Gorbachev Meets Up with History

I can think of at least two ways to approach history. There is the historian’s way, usually celebrated as realism, and…the “unhistorical” way, claiming for itself, in the name of an undogmatic moralism, nothing less than truth.

The historian’s way prompts one to say that Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies in the Soviet Union could set into motion a historical process not only significant in its own right but also raising a hope for unforeseen positive cons...