On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, SA wrote:
>> The thing about Gorbachev is that he came at the end of line of reform
>> leaders that the central committee was throwing up.
>
> Wha??! Which ones??!
Andropov was elected because they wanted someone to institute economic reforms. He failed. During his term he presided over bringing in 3 from Gorbachev's generation. Chernenko was a stopgap catching of breath; they knew he's die soon. They they nominated Gorbachev. If he'd been another Andropov, they would have moved to the next and inducted yet more youngsters to give them more of a base.
The problem of economic reform was a pressing problem that the central committee was consciously trying to fix. It was clear from the beginning that it would come up against political barriers and they would have to bend. Gorbachev learned from Andropov's failure. Had he failed by not going far enough with economic reforms, the next would have learned from him.
Instead he failed in the opposite direction by losing control of the process to the ethnic barons -- as he recognizes himself, proposing that throwing up a new party rather than sticking with the communist might have allowed him to keep the state intact.
If you consider unintentional consequences the mark of a Great Man, then he's your boy. Breaking up the SU was not what he was trying to do.
Michael