night came a knock on the door. The great care which was a moral panic and a witch hunt. Engineered and suffered by most in their sect. In february 1937, like jc wrote his last letter to anna area saying the question of when will the day come, had been replaced for the question of who is doing. But is not arriving in the youngest stopped talking altogether. He was arrested in october and shot a year later. Solzhenitsyn was on vacation with his daughters. And so just one less passage i will read to you according to his daughter. Its to everyones surprise they came from here. He said my brother begins to say goodbye, takes two. They were not embracing but just stood there, not moving. Maybe they were solidly telling each other something or perhaps missing, i know. They were saying goodbye. The president started in turn to walk to the desk to the bedroom to say goodbye to her son. He stopped and looked back and i saw her face. I will never forget the look on her face. It was due fewer and indescribable acne. Their thoughts in german, i cant do it. No, why did we hit these tribes. The two came up and led her away or maybe under arrest. I would just end the children went back to the house of government. And all looked up to the receiver. Wouldnt talk. And it came out, said would read into the receiver and all his kids were saying their children were challenged. He said please tell me what to do and according to one of his daughters, they heard multiple explanations, make sure the children are taken care of. When i was doing research i found that solzhenitsyns last letter, across the page he wrote in big block read letters, to be read to the archive and thats where i found. Thank you. [applause]. Having read and enjoyed yuris wonderful book, i wanted to try to connect the two books as a way of transitioning to my autobiography of gorbachev and i thought of two things. At one point in yuris book he says its often said that revolution has killed their children but in fact what happens was the children of the revolutionaries, that is the children who grew up in the house of government and later when they grow up became supporters of the great change in the soviet union that gorbachev tried to carry out. And indeed, gorbachev himself was born in 1931 which puts him roughly in contemporaneous with a lot of the children of the childrenwho lived there. But of course, the difference which ill talk about a little more in the moment is that he was not a child of that house. Or any of the revolutionaries in the elite. He was a peasant boy. Born in a village. In southern russia. Everything i thought of listening to yuri just now was the contrast between the sexual promiscuity of the revolutionary living in the house of government and gorbachev lifelong boasting to his wife which was both one of the most admirable things about him and also part of his tragedy in the end. Which ill get to in a moment. Gorbachev destroyed communism , as you know, not entirely by himself but he was the main one who did it, soviet communism. The more than anyone else including Ronald Reagan and the cold war. We talk about that if youd like to. He resided unintentionally over the collapse of the soviet union. And in that sense, he changed his country and the world. Although neither as muchas he wished. One reason he could do all of these things was he had a tremendous power to save it from being the leader of a still totalitarian or shall we call it post totalitarian state. The leaders of that state had more power than american president s, more power than leaders of democracy , at least most of the time were more constrained. No comment. Another interesting thing and an important thing about gorbachev is that he was unique. In the sense that no one else in the soviet leadership at his time had done what he did. The politburo of the communist party at about 15 members in it , only three of them afforded him almost until the end. And another guy named megadeth. They were in a position to support him at the end, not quite because he had put them there or get them there. In other words, he did what others in his position who had actually chose him to be their leader would not have done in his place. An interesting thing about that that is an invitation to us or to me as his biographer to try to understand his character. Because if a leader does something unique or ask in a unique way rather than the other way others might in his case, in his place because they share the values of or because they face the situation in which taken outcome and anyone who faces it if he is unique as gorbachev was, then this suggests that some of what he does reflects his character. His personality. Internal drive, his compulsions, whatever it is. So that takes us back to biography which is what this is but its a case that i may this is the biography with a special need to explain the behavior of a man who changed his country and the world although not as much as he wouldve wished. My book addresses several big questions. And im going to name them. And then im going to provide the as best i can as quickly as i can a very very funny answer. The thought that if you are interested in some of these issues we can return to them during question and answer session or that you might read my book. My publisher would be particularly pleased at the outcome either way. The first question is how did gorbachev become gorbachev . That is, how did a peasant boy growing up in the present village who want a high school price for asa click praising stalin become the man who drew soviet communism the end. The second question is how the man who would destroy communism, how was he chosen to be the leader of the communist regime, how could that possibly be . The third question which i tried to answer is what were his original games when he took