Word: gorbachevized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Centuries from now, when anthropologists are examining the Gorbachev era, they will be astounded by the abrupt changes in the forms of political life that occurred during the punctuated evolution of the period. Mute and spineless holdovers from pre-glasnost days slithered into obscurity and were replaced by frothing creatures distinguished by wide-open mouths and fists thrust upward. Two new autobiographies, published this month in vivid counterpoint, provide a revealing glimpse of this great Soviet transition...
...purest specimens of the spongelike species that plunged into extinction is Andrei Gromyko, the perennial Foreign Minister who worked with every Soviet leader from Stalin to Gorbachev and conveniently died last year as he fell from grace. Revealingly, his book is relentlessly unrevealing. Of the dermatologist's nightmare that was Stalin's pockmarked face, Gromyko writes, "I don't recall ever seeing any" scars...
Yeltsin slams the Council of Ministers as "a disorganized, confused gathering of dunderheads," rips into the elderly Gromyko as "of no use to anyone" -- and even pounces on Gorbachev because he "never acts decisively." Yeltsin also suggests that dissidents be paid a salary to combat "our mindless unanimity...
Many young, frustrated East Germans viewed Modrow as a potential Gorbachev of the G.D.R. "Everybody was waiting for the old men to go so we could start changing things," Oschmann said. "We thought of Modrow as one of those who would lead the change." Wistfully, he added, "We never dreamed it would happen this quickly and leave the party so far behind...
...this measure, Bush's foreign policy has got it right almost every time, the notable exception being China. The President's "don't gloat" response to communism's demise has exactly satisfied Mikhail Gorbachev's needs -- which at this time are also America's. So, too, the Administration's Middle East policy has been adroit. A combination of private pressure and thinly veiled public threats has pushed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir so far into a corner that even he may finally have no alternative but to give peace a chance...