Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (26 page)

22 On Tikhonov’s ambitions, as relayed by KGB chief Chebrikov, see Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 165; on Gromyko’s ambitions, see the memoirs of Chebrikov’s successor, Kriuchkov,
Lichnoe delo
, i. 253. Since the KGB provided security for all politburo members and for the entire communications network, Chebrikov was in a position to know the movements and no doubt the intentions of every major player.

23
Izvestiia
, 2 Aug. 1984. Grishin writes in his memoirs, ‘I think that in the KGB they kept a dossier on everyone of us, the members and candidate members of the politburo’ (Viktor Grishin,
Ot Khrushcheva do Gorbacheva: Politicheskie portrety
piati gensekov i A. N. Kosygina
(Moscow, 1996), 59).

24 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 164–6. See also Aleksandr Iakovlev,
OMUT pamiati
(Moscow, 2000), 442–3.

203

notes

3. The drama of reform
1 Vladimir Medvedev,
Chelovek za spinoi
(Moscow, 1994), 208.

2 Agriculture was an even bigger conundrum. Subsidies for farming under Brezhnev totalled 19 billion roubles in 1977, or 70 roubles for every person in the country, but the Soviet Union still became dependent on millions of tons of grain imports from Canada and the US. Much of the harvest was left ungathered in the fields, and, even when collected, it often rotted in warehouses because of an extremely poor distribution network. Though a perpetual shambles, agriculture played a very prominent role in party careers. Peter Rutland,
The Politics of Economic Stagnation in
the Soviet Union: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic
Management
(New York, 1993).

3 Boris Z. Rumer,
Soviet Steel: The Challenge of Industrial
Modernization in the USSR
(Ithaca, NY, 1989).

4 Michael Ellman and Vladimir Kontorovich (eds.),
The
Destruction of the Soviet Economic System: An Insiders’ History
(Armonk, NY, 1998).

5 Precisely the same had transpired in Eastern Europe and, before that, in Latin America. During perestroika, it was instructive to have read a universal cautionary tale on the operation and effects of foreign ‘aid’: Graham Hancock,
Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the
International Aid Business
(New York, 1989). On the chasm between ‘aid’ and direct foreign investment, see Brian Murray, ‘Dollars and Sense: Foreign Investment in Russia and China’,
Problems of Post-Communism
, 47/4 (2000), 24–33.

6 Ron McKay (ed.),
Letters to Gorbachev: Life in Russia through
the Postbag of
Argumenty i fakty (London, 1991), 7–8, 161

204

notes

(the letters were not written to Gorbachev). In the autumn of 1989, after the newspaper had published an unscientific ‘poll’ showing Gorbachev not to be the most popular politician in the country, he publicly ordered the editor, Vladislav Starkov, to resign; the country, Gorbachev exploded, was ‘knee deep in gasoline’ and journalists were throwing around matches. Starkov, a party member, defied the general secretary, and the matter was dropped.

7 Korotich and Cathy Porter,
The New Soviet Journalism: The
Best of the Soviet Weekly Ogonyok
(Boston, 1990). Exagger-ation of American economic and military capabilities had been characteristic of Soviet intelligence circles prior to 1985. The CIA (and especially the Pentagon) returned the ‘favour’, in spades.

8 Yegor Gaidar,
Days of Defeat and Victory
(Seattle, 1999), 31.

9 Iurii Shchekhochikhin,
Allo, my Vas slyshim: Iz khroniki
nashego vremeni
(Moscow, 1987).

10 Ellen Mickiewicz,
Changing Channels: Television and the
Struggle for Power in Russia
(New York, 1997), 69.

11 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 236.

12
Sovetskaia Rossiia
, 13 Mar. 1988, translated in J. L. Black (ed.),
USSR Documents Annual 1988
(Gulf Breeze, FL, 1989), 275–81 (at 279).

13 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 252–3; Ligachev,
Inside
, 310. See also Vadim Medvedev,
V komande Gorbacheva: Vzgliad iznutri
(Moscow, 1994), 67–9; Anatolii Cherniaev,
Shest’ let s Gor-bachevym
(Moscow, 1993), 205–8; and Boldin,
Ten Years
, 168, who writes that Gorbachev at first viewed the Andreeva text as unexceptional. For a revealing look inside the CC

apparat, which blames
it
for the Soviet collapse, see Leon Onikov,
KPSS: Anatomiia raspada
(Moscow, 1996).

