 Zhores Medvedev thought him a talented orator, in 1986 stating that "Gorbachev is probably the best speaker there has been in the top Party echelons" since Leon Trotsky.Medvedev also considered Gorbachev "a charismatic leader", something Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko had not been.Doder and Branson called him "a charmer capable of intellectually seducing doubters, always trying to co-opt them, or at least blunt the edge of their criticism".