over in march 1985 as the soviet leader mark he said at the time and he said in retrospect that he initially favored only relatively modest Economic Reforms and if you look at those reforms, they were in the very modest. But he ended up trying to democratize a country which for its centuries of existence for in his predecessor in russia. And the soviet union, had known only of authoritarian and then totalitarian rule. You moving this command economy into a market economy. He imagined and tried in the end to change it from a phony federation into a genuine federation. And he also not only ending the cold war but trying to create a new world order which characterized as much as possible by the enunciation of violence and the use of force. The name thing that any and he seemed to be trying to do is to ask another one of my questions which is how can we possibly imagine succeeding in such a gargantuan task in such a country which in so many ways was not prepared for anything like this. Well, as we know, he didnt quite make it. He was forced out of power in december 1991. The soviet union at that point was on the verge of collapse. And out of existence on the days he left office. And into course after 10 more orless chaotic years under president nelson. It was aimed into the possession of planning your who has in many but not always reversed course back to Something Like an authoritarian regime. So another question of mine was how did gorbachev react to failure and thats what it was. And it seemed that way, as his own project when it ended in this way. Okay. Your comes my thumbnail attempt to summarize very quickly answer to these questions. How did gorbachev become gorbachev . I devote a chapter to his childhood. In southern russia, the area north of the caucuses , and when i come away with is that he lived in terrible times, born in 1931. Ammon, politicization of purges, of war. His village was occupied by four months by the nazis. He lived in terrible times, but he emerged as he said, we were poor, practically beggars but i felt wonderful. And that line when i discovered it confirmed what i had figured out or what i thought i figured out for myself. He had a wonderful father. Theres a picture of his father in my book and he has smiling kind eyes. He had a wonderful grass model grandmother who loved him, neither one of these peasant patriarchs tried to dominate him and tell him what to do. He had a harsher mother and i wont go into that less ivy accused of reducing everything to this the way this man was treated by his mother. That is not the case, but its an interesting counter elements in his life. But from all of this, i tried to argue emerged with an a sense of optimism and confidence and selfconfidence. And trust in people. Imagine emerging from the 1930s with that kind of trust which is i think necessary for imagining what he imagined, the kind of great change he was going to carry out in his country. He went to Moscow University, the elite university of the soviet union from 1950 to 55. And here, in my thumbnail sketch, what i want to say is Moscow University contributed as most universities do and we can probably all experience it ourselves is doubt and questioning. And professors at Moscow University at this time were trained before the revolution or in the 1920s. He had not become quite the prague spring himself, but you learn from reading about him in his memoirs and gorbachev and talking to gorbachev as we did on many occasions that these people were already beginning to be emancipated from the kind of indoctrination that it led gorbachev to brace to also highly in his high school speech. The other woman he met, the other person he met at Moscow University was his wife, whom he married in 1953, whom he dearly loved. Unlike a lot of politicians and a lot of countries he was faithful to her. Unlike a lot of politicians in a lot of countries especially against the soviet union he was not only a loving father but i devoted, loving husband, i devoted father and grandfather to his daughter and granddaughters. I try in the book to talk about the role that his wife played in his life it also. Gorbachev climbed the ladder of the commas party ladder. From 19551978 when he moved to moscow. There are lots of things i could say about that. I try to save them in the book but my summer is that he was honest, incorruptible, better educated than most, in a way to remind of what one read about the way communism imagined the new soviet man. As i say, educated, enlightened, incorruptible, devoted husband, father. He was a good man, a decent man. When you interview him as jane and i did eight times over ten years, his decency in the way helps to explain his high ideals and his decency helps to explain the trouble he got into. He hated the use of force, although he used it a couple of times. But there were a lot of people including many in his former associates who thought he should of been much tougher. There was one liberal minded aid we interviewed who said with regard to his unwillingness to use force, gorbachev insisted on searching for a political solution and this aide said he stood upon 15 or 20 of them from the lamp posts. Because if he had been the other separatists nationalities, revolts and others would have hesitated to push on towards independence in the way that he did. But this, these virtues of his turned out ironically and importantly to be virtues in the eyes of his bosses, including the most important man about whom later was said that he was the one who helped him become the leader, Yuri Andropov. Remember him . He was the police chief for a good long time in the 70s and he put dissidents into mental hospitals. He wasnt as brutal as stalin but it did a lot of pretty horrible things. It turns out, however, he was a man from humble origins to inspire