Russia

by Philip Longworth

  Foremost of these was Boris Yeltsin. Promoted to the Secretariat of the Central Committee, he was put in charge of the Moscow Party, and soon proved himself to be both dynamic and unreliable. He urged faster reform, but seemed to be devoid of political ideas or policies. He enjoyed power, but behaved in a domineering manner. To some he was the image of an heroic, patriotic man of action, to others the model of what had once been called a Party ‘careerist’, and to others again he was an alcoholic maverick. Given to offering his resignation in the expectation that it would not be accepted, he offered it once too often and was not allowed to withdraw it. So it was that in 1987 Yeltsin entered the political wilderness. He was full of resentment. But after two years of marginalization the fates were to offer him the chance of revenge.

  Meanwhile the satellite countries, too, were in a state of political turmoil. Instead of gliding towards freedom, Poland had lurched into it. The transition had been smoother in Hungary, but elsewhere it was resisted. Chiefly the resistance came from established leaders who were reluctant to relinquish power, but in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria there was a wide measure of popular indifference to the issue except among intellectuals and they were a minority. Gorbachev was placed in a strange position. He had either to breach his own principle of non-interference and force the conservatives out of office, or else allow them to continue in their unreformed ways, letting them trail behind as anomalous and unwanted appendages, like rattling cans at the back of the Soviet wedding car. Rather than be embarrassed by them, he chose to prise them out of office. How this was done using Party and KGB connections is one of the strangest stories of the late Soviet period. 16

  The process began in East Germany, where word suddenly began to spread that a new, safe, way of escaping to the West was to take a holiday in Hungary and then cross the frontier into Austria. Hungary had opened its frontier with Austria on 2 May 1989. By 1 July 25,000 people, including many East Germans, were waiting to cross. On 22 August unaccountably lax Czech security allowed crowds of East Germans to occupy the West German embassy in Prague. On 11 September Hungary removed restrictions on all its frontiers, and over the next few days 20,000 East Germans poured across them. By the end of the month thousands were escaping to the West through Czechoslovakia and Poland too. The Polish and Czech governments then urged the East German leader, Erich Honecker, to let would-be migrants leave for the West directly rather than across their frontiers. Late in August he finally agreed to allow those now trapped in West German embassies to leave, though on sealed trains that would travel through East Germany only at night. But security was breached, and on the night of 4 October crowds stormed Dresden railway station trying to board the train as it passed through.

  Honecker was about to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the regime. On 7 October Gorbachev himself arrived in East Berlin, the guest of honour at the celebrations, and proceeded to rack the pressure up on his host several notches more. The fact that he received a warmer reception than his host from the crowds that turned out to see him was not surprising — Gorbachev was very popular outside the Soviet Union. But the broad hints he dropped to Honecker in public were unexpected. ‘Life punishes those who lag behind the times,’ he warned. As if on cue, large crowds of demonstrators gathered in Leipzig as well as East Berlin, and Honecker was left in no doubt that he should not expect the Soviet troops stationed in his country to save him. On the night of 18/19 October he was abandoned as Party leader and replaced by Egon Krenz, who was responsible for public order and the secret police. The appointment had received Gorbachev’s imprimatur. Honecker himself subsequently attributed his downfall to Gorbachev. 17

  The spotlight moved in quick succession from East Berlin to Prague and back again, and then to Sofia. In Prague, on 28 October, the seventy-first anniversary of the country’s foundation, a patriotic demonstration was held in Wenceslas Square. The police broke it up, and there were no obvious repercussions. A professor at Charles University who passed through Wenceslas Square regularly in the days that followed observed dissident activists trying to drum up support for another demonstration, but people walked on past them, apparently indifferent. 18 In Berlin, however, excitement rose again when, on 6 November, the East German government finally lifted restrictions on foreign travel. This precipitated a popular craze to leave the country. Sometimes this meant only a few days’ sightseeing in the West; nevertheless, there was a haemorrhage of trained professionals, and health services were soon at the point of breakdown.

