William Taubman, the prize-winning American author of Gorbachev’s authorized biography, begins his account with the phrase: “Gorbachev is hard to understand.” Taubman concluded that Gorbachev was a unique “tragic hero” who attempted to change Russia, laid “the groundwork for democracy,” but predictably failed in constructing a new state, society, and economy. A Russian biographer of Gorbachev writes about him as “a victim of a merciless caprice of history . . . One of the most tragic figures in Russian history.”
