12. THE MOSCOW REFORM TEAM
Every upward step on the slopes of reform required a tensing of
Gorbachëv’s leg muscles, and he knew that he could not complete the
ascent without a reliable team of fellow climbers. In foreign policy no
one would be closer to him than Eduard Shevardnadze, who became
Foreign Affairs Minister. He was to take Anatoli Chernyaev and
Georgi Shakhnazarov from the Party Secretariat as aides on a wide
range of policy including foreign and security affairs. He had been
consulting Alexander Yakovlev for a couple of years and was looking
for the occasion to promote him to the Politburo – Yakovlev had un -
rivalled experience of North America. He was on the point of selecting
Lev Zaikov of the Leningrad City Party Committee as another leading
accomplice in promoting political and economic reforms that were
becoming known as perestroika (or restructuring). Though Gorbachëv
was aware that they were unlikely to agree about everything, he
needed his experience in controlling the military-industrial complex.
In any case, he would initially also have to rely upon people who had
still greater reservations about some of his aspirations for reform:
Viktor Chebrikov at the KGB, Sergei Akhromeev at the General Staff
and Sergei Sokolov at the Defence Ministry. Each of these headed
institutions of immense power. Gorbachëv knew that it would take
time to obtain compliance with his objectives, and he had reason to
think that Chebrikov, Akhromeev and Sokolov shared at least some of
his thinking. He could prod, persuade and inspire; but he knew that
he would get nowhere if he failed to lead a coalition of influential
supporters.
He was also determined to transform internal policy but his choice
of associates for this purpose was much more cautious. At the Central
Committee plenum in April 1985 he raised Yegor Ligachëv, Nikolai
Ryzhkov and Viktor Chebrikov to the Politburo. Ligachëv became
his second-in-command in the Party Secretariat; Ryzhkov assumed
general oversight of the economy and was made Prime Minister in