Even by his standards, it was an extraordinary week for the man in the spare, spacious office on the third floor of the Council of Ministers building inside the Kremlin. Any one of the setbacks that befell him between Monday and Friday would have been a severe test of his ingenuity and stamina. His attempt to revive a stagnant economy seemed only to be provoking fresh resistance from populace and parliament alike. Just as the war of nerves between the Kremlin and secessionists in Lithuania entered a new and delicate phase, Mikhail Gorbachev suddenly faced a challenge to his power much...
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