  Three days after restrictions had been lifted there was fresh excitement when crowds began to tear down the Berlin Wall. On 12 November it was announced that eleven of the twenty-four ministries in East Germany’s government were being allotted to members of non-Communist parties. This accorded with the Kremlin’s latest political line favouring coalition governments, but the fact that Krenz had allowed himself to be overtaken by events did not please Moscow. On 10 November the Bulgarian leader, Todor Zhivkov, was voted out of office by a majority of one in the Central Committee. His successor, Petar Mladenov, had only just returned from a meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow, and the critical vote was thought by some to have been that of Dobri Dzurov, who was reputed to be very close to Moscow.

  Circumstantial evidence suggested that the Kremlin was engineering the political changes taking place in the Bloc, and this was shortly to be confirmed in the case of the Czech revolution. The critical incident — recorded on camera — took place in Prague on 17 November, when police apparently attacked demonstrating students, beating one up so badly that he died. This prompted a storm of public outrage and immense crowds bearing banners soon filled Wenceslas Square. The very next day an umbrella opposition movement called Civic Forum headed by Havel was formed, and within ten days there were changes of government and of Party leader, the Party having surrendered its political monopoly. Images of the police killing the student, the inception the Prague Revolution, and the crowd scenes that followed were seen by millions the world over, giving rise to the idea that the people had toppled Communism.

  Yet the images were deceptive. A Czech parliamentary inquiry into the police violence of 17 November was quietly discontinued once it was learned that no one had been killed and that the blood spilled had been stage blood. The ‘victim’ turned out to be a member of the secret police. The public had been treated to a piece of political theatre, staged by Czech security in conjunction with the KGB - a drama worthy of Havel himself. But it had served to launch a genuine revolution. Early in December Civic Forum transformed itself into a political party; on 7 December Communist Party leader Adamec resigned. By the end of the year Havel was installed in the Hradshin Castle as provisional president pending elections. Meanwhile only Ceausescu, of all the old Communist leaders, remained to be disposed of - and Gorbachev and the KGB had a discreet hand in the resolution of that problem too.

  The critical date in Bucharest was 22 December. Ceausescu, just returned from a state visit to Iran, appeared on the balcony of the Party headquarters building to make a speech and receive the dutiful plaudits of the crowd assembled in the open space below, as he had done on several occasions in the past. Only this time, instead of applauding, the crowd began to jeer. As the situation became threatening, the dictator and his wife were taken to the roof and flown away by helicopter. But they were soon caught, tried by a summary court martial, and shot. As it transpired, leading figures in the regime which replaced his were already in the building when Ceausescu had begun to speak. In what had been, until the last instalment, a series of bloodless revolutions Gorbachev had cut the satellites loose. He had yet to ensure the security of the Soviet Union in its new circumstances, however, and to shore up his own, increasingly fragile, position as its leader.

  The Soviet standard of living deteriorated steadily during 1989. Food rationing became commonplace in many areas, political protests more frequent, and in April there were nineteen fatal casualties in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, when troops fired on a crowd
of demonstrators. In August, on the anniversary of the Nazi—Soviet Pact, there were demonstrations in the Baltic republics too, and nationalists soon began to organize in Ukraine. Averting his eyes from the deterioration in the economy and from the threat of dynamic nationalism, Gorbachev persevered with political and constitutional reform. In February 1990 he asked the Central Committee to discontinue the Soviet Party’s political monopoly, and, true to its tradition of obedience to the leader, it complied, albeit unhappily. In foreign affairs, however, matters did not go well for Gorbachev.

