"I believe Gorbachev actually confessed later to the Turkish media that it had always been his secret plan to destroy communism."

Simply untrue. Utter nonsense. You must know that?

All the evidence showed Gorbachev was a committed Communist all the way up to becoming Gen Sec. He genuinely tried to renovate and renew Soviet Socialism - which despite its very many achievements and including in relation to the West - had very many significant and accumulating problems.

He was committed to a reformed and renewed Soviet socialism for most if not all his term in office. Towards the end, I wouldn't be that surprised if he came to the view that the Soviet model was not saveable.

His writing and speeches after the end of the Soviet Union i.e. when that model no longer existed, appears to be in favour of a social democratic model as preferable to unrestrained free market capitalism.

One of the biggest weaknesses of Perestroika as Andrew Murray points out is that it was never clear what the new model of Soviet socialism was intended to be. If you (or Soviet society) are unclear what the aim and objectives are, it is hard to implement changes in a coordinated and coherent manner.

I suspect between Gorbachev and his various advisers and wider influencers, there were multiple options for a renewed model of socialism - but not necessarily consistent with each other.

The CPSU never formally debated what the new model should look like, let alone agreed it.

I agree with a lot of what Kate Clark said in the Star (not yet on the website) - she was the paper's Moscow Correspondent from 1985. Especially her arguments that changes should have been paced over a longer time frame and better planned. I disagree with her implication that political reform should have been delayed pending economic reform - the two go hand in hand - but I agree overall the programme should have been more medium term.

I suspect that opposition especially to the political changes within the CPSU meant that Gorbachev felt his position (and that of the whole reform programme) were under constant threat, hence the need to move at great speed, often in haste and making significant errors.

At the same time, the reforms could only deliver sustained economic benefits once in place, hence another major reason for speed.

You could argue from the above that the contradictions between accumulated negative phenomena from the "period of stagnation", the need for a careful phased programme of reform and change and the need to urgent results, meant Soviet socialism was irreformable. I don't hold that view, I think with better leadership and better thought out policies and strategies, a new model of socialism could have been successfully implemented.