MIKHAIL GORBACHËV 121Stavropol district collective farm in 1931, he grew up committed to
Lenin and the October Revolution of 1917; but he was also aware that
family members had suffered persecution at the hands of Stalin’s
security police. He worked hard in the fields and at school and gained
a scholarship to study law at Moscow State University. On graduation,
he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko and returned to Stavropol
as a communist youth organizer. He agilely clambered up the local
political ladder. He admired Nikita Khrushchëv’s attack on Stalin in
1956 but let nothing get in the way of his promotion. He headed the
Party City Committee from 1966 and the Regional Committee from
- Stavropol was a place where Politburo members landed en route
to their summer vacations, which enabled him to make the acquain-
tance of Brezhnev and Andropov. His agricultural achievements won
plaudits. In 1978 he was called to Moscow to head the Secretariat’s
Agricultural Department. Within a year he had become a Politburo
deputy member. His rise was meteoric.
He had many qualities that made for a contrast with his three pre-
decessors as General Secretary. He was in robust health; he talked
easily with everyone he met and he was confident about himself and
the country’s potential. Aged fifty-four, he could reasonably look for-
ward to many years in office. He was at work in his office at 9 a.m. and
usually stayed for twelve hours. He often skipped lunch. When he
finally got home, he went for a walk with Raisa. He would sit down
again to his papers before turning in to bed. His resilience was extra-
ordinary. Chernyaev thought that his stamina was the product of his
tough peasant boyhood.^14 He could think fast and be decisive; he had
an excellent memory.^15
While he was charming and friendly, he kept a barrier between
himself and most others, and people who worked with him tended to
feel they did not really know him. He kept himself apart and felt no
need for intellectual or moral guidance.^16 If there was one person who
acted as his confidante, it was Raisa. Theirs was a strong marriage and
he was solicitous towards her.^17 They talked about public affairs, and
his political confidants were convinced that she advised on the content
of his speeches.^18 Both came from southern Russia. Like Mikhail, Raisa
came from a family that had suffered under Stalin’s policy of agri-
cultural collectivization but found ways to integrate itself with the
Soviet order. When the Germans overran Ukraine and half of Euro-
pean Russia in 1941, the Stavropol region fell under occupation. In
1943, when they began to withdraw, they conducted mass executions