Learning from history to understand the present

John Le Carre is a writer who always intrigued me. He is a convoluted but wonderful story teller, and in his Cold War, Smiley novels he created an imaginary world which somehow seemed to have an uncanny resemblance to a secret but real world of the Cold War. Were Smiley and his crew like real spies, and how real was his nemesis, Karla? Le Carre's latest book, The Pigeon Tunnel, is a series of essays about people he had met and incorporated in his fiction. As always, John Le Carre tells great yarns. Reading The Pigeon Tunnel led me to read about the man who killed off the Cold War, Gail Sheehy's very readable Mikhail Gorbatchev, The Man Who Changed the World. Gorbachev was the protege of Yuri Andopov, head of the KGB, the only institution in Brezhnev's Soviet Union largely untainted by corruption, until he became the General Secretary of the Communist Party and head of the Soviet Union in 1982. Was Andropov Le Carre's Karla? Andapov fostered Gorbachev's vision of an egalitarian communist society free of corruption. To understand Gorbachev, you have to understand Andropov, but also Khrustchev, who in his 1956 denunciation of Stalin, attempted to steer the Soviet Union away from Stalin's bloody legacy. And to understand Putin you have to understand Gorbachev. Khruschev, Gorbachev and Putin.all tried to free, not successfully, Russia and Russian communism, from the stranglehold of corrupt apparatchiks, servants of the regime who peddled influence and used their power, often petty and pernicious power, to feather their own nests, while impoverishing their society, the people all around them. Both Khruschev and Gorbachev ultimately failed and were defeated by entrenched forces, Khruschev by Brezhnev, Gorbachev by Yeltsin and his supporters. The jury is out on Putin. He managed to survive and project the image of the strong leader, who enjoys popularity because a strong ruler makes for stability. But reading about Gorbachev prompted me to ask questions about other leaders who took strong stands and were maligned for it. What do we know about Assad who was undermined by fundamentalist Islamist rebels enjoying American patronage. He may not be a good guy, may not have the charm of a Gorbachev, but he is an educating, intelligent man. Syria would be a happier place had his autocratic rule not been undermined. This is something that Putin understands, but Western leaders don't.