inspired in some way to be an intellectual, and it took to gorbachev. I interviewed a man whod been the head of an institute in moscow and it been in aid to and drop off in the 1960s when Yuri Andropov was not yet the head of the kgb. He and his Young College used to find books, classics, and one day he said, why do you have these books under desk . The edge was so as to be able to converse with you guys, younger, more intellectual, better educated aids. Well, Yuri Andropov thought gorbachev was wonderful. Like entered into it. They met because gorbachev was the province leader of a province which include some lovely resorts to the north caucasus where andropov who also hailed from that area like to vacation. When he came down to vacation, gorbachev was his host in the hung out together. I have a picture in the book in which andropov standing there with the camera taking a a pice of gorbachev and his wife were sitting on a rock in the mountains and they would go out in camp out and sing songs together. Sometimes cook and talk all night. So when andropov came back, when he was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee after his stint in the kgb and then party leader, upon britishness death he promoted gorbachev. Theres one more step gorbachev has to become the top leader and he does in 1985. Why did that happen . For many reasons but part of it was that there wasnt much competition. There were only two young men in the politburo, meaning 5354. The other one was a Leningrad Party leader, rather something of a drunkard. It wasnt a hard choice. I come to the conclusion considering the competition and considering the fact that his three predecessors were dead men walking in effect, very sick, soon to die, gorbachevs problem was not hard act to follow but they were too easy. That is, i think this contributed to a sense that once he became the leader and started to change the country, it would go much more easily and smoothly than it turned out to. So he became the leader, and you know what happened after that. Things begin to deteriorate. After he switched from modest economic reform to mostly free elections, a genuinely functioning parliament, which merged on pretty quickly on free speech, and by 1990, the country was beginning to come apart and have a chapter which i ponder the question of whether gorbachev himself was coming apart at the same time. The evidence is mixed. Some of his close aides described in it the way that is appalling as if they dont understand why he isnt speaking as clearly as he used to listening as closely as he used to aides, and they worry that he is indeed coming apart but others like his wife insist that hes not. In the meantime his relations with the outside world have gone from being doubted at first and then being embraced by somebody like Ronald Reagan. Thats another puzzle i tried to figure out, how could it be that this communist leader and this arch american president could become bosom buddies that they really did . I attribute it in the end to personal chemistry more than anything else. I can talk about that if youd like. In his relations with george bush who becomes even warmer in the end towards gorbachev but who had done him a distinct disservice in 1989. Bush becomes president. As an argument. Reagan, bush declares a pause to reassess whether gorbachev deserves the respect and affection that reagan has shown for him. And months go by before the United States warms up to gorbachev at the very moment when i think in retrospect gorbachev couldve been greatly from the support of the United States. In the end, and im coming to the end, i describe gorbachev as a tragic hero, a hero because of what he attempted, tragic because of the way it didnt work out. But also tragic because why it didnt work out. I attribute that in large part to the multiple obstacles he faced, resistance from party hardliners, resistance from radical democrats who thought he was going to slow and wanted to go fast. Resistance from Boris Yeltsin who gorbachev humiliated and then who he humiliated gorbachev intern before finishing them off, and the soviet union as well. I also think gorbachevs own fatal flaws contributed to the final outcome. Those fatal flaws, interestingly enough, consisted in some of the same characteristics which i think identified the start of when you child when he was a child. He himself agrees but not entirely. One of them was he was too confident, too sure of himself, to certain that he could prevail in a situation as hostile to his promises and preferences. He was also too trusting, too trusting of the hardliners whom he tried to bring along. It wasnt that he idealize the model. He knew they were pretty nasty. At one point when one of his close aides whom we ought to know very well tried to get gorbachev to break with the communist party and told him look, join with yeltsin, the democrats, leave them behind and gorbachev said i cant do that. They are a rabid dog on a leash and i cant let that we should go. So we kept them with him until they tried to oust him in the august 1991 coup. He trusted, it wasnt so much he trusted Boris Yeltsin but he was too confident that he, gorbachev, could prevail over yeltsin. I have some interesting evidence of that, except it turned out it was yeltsin who prevailed over him. On the eve of that august 1991 coup which really finished them off even though he wasnt ousted from power until december, he was warned by many people that there was a coup coming. One of the warnings came from the United States from ambassador who told him and ins office that the United States had information to the effect that theres going to be a coup, and gorbachev said no, no, and later on he explained that the reason was that people would been said to be plotting against him needed him more than he needed