TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/031990/0319473.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3KB | 87 lines

                                                                                BOOKS, Page 83

Creatures That Slither and Froth


By SALLY B. DONNELLY

MEMOIRS
By Andrei Gromyko
Doubleday; 414 pages; $24.95

AGAINST THE GRAIN
By Boris Yeltsin
Summit; 263 pages; $19.95


    Centuries from now, when anthropologists are examining the
Gorbachev era, they will be astounded by the abrupt changes in
the forms of political life that occurred during the punctuated
evolution of the period. Mute and spineless holdovers from
pre-glasnost days slithered into obscurity and were replaced
by frothing creatures distinguished by wide-open mouths and
fists thrust upward. Two new autobiographies, published this
month in vivid counterpoint, provide a revealing glimpse of
this great Soviet transition.

    One of the purest specimens of the spongelike species that
plunged into extinction is Andrei Gromyko, the perennial
Foreign Minister who worked with every Soviet leader from
Stalin to Gorbachev and conveniently died last year as he fell
from grace. Revealingly, his book is relentlessly unrevealing.
Of the dermatologist's nightmare that was Stalin's pockmarked
face, Gromyko writes, "I don't recall ever seeing any" scars.

    A handful of Gromyko's tales are worth the trudge. For
example, he recounts Che Guevara's story of how he became head
of the National Bank of Cuba in 1959. Fidel Castro asked the
assembled leaders of his revolution, "Tell me, friends, which
of you is an economist?" "Che paused. `I thought he had said,
"Which of you is a communist?," so straightaway I said, "I am,"
at which he said, "OK, you handle the economy."'"

    But such bright spots mainly show how good Gromyko's book
might have been had he not chosen to keep his tail between his
legs. Memoirs is too often a turgid history cum travelog
speckled with diplomatic slavishness. "Staff at the Foreign
Ministry did not discuss the purge trials," he says of the
Stalinist era. "As diplomats, we avoided the subject." As a
result, his book is destined for the dustheap of
famous-people-I-have-met books.

    In starkest contrast is the hurriedly published
autobiography of Boris Yeltsin, the charismatic populist who
seems more of a cross between Mick Jagger and Huey Long than
a veteran apparatchik. His book, as predictably frank as
Gromyko's is dour, bounces from biographical anecdotes to a
diary of his successful 1989 election campaign for the new
Soviet legislature. The former volleyball star, who despite
touches of buffoonery has become a cult hero among Soviet rebels
with a cause, struts his arrogance from the school yard to Red
Square.

    Yeltsin slams the Council of Ministers as "a disorganized,
confused gathering of dunderheads," rips into the elderly
Gromyko as "of no use to anyone" -- and even pounces on
Gorbachev because he "never acts decisively." Yeltsin also
suggests that dissidents be paid a salary to combat "our
mindless unanimity."

    Even more important than what Gromyko and Yeltsin say is the
manner in which they do (or do not) say it. Like the old Soviet
state of which he was a symbol, Gromyko is plodding and closed
and oppressive. Like the new Soviet state of which he ardently
hopes to become a symbol, Yeltsin is explosive and open and at
times verging on being out of control. Which makes Yeltsin's
book, like the new Soviet state, far more exciting than the old
model.