MIKHAIL GORBACHEV b. March 2, 1931

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

b. March 2, 1931

Privolnoye (Russia), USSR

GORBACHEV (second from left)

PRESIDING OVER THE

28th (& LAST)

CONGRESS

OF

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF

THE SOVIET UNION

1990

There he [Gorbachev] sat, bang in the center of the ruling dais. A mammoth multistory red head and shoulders of Lenin painted on gray accordion-fold drapes hovered behind him. His almost-peers, men who were comrades from the Politburo or leaders of the communist parties of the Soviet republics, spread out to his right and left on the dais. Behind them sat the supporting row of staff, and on the third of the three tiers, a daring if small array of telecommunications and computer equipment on a stray table. Gorbachev was used to the Palace of Congresses, and used to presiding in it. When he had invented the Congress of People's Deputies, the new super-parliament, it too, like the Party Congresses, was allotted these very same premises for its sessions. Mikhail Gorbachev conjured up these new gatherings, and Mikhail Gorbachev presided over them.

There he sat, lord of the realm twice over: President and General Secretary, General Secretary and President. And there, directly in front of him, at the wide podium, with his back to his President and his General Secretary, Boris Yeltsin revealed that he was jumping ship....

-- from RUSSIA REDUX