them, and without him they would be nothing. So those are examples of some of the flaws. These are examples from his life, and to go back to what i said in the beginning, theres a famous quote from the british historian Thomas Carlyle that history is the biography of great men. Most of us wouldnt accept that anymore. First of all the workmen, secondly the overemphasis on the importance of the two leaders and their biographies. But this is the case in which the biography of gorbachev helps to explain the fate of the soviet union and other world. Thank you. [applause] good evening everyone. Im director of all three events. I think you know how this part of the evening works. Raise your hands, we will get a mic to you. We are running late so we would probably only have time for one or two questions. So make them good ones. Theres a gentleman in pink about halfway down on our left. The mic is coming to you. Good eating. My question to professor, like the professor in introduction said, you have a biography for khrushchev as well as biography of gorbachev. However, you have kept your impression of. Do you think, that comment of gorbachev to power as russian [inaudible] the way khrushchev was driven in power in a coup . I have to admit to being part of hearing. Can you repeat what you understand to have been the question . I will repeat it in a similar context. Khrushchev left in a coup. [inaudible] just like gorbachev did. Do you think the reason the russians somehow elected gorbachev, because they thought he would become another [inaudible] gorbachev became more than another khrushchev. He went much farther than khrushchev or because he is going farther than khrushchev and because he knew what very well what happened to khrushchev he was ousted in october 1964, he was worried from the word go about being ousted. In fact, thats why he kept the hardliners so close to them so that they wouldnt move against him. And many would say that was a fatal mistake, that he should have broken within. We interviewed, jane and i, alexander in moscow and for the first of the interview thats what he said picky set gorbachev shouldve kicked them out. They were afraid of him. He was the soviet leader. They wouldve gone whimpering. It would be easy. But later in the same interview, he started to say of course you had to be cautious. This i think expressed the complexity of the situation that gorbachev faced. He was constrained by these hardliners. He was fearful of them. He was tempted to get rid of them but he was afraid to move against them, and in the end they moved against him. How does gorbachev deal about putin and his obvious contempt for what gorbachev did . And the way putin is moving the country . I think the question was about putin rather than by the way [inaudible] gorbachev has a somewhat strange to me attitude towards putin. In the year 2000 2000 when puts elected president after being appointed acting president by yeltsin, gorbachev supported him in that election. Gorbachev said afterward to certain amount of authoritarianism was necessary in russia after the chaos as he regarded it of the yeltsin years. Ever since then gorbachev has been more and more disenchanted with putin. He opposed his reelection in 2012, and yet he continues to find reasons to praise him from time to time. And most recently in april 2017, he was asked by a german newspaper do you still trust putin . And gorbachev said yes, i do. And gorbachev has even gone so far to say this man who tried to transform the, to democratize the soviet union five years, that the process of democratizing russia may take decades. At one point he said about ginger to go it may take the entire 21st century. And here if i may, i would be tempted to ask my colleague, yuri, who is a real russian history were i am actually a political scientist pertaining to be historian, or biographer, what do you think, yuri, about the prospects given its history of russia becoming a democracy . [laughing] thats a bad question to ask a historian, i know. [inaudible] i have no idea. I rather doubt it. You are pessimistic. I would be pessimistic if i were against authoritarianism. Say that again. You would [laughing] okay. In the front row. Im assuming that gorbachev read the book. Im interested in gorbachevs reaction to the book. Did he read it . Did he read an early copy . Have you communicated with him since he had access to the book . Gorbachev does not read english. I presented him with a copy of my khrushchev while every of in english at one point in my quest to obtain his cooperation in working on his biography, but he only read it once the was a russian translation. A couple of years later, i, quaking in my boots, i heard him say as he grabbed my arm, its a good work, very solid. Which is characteristic of gorbachev and perhaps another one of his loss. Not that he didnt raise my book but he doesnt like to praise other people. In fact, he doesnt even always like to think of the people. A lot of them turned out to complain about that. In this case i sent him a copy of the book and i heard back indirectly, he said russian [speaking russian] once i read the russian translation i will give you my impressions. So now i can wait making in my shoes again to hear his impressions. We have time for one more question. I studied in berlin in 196162, and im absolutely amazed at the changes that have taken place since that time. The reunification of germany, the foundation of the european union. Amazing. I feel gorbachev is a hero in that. And i feel he is little recognized in the united unites we seem to believe that Ronald Reagan said a few words in front of the wall and that did it. So i really want to thank you for this book, and i wonder, i mean, to be looks like history was change in a major, major way. And i wonder if you see it that