205

notes

14 Bill Keller, ‘Conference Lifts Veil on Personalities and Intrigues’,
New York Times
, 3 July 1988.

15 Beria also wanted to relinquish the millstone of East Germany, in exchange for a neutral, unified Germany. ‘ “Novyi kurs” L.P. Berii’,
Istoricheskii arkhiv
, 4 (1996), 132–63. See also Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., ‘National Cadres as a Force in the Soviet System: The Evidence of Beria’s Career, 1949–1953’, in Jeremy Azrael (ed.),
Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices
(New York, 1978), 144–86; and Mark Kramer, ‘Declassified Materials from CPSU Central Committee Plenums: Sources, Context, Highlights’,
Cahiers du
Monde Russe
, 40/1–2 (1999), 271–306.

16 For Gorbachev as tactician, see Vitaly Tretyakov, ‘Gorbachev’s Enigma’,
Moscow News
, 48 (1989).

17 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 293.

18 Akhromeev and Kornienko,
Glazami
, 312.

19 Ligachev,
Inside
, pp. xxxviii, 44. Ignorance was no excuse, he noted, since ‘the politburo had virtually exhaustive information on all situations of conflict—political, economic, financial, interethnic’ (p. 129). Nikolai Ryzhkov, Gorbachev’s long-serving prime minister (1985–90), also condemned the ‘betrayals’ of perestroika. Ryzhkov,
Perestroika: Istoriia predatel’stv
(Moscow, 1992).

20 Boldin, acknowledging Yakovlev’s importance, writes that the latter’s relations with Gorbachev ‘were not always smooth. Gorbachev always found ways of cramping Yakovlev’s capacity for initiative’ (Boldin,
Ten Years
, 160).

Yakovlev writes that he and Gorbachev ‘spoke almost everyday and rather frankly’. Iakovlev,
OMUT
, 444.

21 Leonid Shebarshin, chief of Soviet espionage who was sent to the three Baltic republics in the first half of 1990, found 206

notes

‘a huge staff of local KGB that did not know what they were working for, which issues they were to tackle, what information to collect and to whom they should report it’ (Shebarshin,
Ruka Moskvy: Zapiski nachal’nika sovetskoi razvedki
(Moscow, 1992), 234).

22 He also apologized publicly for the civilian deaths, and launched an investigation that toyed with scapegoating the military, as had happened over the Georgian events of April 1989. Aleksandr Lebed’,
Za derzhavu obidno . .
. (Moscow, 1995), 298–304.

4. Waiting for the end of the world
1 Leonov,
Likholet’e
, 192–212; Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet Non-Invasion of Poland in 1980/81 and the End of the Cold War’, Cold War International History Project, working paper no. 23 (1998).

2 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 464–5. Ligachev concurred on the undesirability of using force to preserve Communism in Eastern Europe. David Remnick,
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days
of the Soviet Empire
(New York, 1993), 234. See also Jacques Lévesque,
The Enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of
Eastern Europe
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1997).

3 Not only did Shevardnadze have no diplomatic training, but he had never even held a post in Moscow. Gorbachev’s foreign ministry translator recalled the appointment of Shevardnadze as ‘a real shocker’ (Palazchenko,
My Years
, 30). Shevardnadze confessed that, ‘even for the most kindly disposed, I was an outsider and a dilettante’ (Shevardnadze,
The Future Belongs to Freedom
(New York, 1991), 42).

On Shevardnadze’s straightforwardness, see Anatoly Dobrynin,
In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to Six Cold War
207

notes

Presidents
(New York, 1995), 575–6. Attitudes toward Shevardnadze in the US became extremely complimentary.

4 Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice,
Germany United and
Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft
(Cambridge, MA, 1995), 324–42.

5 Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 516. In 1987 he had underscored the existence of two German states, adding, ‘what there will be in a hundred years time is for history to decide’ (Mikhail Gorbachev,
Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the
World
(New York, 1987), 200).

6 Georgii Shakhnazarov,
Tsena svobody: Reformatsii Gorbacheva
glazami ego pomoshchnika
(Moscow, 1994).

7 Angus Roxburgh,
The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle
for Power in the Kremlin
(London, 1991), 202.

8 Viktor Alksnis,
Sovetskaia Rossiia
, 21 Nov. 1990, as cited in Dmitrii Mikheyev,
The Rise and Fall of Gorbachev
(Indianapo-lis, IN, 1992), 113.

9 Leon Aron,
Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life
(New York, 2000), 86. Although Yeltsin spent much of his two presidential terms in hospital or gloomy self-isolation, Aron compares him to Abraham Lincoln and Charles de Gaulle.

