9
SAVING THE EMPIRE
ON THE AFTERNOON OF AUGUST 28, one week after Russian vice president Aleksandr Rutskoi flew to the Crimea to save the president of the Soviet Union, he headed south yet again, this time to save the Soviet Union itself. Promoted by Gorbachev from colonel to major general after the success of his first mission, Rutskoi was on his way to Kyiv to deal with a crisis that had erupted in Russo-Ukrainian relations after Ukraine’s declaration of independence. The plan was to keep Ukraine within the Union by raising the prospect of partitioning its territory if Ukraine insisted on independence.
Reporting on this new mission of Rutskoi and his colleagues, a correspondent for the pro-Yeltsin Nezavisimaia gazeta wrote, “Today they have the opportunity to inform the Ukrainian leadership of Yeltsin’s position that, given Ukraine’s exit from membership in ‘a certain USSR,’ the article of the bilateral agreement on borders becomes invalid.” Translated into plain language, this meant that Russia was denouncing its existing treaty with Ukraine, its neighbor, and threatening Ukraine with partition of its territory. “It is expected,” continued the newspaper account, “that independence will be declared today at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Crimea.” The independence of the Crimea, an autonomous republic within Ukraine, could set off a process of partition that might lead to a violent confrontation between the two largest Soviet republics.1
The plane carrying Rutskoi to Kyiv took off from Vnukovo airport, on the outskirts of Moscow. The vice president was accompanied by Yeltsin’s close adviser Sergei Stankevich, who had helped remove the Felix Dzerzhinsky monument from downtown Moscow a few days earlier. But the “Russians” were not the only members of the delegation sent from Moscow to reason with the rebellious Ukrainian deputies. They were joined by “Soviets”—members of the USSR Supreme Soviet or parliament, which had begun its deliberations in Moscow a few days earlier. A few hours before the plane carrying Rutskoi and Stankevich took off, a session of the Supreme Soviet devoted to an investigation of the plotters’ activities had been abruptly called upon to deal with an emergency. The deputies temporarily put aside their differences to select representatives for the Russo-Ukrainian negotiations and send them to Kyiv. “This was something of a sign of trouble, one of the last warnings to the Union parliament, which was, objectively speaking, one of the few remaining pillars of the disintegrating Union,” wrote Izvestiia the next day.
The Soviet parliamentary delegation included Yeltsin’s close ally Anatolii Sobchak, the mayor of Leningrad and a strong believer in the Union. According to the same Izvestiia article, that day Sobchak had called on the deputies “to concentrate on the main thing: not to allow the spontaneous disintegration of structures of Soviet power and to put an end to unproductive discussions of questions not pertaining to the danger of the country’s collapse.” Sobchak was accompanied by a member of the Soviet parliament representing Russia and two elected from Ukraine. They rushed from the Kremlin to the airport, hoping to catch the departing plane of the Russian vice president. No one could have imagined such a situation only a few days earlier. Russia and Ukraine, whose leaders had forged a strong alliance before the coup and managed to preserve it during the darkest days of August, were now quarreling over their borders. And conversely, Russian and all-Union politicians previously divided by seemingly unbridgeable differences were now working together to save the Union. Moreover, the leading role in that attempt belonged to Yeltsin, not to Gorbachev. In fact, Gorbachev was not in the picture at all.2
THE SHIFT IN YELTSIN’S POSITION from undermining Gorbachev and the Union center to collaborating with the former and supporting the latter was a direct outcome of his victory in the campaign he had waged against Gorbachev ever since the Soviet president’s return from the Crimea. On August 22, when Gorbachev tried to tell the Russian deputies that Russia would not be Russia if it did not try to hold the republics together, he was booed and verbally insulted. By August 28, when the joint Russian-Soviet delegation departed for Kyiv, Yeltsin’s victory seemed all but complete: he had replaced Gorbachev as the most powerful figure not only in Russia but also in the Union itself. Keeping it together suddenly became one of his main concerns. Trying to get more concessions from the center while Gorbachev was calling the shots in the Kremlin was one thing; conceding the independence of Union republics in the wake of the implosion of the center was quite another. Neither Yeltsin nor his advisers were ready for that, either psychologically or politically. They were prepared to let the Baltics go and hoped that the Central Asian republics would stop demanding subsidies from the center, but no one in Yeltsin’s entourage had ever imagined releasing Slavic Ukraine—a nightmare scenario.3