  He had hoped for an orderly transition from authoritarian Communism in the countries of the Bloc but, except in Bulgaria and Romania, the reformed socialism that he promoted was rejected and, rather than the gradualism which he envisaged, change came in a rush. Gorbachev also intended to maintain the strategic balance in Europe but with excitement at the prospect of reunification running high on both sides of the German divide Chancellor Kohl moved to absorb East Germany and so reunite his country. The United States affected indifference, Britain disliked the idea and so did France; but neither was disposed to invoke its powers under the Four Power Treaty to prevent German reunification. Gorbachev was entitled to send in troops to maintain the divide and might well have received some support from the West had he done so. But he shrank from it. It would have ended the detente with West Germany, which had become a pillar of Soviet foreign policy. So Gorbachev, who might have prevented unification, allowed it to happen, and confined himself to seeking economic concessions from Kohl to help bolster the now tottering Soviet economy. It was a modest price to pay for Soviet complaisance, and a major political triumph for the German leader. 19

  So it was that by the end of 1990 the unification of Germany, which had been unimaginable even a year before, became a fact. Concerns emerged in west Germany about the cost of absorbing the east, and in the east about the loss of full employment, the erosion of cultural values in which many East Germans had taken some pride, and the inflow of carpetbaggers. But by then it was too late.

  There were to be other disappointments in what had been the outer fringes of the Soviet Empire. In June 1991 COMECON was precipitately wound up, at which regional trade ground almost to a standstill. The new regimes in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia tried to reorient their commerce from the East to the West but failed. The Warsaw Treaty Organization, linchpin of the Bloc’s defences, was also to become a dead letter, allowing the United States to lead its allies towards an eastward expansion of NATO. In Yugoslavia, deteriorating economic conditions were already fostering nationalist breakaway movements in Slovenia and Croatia, setting the country on a slide to dissolution and bloody civil war, while in the Soviet Union itself the unpredictable Boris Yeltsin, who had so recently been excluded from the political arena, contrived to find a new political space for himself by posing as a Russian patriot.

  He had argued that if constituent republics of the Soviet Union like Lithuania or Kazakhstan had an autonomous political life it was anomalous that Russia, the Union’s largest constituent by far, should not. Gorbachev could not challenge his logic, and so in March 1990 Yeltsin was able to stand for election to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federal Republic. He was elected, and soon chosen to be its chairman. Having created a new political platform, he proceeded to claim sovereignty for Russia and to encourage the Baltic republics and others to claim their independence too. Yeltsin contributed to the dissolution of the Union. But the sharp economic deterioration had given him and the other nationalist politicians their opportunity.

  In June 1990 Estonia, one of the more prosperous Soviet republics, proclaimed itself independent in the economic sphere. Lithuania went further, claiming a right to veto all Union legislation, and Uzbekistan, one of the most populous Soviet republics, declared itself sovereign. The once stable Soviet economy was descending into chaos as social distress and inflation rose. Shopping was becoming more and more difficult, necessities of life increasingly expensive, while many employees suddenly lost employment perks and privileges which they had come to take for granted. In August 1990 Gorbachev reacted by setting up a commission of the Supreme Soviet to draft a plan for economic recovery. There were deep divisions of opinion about what should be done, and the argument soon crystallized into a struggle between radical reformers and those who wanted to revert to the old ways. Yeltsin, an instinctive politician, agreed to co-operate. He supported the radicals and was politically helpful to Gorbachev for a time. A 500-day plan for the regeneration of the country, largely the work of an economist called Stanislav Shatalin, was tabled. It called for measures to control inflation, the stabilization of the ruble, the end of price controls, and privatization of the huge state sector.

  Similar to the ‘shock therapy’ advocated by the Harvard economist Jeremy Sachs in Poland, it implied a devolution of economic control which was problematical in the Soviet Union as it had not been in Poland. This was not only because it threatened the interests of powerful apparatchiki and to trigger popular discontent, but because the Soviet economy was several times larger than Poland’s as well as more complex, and its geographical spread immense. It demanded some careful co-ordination if it were not to become dysfunctional. Furthermore, the isolation of many enterprises made them as vulnerable as Canadian ‘company towns’, threatening a series of local social disasters if they should suddenly become bankrupt. The plan also threatened the disintegration of the Union. So the weight of opinion began to shift towards the conservatives. Gorbachev sent the Plan back to be redrafted in a less extreme form. This angered those who wanted the speedy implementation of radical reforms, and several ministers resigned. It also bolstered the separatist cause in some republics, especially those adjacent to the West.