way . I have a shorthand way of assessing the importance of reagan and gorbachev when he came to ending the cold war, and that is to say, if there had been no gorbachev, this is counterfactual history which is another a a nonhistorian, f there been no gorbachev the cold war wouldve continued because reagan would have been dealing with one of the relative troglodytes of the politburo and it would not have ended. On the other hand, had they been gorbachev but no reagan, the cold war wouldve ended because bush, lets say, instd of reagan would have joined eventually gorbachev in the way that he did to in the cold war. So that im sure is, i keep looking over at my historian colleague, looking with a quizzical look in the corner of his eye but thats why sense of the relative credit to gorbachev and reagan, but they both certainly cooperate in a way that it was extraordinary and unexpected. Yuri, did you want to add to that in any way . Well, i agree that gorbachev, i mean, gorbachev did something that none of his peers from the politburo wouldve done at the same time. But i think its no accident that the old regime ended with the death of the less representative im sorry . The less representative of a particular generation of soviet leaders. When chernenko died, before he was pronounced dead [laughing] much of the regime i think died with him. And so gorbachev was tremendously important in i think the way the country unraveled. But my sense, for what its worth because its all counterfactual, is that the System Installed during the first fiveyear plan that he mentioned, at the beginning of my talk, came to an end when the left, communism in power, died. Please join me in thanking [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] booktv has covered many books over the years on russia and its relationship with the United States. Including those by to watch any of these programs online visit booktv. Org and type russia book in the search bar. Heres a look at some authors recently featured on booktvs after words, our weekly Author Interview program. He was or is a brilliant scientist, iq off the charts, and he goes from bad to being able to be such a gift to humanity. In two years time, less than two years time, in some one step removed from the leader of alqaeda. That story fascinates me because of the fact that im a counterterrorism operative, but i think the world should understand why he did what he did, how we did what he did, and i think that is again part of a deep dive into that terrorists might said, and its the first step for all of us to really understand our enemy. After words errs airs on booktv every saturday at 10 p. M. Eastern and sunday at 9 p. M. Eastern and pacific. Does anyone else have an experience you would want to share . Tyrone asked about his medication can, the conversation turns to drugs and alcohol when tyrone instead begins talking but getting arrested for smoking a blunt. Everyone except a wallflower patient something to say about drugs. May i Say Something minor, asks manny during a pause in the discussion . Sure. I dont mean to take up everyones valuable time in the group. I know i dont deserve it. Thank you so much for letting me speak. You are fine, man, just talk. Thank you, thank you. Its just that i struggle with alcohol for so long, almost four years now and ive been sober since getting locked up. I hope so bad i can stay clean when i get out. He seems to be more comfortable now and continue talking. He tells us about being whipped against the wall as a sevenyear old when he didnt do a good enough job clean up the mess from his fathers partying the night before. One morning maybe one of the classes of leftover orange juice to realizing it was next with vodka. When is hung over father found out he whipped him into blood seeped through his shirt. But manny said it didnt hurt as much that that because he was tipsy from alcohol and stuff and then on he drank as much alcohol as he could get his hands on. Thank you for letting me share, said manny. I know im not worth your time. Manny wrote these words and are still getting a little tearful. Manny says to gmail before in his chair so we can see them clearly, you are worth it, man. Youve got mad courage. You just hang on a key. 1 day at a time. Thats all you got to do. Jamal looks like hes about to cry. No one has ever offered in kind words. Antoine and tyrone looked uncomfortable with his expression of emotion but they nod in agreement. We just have to take it one day at a time. Think about all those days you survived already. I glanced at stinky to see if she is appreciating what is going on in front of us. Her eyes are wide and went with amazement. We are witnessing a Pivotal Moment for manny, perhaps for the group, a collective responsibility to care for someone else and no one wanted to end. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. My name is lissette mendez, the Program Director of the Miami Book Fair. Miami book fair takes place in downtown miami at the campus of Miamidade College. This year we have little over 525 authors representing every genre, anything that you can think of where representing on Miami Book Fair. Joint booktv for the Miami Book Fair life Miamidade College saturday and sunday november 18 and 19th in cspan2. We are pleased to welcome you to our douglas and Sarah Allison auditorium this afternoon. Those joints on heritage. Org website as well as in the future on cspans booktv, for those inhouse would ask that courtesy to see our mobile devices have been silence or turned off and, of course, those watching online are welcome to send questions or comments at any time simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. Hosting a program to look at our special guest is Senior Communications advisor and senior contributor to the daily signal