The declaration of Ukrainian independence produced a shock wave throughout the Soviet Union, dramatically altering the political landscape. Ukraine, which had declared its sovereignty in the summer of 1990 only in the wake of Yeltsin’s Russia, now took the lead in the drive for independence among those republics whose leaders still remained loyal to the Union. The Baltic republics, Armenia, and Georgia, which declared independence before Ukraine, were all controlled by forces opposed to the old communist regime. Kravchuk’s Ukraine became the first country with a communist-dominated legislature to make such a declaration, clearing the way for other republics run by the communist or former communist nomenklatura. On August 25, the day after Ukraine’s parliament voted for independence, a similar declaration was made by Belarus; on August 26 came one by Ukraine’s other neighbor, Moldova. Faraway Azerbaijan would proclaim its independence on August 30. It would be followed the next day by Kyrgyzstan and a day later by Uzbekistan. Not only Gorbachev but also Yeltsin looked on in horror and astonishment as one republic after another declared its independence.4
None of the republics that declared independence after August 24 adopted a Ukrainian-style provision for a referendum to ratify the declaration, but then, none of them had any immediate intention of leaving the Union. What, then, were the practical consequences of the declarations? For the time being, the major difference between sovereignty and independence was that if sovereignty gave republican laws priority over all-Union ones, independence made it possible to disregard all-Union laws entirely. Only republican laws were now valid. The formal independence of the republics also meant the emergence of more powerful republican leaders.5
August 24 marked a turning point, not only because of the declaration of Ukrainian independence but also because, on the same day, the three Baltic republics, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, received recognition of their independence from Yeltsin himself. The Russian president signed three letters that same day recognizing the independence of Russia’s western neighbors without attaching any conditions or questioning the newly independent states’ Soviet-era borders. His action left hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians, most of whom had moved to the region after World War II, beyond the borders of Russia and the Union. Their concerns did not seem to be those of Yeltsin’s government.
The new, democratic Russia refused to use force, economic pressure, or legal and diplomatic tricks to keep the Baltic republics in the Soviet Union. Territorial issues and minority rights did not seem to be significant issues at the time. In previous years, many members of Russian communities had opposed independence for the republics they called home. They joined the Moscow-sponsored and communist-run Interfronts, which welcomed Moscow’s crackdown on Baltic independence in early 1991. Their leaders, who had openly supported the coup in Moscow, now feared revenge on the part of local majorities. Yeltsin’s Russian government largely ignored their worries. Its allies were national democrats in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, not Russian minorities who had sided with the Kremlin conservatives.6
Many in the non-Russian republics of the Union wondered whether the Baltic example set a precedent for Russia’s dealings with other republics. It soon became apparent that it did not. The Baltics held a special place in the hearts and minds of Yeltsin’s democrats, and Russian diplomatic rec
ognition did not extend to all the Soviet republics that had declared their independence before or during the coup. Georgia, which had declared independence on April 9, 1991, much earlier than Estonia or Latvia, was not granted recognition. It was not clear whether Ukraine’s declaration of independence would place it in the same camp as the Baltics or Georgia. Given that Yeltsin’s reaction to Kravchuk’s phone call on the eve of the independence vote in parliament was much calmer than Gorbachev’s, there was some hope that Ukraine’s position would be treated with respect and understanding in Russia. As it turned out, there was only a weekend pause. Kravchuk called Yeltsin with the news on Saturday, which meant that Russian reaction would not come until Monday, August 26, when the session of the Soviet parliament promised by the plotters on the first day of the coup finally convened in Moscow.