  Gorbachev, who had failed to grasp one nettle, now reached out to snatch at another: he sanctioned the use of force against the national movement in Lithuania. On 17 March 1991 special units of Soviet forces stormed the television tower in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, which had been occupied by separatists. There were fifteen fatalities. Intended to be a discreet and bloodless operation which would deter nationalists across the Union, the implementation had been clumsy. Gorbachev moved quickly to disown it; Yeltsin, perhaps afraid that he might be purged or eliminated if the leader’s new ‘hard line’ prevailed, 20 called for a ‘declaration of war’ against the Soviet leader. On 28 March he mobilized a large crowd of demonstrators in Moscow in defiance of a ban on demonstrations.

  With strikes and calls for his resignation flaring up right across the country, Gorbachev changed tack yet again. He accepted the idea of allowing the constituent republics an autonomy verging on independence, and joined forces with Yeltsin. Seventy per cent of Russian voters who turned out for a referendum on 17 March endorsed the idea of ‘the preservation of the Union of Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of the individual of any nationality will be guaranteed’. 21 The contorted language of the document reflected Gorbachev’s disposition to be all things to all men, but it could not quite disguise the contradiction in terms. Nevertheless, on 23 April 1991 representatives of nine constituent republics agreed that there should be a new Union treaty. Four months later it was ready for signing. Meanwhile Yeltsin’s hand had been strengthened further by a substantial victory in the Russian elections held that June.

  The same month the Soviet premier, supported by the ministers of Defence and the Interior, went to the Supreme Soviet asking for Gorbachev’s presidential powers to be transferred to them. The country was on the brink of disaster, they argued, and Gorbachev’s inadequate leadership was central to the problem. Retrospect lends some credence to their claims. Nevertheless, the leader once again succeeded in talking his way out of trouble. He said he was working to create a socialism which was both humane and democratic. Vague rather than convincing, he nevertheless persuaded enough members to endorse the idea of another Party congress, to be held in December. At that point, he conce
ded, the question could be raised of his being constitutionally removed from office.

  The loss of the European satellites had done the Soviet president no good politically, but what really undermined his position were the fast-deteriorating economic and social conditions, and the fact that, to an increasing extent, he was held responsible for the deterioration. The unfortunate public looked about for a figure that might save them and, since Gorbachev had lost credence and most of the other Soviet ministers and officials seemed colourless, Boris Yeltsin became the chief beneficiary of this change of mood. His popularity seemed to be founded less on the ‘liberal’ cause which he espoused than on the fact that he seemed decisive. But other decision-makers believed that the country would be ruined unless strong action was taken urgently.

  Gorbachev was on holiday in the Crimea when, on 18 August, an ‘Emergency Committee’ of leading ministers tried to carry out a coup d’etat. Unfortunately for them, the army was divided and, though Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, some KGB and army units ordered to arrest Yeltsin and other oppositionists refused to do so. In the hours of uncertainty that followed Yeltsin rallied the opposition, called for Gorbachev’s release, and posed on a tank for the benefit of the cameras. He was backed by several figures of political substance including the mayor of Leningrad. Together they called for Gorbachev’s restoration. The organizers of the coup might well have prevailed had they been ruthless. But, like Gorbachev himself, most of them shrank from shedding blood. The only fatal casualties were two conspirators, including the Minister of Defence, who committed suicide in the wake of the coup’s failure. At that point no one sought to take the poisoned chalice of the leadership from Gorbachev’s weak grasp. However Yeltsin had used the interregnum and his position of Russian president to suspend the Russian Communist Party and seize its assets. He then stood by like an éminence grise while the tragedy played on to its conclusion