His intuitive brilliance did him little good; he remained hampered by his background from foreseeing where his path of transformation was leading. While wanting a market economy, he did not think this would involve much capitalism. While approving of national self-expression, he had set his face against any republic seceding from the USSR. While wishing to replace traditional communist functionaries with energetic newcomers, he often chose newcomers who had no commitment to serious reform. While aiming at an institutional division of powers, he induced chaos in governance. His personal confusion had practical consequences. Although he radicalized his proposals, he did this always more slowly than the pace of the deepening crisis over the economy, the republics, the administration and the personnel of the Soviet order. And this made his eventual fall all the more likely.
About Gorbachëv’s dedication there could be no doubt: ‘I’m doomed to go forward, and only forward. And if I retreat, I myself will perish and the cause will perish too!’1 He expected the same self-sacrifice from his associates. His group of intimates included several of his promotees to the Politburo: Alexander Yakovlev, Eduard Shevardnadze, Vadim Medvedev and Vadim Bakatin. Also important to him were aides such as Georgi Shakhnazarov and Anatoli Chernyaev; and he derived indispensable intellectual and emotional support from his wife Raisa despite her unpopularity with politicians and public alike.
But whereas he had once led from the front, by the end of the decade he was manoeuvring between factions. Gorbachëv’s technique was to calm the communist radicals, convince his loyalists and reassure the conservatives. In practical terms he aimed to dissuade as many critics as possible from leaving the party and campaigning against him. For this purpose he opted to remain in the party as its General Secretary; he argued that the alternative was to abandon the party and let his critics use it as an instrument to struggle for the rejection of his reformist measures. It was an uncongenial task. Most central and local functionaries incurred his contempt: ‘They’re careerists; all they want is their hands on power and their snouts in the feeding trough!’2 But he said no such thing in public, and hoped that his patience would be rewarded by success in making the process of reform irreversible.
Within his entourage, Yakovlev argued against his refusal to leave the party. Yeltsin agreed with Yakovlev. So, too, did the dissenter Andrei Sakharov from outside the ranks of communism. Better, they all urged, to make a clean break and form a new party. But Gorbachëv spurned the advice. He increasingly thought of Yakovlev as unsound of judgement and Yeltsin as irresponsible. He had a higher estimate of Sakharov, who was widely acclaimed as Russia’s liberal conscience. Gorbachëv was not averse to cutting off Sakharov’s microphone when he did not like what he heard.3 But by and large he ensured that this frail, croaky-voiced scientist should be given a hearing at the Congress of Soviets; and when Sakharov died in mid-December 1989, Gorbachëv paid his respects at the coffin.
Nevertheless Gorbachëv did not alter his mind about the communist party and continued to work for its fundamental reform from within. In February 1990 he produced a ‘platform’ for the Central Committee which was entitled ‘Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism’ and which used his most extraordinary language to date: ‘The main objective of the transitional period is the spiritual and political liberation of society.’4 Gorbachëv’s implication was that the USSR had always been a despotism. His vision of a socialist future, moreover, barely mentioned Lenin and Marxism-Leninism. None too gently Gorbachëv was repudiating most of the Soviet historical experience. Communism was no longer the avowed aim. Since Lenin, socialism had been depicted as merely a first post-capitalist stage towards the ultimate objective: communism. Now socialism itself had become the ultimate objective; and Gorbachëv’s socialism would be a socialism antagonistic to dictatorship, to casual illegality, to a hypertrophied state economy and to cultural and religious intolerance. Indeed the draft platform was strongly reminiscent of Western social-democracy.
This similarity was not lost on Gorbachëv’s critics. Provincial party secretary Vladimir Melnikov had already accused him of sculpting policies so as ‘to appeal to the bourgeoisie and the Pope in Rome’.5 Most critics, however, were more restrained. At the February 1990 Central Committee plenum they held back from a frontal attack on the draft platform; they even acquiesced in Gorbachëv’s demand for the repeal of Article 6 of the 1977 USSR Constitution, which guaranteed the political monopoly to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. No rival party had been permitted to operate in the country since the early 1920s: Gorbachëv was breaking with the dictatorial heritage of his hero Lenin.
Gorbachëv was still but weakly aware of the implications of his activities; he continued to talk of going off to ‘confer with Lenin’ for inspiration.6 But the rupture with Leninism was real. On 27 February 1990 Gorbachëv addressed the USSR Supreme Soviet and obtained its sanction for multi-party politics. The third convocation of the Congress of People’s Deputies ratified the change on 14 April. The one-party state defended by communist apologists since the Civil War was being relegated itself to oblivion. Gorbachëv reversed Lenin’s policy as deftly as Lenin had introduced it. And while being innocent in his understanding of essential Leninism, Gorbachëv also needed to display much deviousness in order to get the institutional changes he desired. Otherwise he would never have succeeded in manipulating the central party apparatus, the ministries, the local administrations, the military high command and the security organs into accepting the step-by-step transformation of the Soviet state.
Yet the communist radicals were disgruntled with him. Yeltsin, who was still a Party Central Committee member as well as a leader of the Inter-Regional Group, was the most vociferous in demanding faster and deeper reform; and he grasped an opportunity to press his case when, in March 1990, he stood for election to the RSFSR Supreme Soviet and became its Chairman. Politically he was playing the ‘Russian card’. Unable to challenge Gorbachëv directly at the level of the USSR, he asserted himself in the organs of the RSFSR.