10 Boris Yeltsin,
Against the Grain: An Autobiography
(New York, 1990), 85–9.

11 Aleksandr Korzhakov,
Boris Yeltsin: Ot rassveta do zakata
(Moscow, 1997), 73–4. There is reason to credit Gorbachev’s assertion that Yeltsin previously attempted suicide with a pair of scissors, just prior to the October 1987 party meeting that removed him as chief of the Moscow city party organization. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 246. See also Andrei Karaulov,
Plokhoi nachal’nik: Grustnaia kniga
(Moscow, 1996), 105; Aleksandr Kapto,
Na perekrestakh zhizhni: Politi-208

notes

cheskie memuary
(Moscow, 1996), 186. Gaidar is far more delicate about Yeltsin’s depressions. Gaidar,
Days of Defeat
, 48.

12 Gorbachev, when he travelled the country, was held responsible for every aspect of daily life: people begged him for warm boots, fresh vegetables, school notebooks, an apartment, or a new kindergarten; everywhere it was something different, everywhere it was the same. See Medvedev,
Za spinoi cheloveka
, 206–22. When Yeltsin took to the road, he promised to deliver everything the people had expected of Gorbachev. Medvedev also notes that Raisa Gorbacheva would be seen on Soviet television during foreign trips changing outfits up to five times in a single day by people who could not find proper coats or shoes for their children or themselves. Yeltsin’s wife, Naina, was rarely seen.

13 According to his press secretary, Gorbachev was ready to begin the signing with whichever republic agreed, as few as two. Andrei Grachev,
Kremlevskaia khronika
(Moscow, 1994), 176.

14 Boris Yelstin,
The Struggle for Russia
(New York, 1994), 38–9; Valentin Stepankov and Evgenii Lisov,
Kremlevskii zagovor
(Perm, 1993), 195; Kriuchkov,
Lichnoe delo
, ii. 132.

15 Kriuchkov,
Lichnoe delo
, i. 331–3. For a devastating portrait of the KGB chief, see Kalugin,
The First Directorate
(New York, 1994), 241–5. Nikolai Leonov, who did not suffer the ambitious Kalugin’s disappointment at losing the post of KGB chief to Kriuchkov, paints a nuanced, but still damn-ing portrait of the latter. Leonov,
Likholet’e
, 126–7, 235–7, 303–6. See also Shebarshin,
Ruka Moskvy
, 271, and Iakovlev,
Omut
, 237.

16 Another plotter, Valery Boldin, Gorbachev’s chief of staff, 209

notes

who preferred not to sign the Emergency Committee documents, re-entered the hospital during the putsch with a liver ailment. Stepankov and Lisov,
Kremlevskii zagovor
, 56–62, 85–101.

17 The Ukrainian leadership took no measures to assist Gorbachev, who was held on their territory (Crimea). Stuart Loory and Ann Imse,
Seven Days that Shook the World
(Atlanta, GA, 1991), 62–8.

18
Komsomol’skaia Pravda
, 24 Aug. 1991; Evgenii Shaposh-nikov,
Vybor
, 2nd edn. (Moscow, 1995), 39; Lebed’,
Za
derzhavu obidno
, 383–411; Yeltsin,
Struggle
, 92–3; Korzhakov,
Boris Yeltsin
, 93–5.

19 Gaidar,
Days of Defeat
, 62; Loory and Imse,
Seven Days
, 108.

20 Yevgenia Albats,
The State within a State: The KGB and its Hold
on Russia—Past, Present, and Future
(New York, 1994), 191.

21 Leonov,
Likholet’e
, 383, 386. See also Shebarshin,
Ruka
Moskvy
, 281; and Boldin,
Ten Years
, 30. Reflecting on the collapse, Leonov presented a constellation of causes but concluded that the ‘one overarching factor’ was ‘lying.

Lies struck at all aspects of our existence, becoming a fatal disease in our blood, destroying our soul’ (p. 390).

22 Stepankov and Lisov,
Kremlevskii zagovor
, 209. Alexander Yakovlev recalled that Gorbachev dismissed his and others’

warnings of a plot, reasoning that these men ‘lacked the courage to stage a coup’ (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
Daily Report
, 22 Aug. 1991, 3).

23
Argumenty i fakty
, 38 (1991);
Literaturnaia gazeta
, 28 Aug.

1991.

24 Stepankov and Lisov,
Kremlevskii zagovor
, 102. Later, President Yeltsin would use the site of the plot (a new, well-equipped KGB recreational complex on Academician 210

notes

Varga Street in south-west Moscow) to hold friendly meetings with the press. Viacheslav Kostikov,
Roman s prezidentom:
Zapiski press-sekretaria
(Moscow, 1997), 78.

25 Yeltsin,
Struggle
, 70. On Yazov, see Lt. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, ‘Marshall Yazov: Avgust 1991-go’,
Krasnaia zvezda
, 21, 22, 25