Boris Kagarlitsky

The View from Moscow

Boris Kagarlitsky, 20 April 1989

Surprising though it may be to the British public, Mrs Thatcher is one of the most popular Western politicians in the Soviet Union, especially among the apparatchiki. It follows that the British Prime Minister is often a central figure in discussions among people on the left of Soviet public opinion. The experience of ten years of Conservative radicalism in Britain is too important historically to be ignored. The reasons usually given, in Moscow and elsewhere, to explain Thatcher’s success – namely, political will, strong ideological motivation, capacity for hard work, skilful utilisation of the ‘Falklands factor’ – will not help us to understand the real significance of the political drama which has been played out in Britain. Will-power, consistency and ideological motivation are certainly necessary for success in politics. But are they sufficient?’

Letter

Perestroika

24 November 1988

In your issue of 24 November 1988 there appeared a review by John Barber of some books dealing with perestroika, including my own book The Thinking Reed. It is said in the review that in my writings of 1987 I never make use of the term ‘statocracy’. The explanation for this is not at all that I have no need of such a concept under the conditions of perestroika, or that I have renounced it. I borrowed...

At the close of the Fifties, the New Left put on a mass meeting in London, at which the star speaker was Isaac Deutscher and the slogan was ‘Into the Red Sixties’. At the close of the...

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Going West

John Barber, 24 November 1988

It is a measure of Gorbachev’s impact in the three and a half years since he became General Secretary that the debate over his significance among Western observers has fundamentally...

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