The major reformers of the Soviet system, Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, have very different reputations outside the former USSR. Khrushchev is often regarded as an uncouth buffoon, while Gorbachev, who died on Aug. 30, is seen as a courageous reformer who destroyed European Communism and presided over the breakup of the Soviet Union. He was credited with partnering with the United States to end the Cold War and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Westerners tend to overlook the fact that Gorbachev's aim in the late 1980s was not to dissolve the Soviet Union or abolish Communism but to...