Mikhail Gorbachev Kiev, Ukraine. In 2006, he expressed his continued belief in Lenin's ideas: "I trusted him then and I still do". He claimed that "the essence of Lenin" was a desire to develop "the living creative activity of the masses". Taubman believed that Gorbachev identified with Lenin on a psychological level. Taubman described Gorbachev as "a true believer—not in the Soviet system as it functioned (or didn't) in 1985 but in its potential to live up to what he deemed its original ideals." As Soviet leader, Gorbachev believed in incremental reform rather than a radical transformation; he later referred to this
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt case a state of emergency was declared in the USSR. Later, Kryuchkov brought Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Premier Valentin Pavlov, Vice-President Gennady Yanayev, Soviet Defense Council deputy chief Oleg Baklanov, Gorbachev secretariat head , and CPSU Central Committee Secretary Oleg Shenin into the conspiracy. The members of the GKChP hoped that Gorbachev could be persuaded to declare the state of emergency and to "restore order". On 23 July 1991, a number of party functionaries and literati published in the hardline newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossiya" as a prime factor to an anti-Perestroika manifesto entitled A Word