The Education of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

"The economy is a mess. We are behind in every area . . . We have forgotten how to work."

At the Central Committee Plenum, Jan. 28, 1987

Officials of the Zavorovo state farm near Moscow had prepared carefully for the big day last August. They had even built a special staircase to spare their distinguished visitor the indignity of climbing down a hill to the potato fields below the main road. Mikhail Gorbachev would have none of it. Stepping out of his ZIL limousine, he gave the staircase a dismissive wave and scrambled down the steep incline in his neatly pressed gray business suit, leaving his surprised entourage to run after him in full view of television cameras.

At the bottom of the hill, Gorbachev asked the farmers, lined up beside their equipment like soldiers on parade, about the mood on the farm. "Good. Businesslike," came the replies. Gorbachev was not satisfied. "I always hear the same answer," he said. "((But)) there are always problems." For example, he asked, was everything available "except for vodka," a teasing reference to his antialcoholism campaign. Well, no, one farmer mumbled. It was the season for making jams and jellies, and sugar was scarce. Gorbachev shot back: Do you know why? Moonshiners are buying up all the sugar to make home brew. "Let's talk straight with one another," said the leader. "Isn't it time to bring the making of moonshine to an end? That sort of people belong back in the times when the dinosaurs lived."

That exchange was typical of the Gorbachev style, a remarkably Western mix of charm and sermonizing. The effect was apparent during the December summit with Ronald Reagan. Alternately jovial and argumentative, combining sharp intelligence with a homey touch and playing to the camera in the most effective way -- by seeming to ignore it -- he came across as a Kremlin version of the Great Communicator. Add an attractive, strong-willed wife, and the picture of an American-style politician is complete.

Also misleading. In most of his views, Gorbachev is a thoroughly Soviet, obdurately Communist figure. When he speaks of "democracy," as he incessantly does, he does not mean anything Thomas Jefferson would have recognized; he promotes freer discussion within the Communist Party only as a substitute for the political opposition he makes clear he will not tolerate. If he voices criticism of Soviet society, it is because that system has in his view strayed from the ideals of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state and Gorbachev's idol. And though he argues frequently for a new relationship with the U.S., he seems to have an odd conception of America as a Dickensian hell ruled by the military-industrial complex.