At the opening session a deputy from Ukraine, Yurii Shcherbak, read a Russian translation of the declaration of Ukrainian independence. Later he considered that moment the greatest in his life, but at the time he was almost frightened of his own words. Absolute silence suddenly fell on the normally busy chamber. It seemed to him that people’s faces went pale. Gorbachev, red faced, rose and left the hall. Gorbachev’s loyal adviser Vadim Medvedev recorded in his diary that on that day representatives from the republics spoke “with one voice of independence, the needlessness of the center, and the liquidation of Union structures.”
Proponents of the Union sounded the alarm. A neighbor of Shcherbak’s in the chamber, Anatolii Sobchak, went to the podium to state that “under the cover of this talk about national independence they are trying to retain these communist structures, but with a new face.” He declared that what he was witnessing was insane, as the USSR was a nuclear power and its partition might lead to nuclear anarchy. Sergei Stankevich, another member of the delegation and deputy mayor of Moscow, expressed the hope that his Ukrainian friends would not do damage, presumably to the cause of democracy. A Russian moral authority, academician Dmitrii Likhachev, declared that the uncontrolled collapse of the Union could lead to border wars.7
Many in Yeltsin’s camp treated Ukrainian independence not as an act aimed at the weakened center but as a stab in the back of democratic Russia, which had emerged victorious in the battle with the communist Goliath. Besides, the sudden shift of political power in Moscow created a situation unimaginable only a few days earlier. So far the Russian Federation had been in the forefront of rebellion against the center, working hand in hand with the Baltics and adopting laws on its sovereignty ahead of Ukraine, Belarus, and most other Soviet republics. Russia had now all but taken over the center and was faced with the unexpected task of what to do with the Union.
As Sobchak, Stankevich, and Likhachev joined forces in an attempt to save the Union in the Soviet parliament, Boris Yeltsin ordered his press secretary, the forty-two-year-old economist-turned-journalist Pavel Voshchanov, to prepare a statement to the effect that “if any republic breaks off Union relations with Russia, then Russia has the right to raise the question of territorial claims.” This was a complete reversal of the policy adopted only two days earlier vis-à-vis Baltic independence. Voshchanov remembered later that when it came to relations with the non-Russian republics, Yeltsin was eager “to put Gorbachev to shame,” as the latter had failed to keep those republics in line. To his chagrin, the Russian president soon found himself in the same situation as Gorbachev. “The Russian president was wounded,” remembered Voshchanov. “And at that point the idea was born to give the negotiating partners a ‘hint’ that ‘Yeltsin, as you will see, is no Gorbachev.’” The declaration of Ukrainian independence and the process that it unleashed made the task especially urgent.8
Pavel Voshchanov did as he was told. After the draft of the presidential statement was ready, he read it to Yeltsin over the phone. The statement released to the press read as follows: “The Russian Federation casts no doubt on the constitutional right of every state and people to self-determination. There exists, however, the problem of borders, the nonsettlement of which is possible and admissible only on condition of allied relations secured by an appropriate treaty. In the event of their termination, the RSFSR reserves the right to raise the question of the revision of boundaries.” The statement did not name the republics with which Russia might have territorial disputes, but when Voshchanov was asked during the press conference which countries Yeltsin had in mind, he responded by naming Ukraine and Kazakhstan. He recalled later that the contested areas included territories that had earlier belonged to Russia: the Crimea and the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Abkhazia in Georgia, and northern territories of Kazakhstan.9
In fact, the Crimea was the only region transferred from Russia in the 1950s. The transfer took place in 1954, when, in commemoration of the tercentenary of the extension of Moscow’s protectorate over Cossack Ukraine, the Crimea was reassigned by Moscow to Ukraine. By that time two hundred thousand of the peninsula’s indigenous Crimean Tatars had been exiled to Central Asia. Most of the remaining inhabitants were ethnic Russians, but the peninsula was geographically and economically tied to Ukraine. The transfer made sense from the viewpoint of the central planners in Moscow, and the authorities in Russia and Ukraine went along. The Crimea was, however, the exception on Voshchanov’s list of contested territories: the others had never belonged to the Russian Federation. That applied to the Donets Basin (Donbas) of eastern Ukraine, which had been part of the independent from Russia Ukrainian state and then of the Union republic, and to Abkhazia, which in Soviet times had been either formally independent or an autonomous part of Georgia. No territory was formally transferred from the Russian Federation to Kazakhstan, which became an autonomous republic in the 1920s and, in the next decade, a Union republic of the USSR.10
