On August 30, 2022, Mikhail Gorbachev passed away. In my estimation, there are few people who could claim to have influenced history as much as Gorbachev. His reforms resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the democratization of Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War. This column offers a thorough analysis of the process by which Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev’s predecessor, General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, passed away in March of 1985. Within the Politburo, four strong candidates to succeed Chernenko emerged: a Stalinist, Grigory Romanov (First Party Secretary of Leningrad); a hardliner, Viktor Grishin (First Party Secretary of Moscow); a moderate, Andrei Gromyko (Minister of Foreign Affairs); and a reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev (Secretary of the Central Committee).
The process for electing the next General Secretary proceeded through three stages. First, a chairman needed to be chosen to head the committee managing the former General Secretary’s state funeral. The chairman of this committee immediately became a strong candidate for succession. Next, a meeting of the Politburo was convened to choose a candidate to recommend to the Central Committee as a candidate for General Secretary. Finally, the Central Committee accepted the Politburo’s recommendation, although. This last step amounted to little more than a formality.
Grishin, Gromyko, and Gorbachev shared a common goal: to stop Romanov from being appointed as General Secretary. Gromyko and Gorbachev feared that if Romanov became General Secretary he would immediately dismiss every member of the reformist faction. From Grishin’s point of view, a win for the First Party Secretary of Leningrad was a defeat for the First Party Secretary of Moscow.
Two more elements worked in Gorbachev’s favor. On the day of Chernenko’s death, Romanov was neither in Moscow nor the city he governed, Leningrad. Instead, Romanov was in Lithuania at the time and inclement weather prevented him from making a prompt appearance in Moscow. The second factor in Gorbachev’s favor was that he knew of Chernenko’s death before anyone else. The doctor responsible for Chernenko’s health, Dr. Yevgeni Chazov, contacted Gorbachev before anyone else to let him know of the General Secretary’s death.
Gorbachev’s first move was to support Grishin. He believed that the Politburo could support a hardline politician like Grishin and that Grishin’s nomination could in turn block Romanov. So, Gorbachev approached Grishin and asked if he would possibly be interested in becoming chairman of the funeral committee for Chernenko. Grishin, who was well experienced with political schemes, looked at young Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and suggested that Gorbachev become chairman instead, with Grishin’s support. This, of course, implied that Grishin supported Gorbachev becoming General Secretary.
With the death of Brezhnev in November of 1982, Andropov in February of 1984, and Chernenko in March of 1985, there was an overwhelming sense that ‘the Soviet Union needs a young leader.’ Grishin likely gauged that it would be difficult for someone elderly, such as himself, to receive the nomination. With Romanov and Gorbachev as the two younger candidates, Grishin believed Gorbachev to be the better of the two.
Some time later, the son of Minister Gromyko sought out Gorbachev. He communicated to Gorbachev that his father was prepared to ‘act as Gorbachev’s feet’ during the Politburo meeting and, in return, wanted to be appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Gorbachev accepted his demands.
What exactly did Gromyko mean by “acting as Gorbachev’s feet?” This was an expression related to the upcoming Politburo meeting. The Chairman of the State Funeral Committee presided over this meeting, but he could not propose a candidate for General Secretary himself and had to give the floor to someone else to do so. In other words, Gromyko was saying he was prepared to propose Gorbachev as a candidate at the meeting. An important element of this process was that if a committee member made a proposal, there must be unanimous accord within the committee. Otherwise, if someone else were proposed as a candidate, it would be a grievous violation of Bolshevik tradition.
With both Grishin and Gromyko supporting Gorbachev, Romanov’s dream of reviving Stalinism became merely a passing dream. Before Romanov could have a chance to speak, the six members of the Politburo unanimously supported Gorbachev, leaving Romanov no choice but to yield. Later, Gromyko passed on the Politburo’s decision to the Central Committee and the young idealist Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed General Secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party Central Committee.
In the American book series The Man in the High Castle, a particular phrase appears, “Fate is guided by a tiny minority.” At the time when the book was written in 1985, people felt this truth acutely. Of all the ordinary residents in the Soviet Union – the taxi drivers in Moscow, the soldiers serving in Riga, the middle school teachers in Yerevan – not one was asked their opinion on who should be appointed as General Secretary. The ones handing down the decision were but a few members of the ultra-elite. A few ordinary people who happened to be in the right place at the right time, such as Dr. Chazov and the airplane pilot who refused to take off for Romanov due to the weather, also influenced events to a degree.
Political change generally doesn’t begin among the people but rather from the leadership. In the 1980s, events such as the Polish Round Table Talks, Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Moscow public’s protests against the hardliner coup d’etat, and the execution of Ceaușescu in Romania all made it possible for Gorbachev to be chosen over Romanov as Secretary General. If Romanov had won, perhaps communism would have survived into the 21st century world.
Kim Jong Il and the North Korean leadership learned these historical lessons well. In the 1980s, it took quite some time for observers to understand Gorbachev. Yet, between 1989 and 1990, North Korea recalled its exchange students in the USSR and ceased to see the Soviet Union as a friendly nation.
The Rodong Sinmun ran an article congratulating Gorbachev. However, North Korea began calling him a “traitor to socialism,” much as they once did with Khrushchev. Through Gorbachev, Kim Jong Il learned to neither yield nor reform. There were cases of socialist countries like China and Vietnam who had successfully reformed, but Kim Jong Il saw reform as a road toward the country’s ruin and seemed keen to avoid the fates of Gorbachev and Ceaușescu.
In March of 1985, the Soviet Union and the whole communist world had a chance for a better future. Is it possible that North Korea can have that opportunity as well? At present, such an opportunity could arise from Kim Jong Un’s untimely death or from some huge blunder on Kim’s part, either of which would result in a sudden loss of power for Kim. I wish to emphasize that the possibility of a “mistake scenario” should not be overlooked. If you look at the war Vladimir Putin has instigated, it is clear that even leaders who have kept control for a long time can make radical decisions. We have also witnessed how terrifying the outcomes can be when leaders become drunk on their own power and spend too much time thinking about “destiny” and “achievements that will go down in history.”
There are key moments in time that have decided history. March 10 and 11 of 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed as General Secretary, was one such moment. I wonder when that pivotal moment will be for North Korea.
Translated by Rose Adams.
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