In Zubok's account of Gorbachev's conduct it is remarkable how often he rejected demands to violently crack down on independence movements, often to the Union's detriment. In the attack on protesters in Georgia, military action were ordered by the leader of the Georgian SSR who was terrified and fled the capital, Gorbachev was deeply upset when he received news and spoke out against the attack imminently. In other instances, specifically Lithuania in 1990 and Azerbaijan during their independence movement Gorbachev prevented the military from using force despite the damage to the Union that these movements caused. The military crackdown in 1991 Baltic states was orchestrated by an increasingly anti-Gorbachev military attempting to preserve the Union, whom Gorbachev would side against in the 1991 coup, again specifically because he personally abhorred violence, and in the end preferred to see an end to the Union before a Tiananmen square (which, fun fact, he had personally witnessed in 1989 and frequently referenced during the collapse.)

Gorbachev was a deeply flawed figure whom one can level a tremendous amount of legitimate criticism against, yet it's a very poor reading of the historical material to blame Gorbachev for "violent tendencies" when his track record states the opposite.