The crisis in Russo-Ukrainian relations produced an opening for the embattled Gorbachev. Speaking at a session of the Soviet parliament that day, he told the deputies that he would do everything in his power to keep the Union together. “There can be no territorial problems within the Union,” declared Gorbachev. “But their emergence cannot be ruled out when republics leave the Union.” Voshchanov’s statement was welcomed also by leaders of the Russian democratic camp. Many believed that Ukrainian and Belarusian independence amounted to little more than an effort by local party elites to cling to power, and in the struggle against those elites, democracy had to show its teeth. Gavriil Popov, the democratic mayor of Moscow and Yeltsin’s close ally, appeared on central television to claim that he supported Yeltsin’s position on secessionist republics and that border questions would have to be decided by referendum in the border regions. He referred specifically to the Crimea, Odesa, and Moldovan Transnistria. The irony of the situation was that the elites in the regions mentioned by Popov had welcomed the coup, and most of their inhabitants showed no sympathy for the democratic Russian leaders in Moscow.11
But not everyone in Moscow applauded Yeltsin and Voshchanov. On the day after the publication of Voshchanov’s statement, seven prominent democratic figures led by Yurii Afanasiev and Elena Bonner, whose anticoup credentials were beyond reproach, signed an appeal titled “We Welcome the Fall of the Empire.” They acknowledged that the leadership of some republics leaving the Union was dominated by communists who had supported the coup and were prone to oppress their own people, but this was to be resisted by coordinated action with other democratic powers, not by restoring the empire. “Most dangerous of all,” wrote Afanasiev, Bonner, and their colleagues, “are statements about possible territorial or property claims by Russia on neighboring republics in the event of the dissolution of the USSR.” The authors of the appeal stated that the way toward the creation of a new community of democratic republics on the ruins of the former empire was through peaceful dissolution of the USSR. The appeal presented a clear challenge to the position taken by the Russian leadership. It also offered a bold vision that would be crucial to Russia’s search for a new policy toward the Union center and the former Union republics in the months to co
me. Few appreciated its importance at the time.12
The new line of the Russian government, expressed in the Voshchanov statement, was met with deep concern also by the leaders and legislators of Ukraine, Moldova, and Kazakhstan. Ukraine was most threatened and therefore made its position known more quickly than any other republic directly or potentially affected by the new Russian attitude. On August 27, the day on which the Voshchanov statement was issued, the Rukh association of Ukrainian democratic parties fired off a statement of its own. It accused the “newly democratized leaders of Russia” of “imperial aspirations” akin to those manifested by the Bolsheviks in 1917. At that time, under the banner of proletarian revolution, the Bolsheviks had crushed the young Ukrainian independence movement and destroyed its democratic institutions. This historical parallel was echoed by a document issued the same day by the presidium of the Ukrainian parliament. It declared that Ukraine had no territorial claims on Russia but was prepared to discuss possible Russian claims on the basis of the Russo-Ukrainian treaty signed by Yeltsin in November 1990. That treaty guaranteed the existing border between Russia and Ukraine. Leonid Kravchuk called a press conference to release the presidium’s statement, informing journalists that he had called Yeltsin to discuss the Voshchanov statement. The next day, the Russian president ordered Rutskoi and Stankevich to go to Kyiv to deal with the situation.13
THE MEMBERS OF THE JOINT Russian/all-Union delegation that flew to Kyiv on the afternoon of August 28 to explain the position of the Russian president and his democratic supporters to the leadership of the newly independent country had their task cut out for them. Their main goal was to derail or postpone Ukrainian independence, not to claim contested territories. “Do you think we need those territories?” a member of Yeltsin’s inner circle had asked a surprised Voshchanov. “We need Nazarbayev and Kravchuk to know their place!” Their proper place was, of course, in the Union, together with Russia and under its control.
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