These memoirs by the second most powerful Communist leader in the Soviet Union during the dramatic years of the Gorbachev era provide a unique view of the profound changes that have shaken that country. They are the first authentic political memoirs to come from high places in all of Soviet history. Yegor Ligachev, at first an ally of Mikhail Gorbachev in reforming the Communist Party, led the split in the leadership when reform turned to abolition, eventually losing the struggle for power that followed. Ligachev's memoirs give an astonishingly candid and intimate account of Gorbachev's rise to power and his ascent, with Ligachev's crucial help, to the position of general secretary in 1985. Together they launched perestroika, removing the shackles of seventy years of Communist rule as they ushered in a new era of freedom. But then a serious rift began between Ligachev's allies, the party stalwarts, and those fighting for more radical change.

How Gorbachev maneuvered between the two groups until he eventually lost his footing in the shifting sands of fast-moving events is the subject of this extraordinary memoir. Ligachev reveals information, insights, and details never before disclosed with such candor from the inner circles of Soviet power. From the famous Kremlin office No. 2, where he sat in the chair once occupied by Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev, Ligachev had a front-row view of enormously important events, and he tells about them with passion and unabashed partisanship: how Gorbachev came to power, what happened inside Gorbachev's leadership, why and how it fell apart. Along the way he provides revealing glimpses of Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev, Boris Yeltsin, Eduard Shevardnadze, Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, and many other Soviet leaders. Here is a fascinating and invaluable account of a historical drama that has changed the world.

It is also a first, large step toward the real writing of Soviet political history, in which it is destined to become a major contribution.