It isn't every day that one of the creators of a political thriller gets to ask its real-life protagonist to evaluate the novel's plot.
But that happened when the late Billy Wireman, president of Queens University in Charlotte, N.C., handed the last Soviet Union leader a copy of "The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev." The 1990 novel was written by journalist Frye Gaillard, based on a Wireman idea.
The plot: There were spiritual motivations behind "glasnost" and "perestroika," Gorbachev's risky ideas to restructure Soviet life. But furious KGB insiders -- including a would-be assassin -- managed to steal Gorbachev's diary, in which he confessed his Christian faith.
Wireman wrote down Gorbachev's response after hearing the book's premise: "You must have been reading my real diary."
This faith question never vanished, no matter how often Gorbachev reaffirmed his atheism, while also stressing his respect for the beliefs of his Communist father and devout Russian Orthodox mother. His maternal grandparents hid holy icons behind their home's token Vladimir Lenin portraits.
Gorbachev died on August 30 at age 91 and his funeral was held in the Pillar Hall of Russia's House of the Unions, after President Vladimir Putin denied him a state funeral. He was buried next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999 of cancer, in the cemetery of Moscow's Novodevichy Convent.
"Regardless of the geo-political realities of that era, there was something going on inside Gorbachev," said Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and former Southern editor of The Charlotte Observer. He is the author of 30-plus books, including "A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s," which won the 2019 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Prize.
"Why did he do it? That's the question that won't go away," Gaillard added. "That's what has fascinated people for decades and it still does. We may never know now that he's gone. … But all that speculation about his beliefs is at the heart of the book."
Gaillard traveled to the Soviet Union before writing the novel and filled many notebooks with information and images from Soviet and American insiders who, in private, were asking similar questions about Gorbachev. Russian Orthodox leaders believed his mother's faith was crucial. Probing those roots in southern Russia, Gaillard found that people who had long known the extended Gorbachev family held similar beliefs.
In a pivotal scene -- the novel was recently republished -- a stunned investigator discovers Gorbachev's private diary and photographs its scandalous contents.
Gaillard has the Soviet leader write: "Ours is a country with a Christian heart -- that realization must serve as a cornerstone of reform. … Do I still believe in Lenin and Marx? The former, maybe; the latter, no. But a new kind of certainty is emerging. I am beginning to understand the old Russian saying, 'What good is a road that doesn't lead to a church?' "
Later, Gorbachev's critics asked why he wanted to separate atheism and the doctrines of socialist revolution. "For a millennium," he replies, "Russian mothers have breathed certain values into their sons -- that God, in fact, created the world, and that we must see his image in every human being. And yes, comrade, I have come to realize that I do believe it."
The real Gorbachev, in a 1989 Vatican summit with Pope John Paul II, thanked the pope for his prayers and explained that he realized politics is not enough.
"We are undergoing major changes in the spiritual sphere. … Considering the events of the past years I see that democratic measures alone are not sufficient," said Gorbachev. "We also need ethics. Democracy can bring evil as well as good. It is what it is. It is very important to us to establish a moral society with such eternal universal human truths as goodness, charity and mutual help. In light of the changes taking place, we believe that it is necessary to respect the internal world of our religious citizens."
The logical assumption, said Gaillard, is the Gorbachev -- as a "political calculation" or for "heartfelt reasons" -- had concluded that Mother Russia had a soul.
"This man was smart, and he knew Russian history," he said. When he challenged the foundations of Soviet power, "he had to be thinking about the role of Russian Orthodox faith in that culture. But did he also have personal reasons for believing that?
Editor’s note: For those who are interested, here is my pre-Internet 1/23/1991 column about this book, when it was first published. This Scripps Howard News Service column was , of course, written shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, which I covered in a series of columns linked to my two-week visit to Moscow, starting 10 days after the coup. For those columns, CLICK HERE.
The Soviet guide paused as she led a pack of tourists through the glory of Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow.
This facility was built in the 15th century, she explained, about the same time as the Kremlin. Historically, this was the family church of the czars. As is the case with many classic Russian churches, it now is used as a museum.
"With glasnost," the guide added, "many people think it would be great if these were practicing churches once again."
American journalist Frye Gaillard couldn't believe his ears. Here was a Soviet government employee advocating the resumption of sacred rites inside the Kremlin, a temple for atheism.
Gaillard recording the comment in the volumes of notes he took while researching his new novel, "The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev." The tour guide's remark became one of many real-life anecdotes in a book that blurs the line between fact and fiction.
Mixing journalism and fiction is nothing new. What makes Gaillard's novel daring, to say the least, is that he probes the soul of a modern nation by invading the mind of its most public politician. The novel's loaded question: Is the leader of the Soviet Union a "closet Christian"?
"I don't think I knew enough to answer that question, as a reporter," said the 44-year-old Gaillard, in an interview from his North Carolina home. "As a novelist, I can take what is a leap of faith. … Gorbachev has been quoted as saying that his wife is the atheist in their family. That does kind of imply that someone in their family isn't an atheist, doesn't it?"
Gaillard said he has discovered that many Soviet and American officials are, in private, asking similar questions about Gorbachev.
Some Reagan administration officials clearly believed that Gorbachev had, on occasion, hinted that he was a believer, said Gaillard. A few Russian Orthodox leaders were blunter. Several told Gaillard that Gorbachev is at least sympathetic to the views of his devout Russian Orthodox mother. He clearly believes that she and other Soviet Christians deserve respect. Gorbachev was baptized as a child, noted the Orthodox leaders.
And it's possible to collect a few public quotations in which Gorbachev refers to "God" and "Jesus Christ," rare words from a Soviet leader. Once example came in Armenia, when he denounced his political enemies by saying: "May God judge them. It is not for them to decide the destiny of this land."
Another emotional image was made it into print. Gorbachev's grandparents were reported to have hidden their holy icons behind portraits of Vladimir Lenin.
Gaillard weaves a few facts into a private tale -- set in 1992 -- that travels from the United States to Moscow and then back. Figures such as Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr., find their way into the action.
In the book's final pages, Gorbachev goes public with his faith, racing to escape an assassin who is acting in concert with angry members of the KGB. Earlier, the Soviet leader had recorded his private thoughts in a diary.
"Ours is a country with a Christian heart," Gaillard has Gorbachev write, in one entry. "Do I still believe in Lenin and Marx? The former, maybe; the latter, no. But a new kind of certainty is emerging. I am beginning to understand the old Russian saying, 'What good is a road that doesn't lead to a church?"
Gaillard knows that this is wild speculation. "For one thing, Gorbachev has never said anything that, once and for all, would settle this issue. He's had many opportunities to do so," the reporter noted.
And now, a crisis in the Baltic states may prove that the Soviet leader is more than willing to crush dissent -- even religious dissent -- in order to keep his political power.
"This man is the product of a particular political system," Gaillard admitted. "The best we can say is that he's sending mixed signals, at the moment. … But in a way, that's another sign of the remarkable changes he has unleashed in the Soviet Union. It's amazing that Gorbachev is sending MIXED signals on the issue of his own religious faith."