The communist-conservative enemies of perestroika reacted furiously. Wanting to put pressure on Gorbachëv as well as to strike down Yeltsin, they adopted the device of forming a Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Their leader was Ivan Polozkov, Krasnodar Regional Party First Secretary. Why, asked Polozkov, should the RSFSR be denied a party tier long ago given to Ukraine and Uzbekistan? Gorbachëv accepted the validity of the question and assented to the foundation of the Russian party. Its first congress was held in June, and Polozkov became its First Secretary. Polozkov tried to take up the role of leading the party traditionalists, a role lost by Ligachëv after his successive demotions in 1989. Yet Polozkov was a much less prepossessing figure than Ligachëv. Gorbachëv kept him firmly in his place by refusing to intervene on his behalf to secure a suitable apartment for him in Moscow. Polozkov, a grumpy fellow, did little to enhance the popularity of his ideas in his few public appearances.
The dispute between Yeltsin and Polozkov took some of the heat off Gorbachëv. One of Gorbachëv’s devices was to occupy a position above all the country’s politicians and exploit their disagreements to his own advantage. He also had an interest in refraining from protecting any rivals from nasty accusations. Newspapers claimed that Ligachëv had made pecuniary gain from the corruption in Uzbekistan. Similarly it was alleged at the Congress of People’s Deputies that Ryzhkov had been involved in shady industrial deals. Gorbachëv did nothing to help either of them.
Yeltsin, too, complained that dirty tricks were being played against him. In September 1989, when he was touring the USA, Pravda had reported him as having been drunk at Johns Hopkins University. Yeltsin claimed the problem to have been the tablets he was taking for his heart condition;7 but he was less convincing about another incident, which happened upon his return to the USSR next month. As he walked late at night towards a dacha in Uspenskoe village near Moscow, he inexplicably tumbled into a river. His supporters claimed that this was an assassination attempt on him. Y
et Yeltsin omitted to complain to the authorities. The conclusion of dispassionate observers might have been that there is no smoke without fire, but in Russia Yeltsin’s predilection for vodka was not frowned upon. The Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet continued to be hailed as the people’s champion. If anything, his escapade was regarded as near-martyrdom, and his prestige rose higher.
Speaking on behalf of the RSFSR, he assured Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that he did not seek their forcible retention within the Soviet Union (whereas Gorbachëv’s hostility to secession was the despair of his radical counsellors). In June 1990 Uzbekistan declared its sovereignty. On Yeltsin’s initiative, so did the RSFSR. The disintegrative process affected even the internal affairs of the RSFSR when the autonomous republics of Tatarstan and Karelia demanded recognition as wholly independent states. The USSR’s entire constitutional basis was being undermined. The threat no longer came mainly from defeated émigré nationalists but from active Soviet politicians.
By September, when even obedient Turkmenistan declared its sovereignty, it had become the general trend. Everywhere the republican leaderships were calling for democracy and national self-determination. In some cases, such as Estonia, there was a genuine commitment to liberal political principles. In most, however, the high-falutin terms disguised the fact that local communist party élites were struggling to avoid the loss of their power. The national card had been played by them quietly in the Brezhnev period. Republican assets had been regarded by the respective élites as their own patrimony; and, after they had seen off the anti-corruption campaigns of Andropov in 1982–4 and Gorbachëv in the mid-1980s, they settled down to enjoy their privileges. While detesting Gorbachëv’s perestroika, they used his democratization of public affairs as a means of reinforcing their position and increasing their affluence. By announcing their independence, they aimed to seal off each republic from Moscow’s day-to-day interference.
Gorbachëv held tight to his strategy. The Twenty-Eighth Party Congress met from 2 June 1990 and discussed the de-Leninized party platform approved by the Central Committee in February. This time Gorbachëv’s critics shouted angrily at him, and delegates for the Russian Communist Party led a successful campaign to vote Alexander Yakovlev off the Central Committee. But Gorbachëv was retained as General Secretary by a huge majority and his platform was ratified by the Congress. When the election was held for the new post of his deputy in the party, Ligachëv was defeated by Ukrainian party first secretary Ivashko, whom Gorbachëv favoured, by 3,109 to 776 votes.
The Congress had granted that the Politburo should no longer intervene in day-to-day politics and that the USSR Presidency ought to become the fulcrum of decision-making. But Gorbachëv’s victory did not satisfy Yeltsin and other communist radicals. They were annoyed by the down-grading of Yakovlev and urged Gorbachëv yet again to leave the communist party. When he refused, they walked out. Thus the Soviet President’s support was narrowed at the very moment of his triumph. He repeated that if he left the communist party, its central and local officials would carry out a coup against him and his reforms. Was this plausible? The attempted coup in August 1991 was to show that his fears were not imaginary. But this in itself does not vindicate Gorbachëv’s judgement. For the coup leaders would have had much greater difficulty if they had confronted a Soviet social-democratic party under Gorbachëv that had split from the communist party.
But Gorbachëv had made his political choice to stay with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Among other things, this had the consequence that drastic economic measures would be postponed and that popular living standards would go on falling. The industrial, commercial and financial sectors were on the edge of collapse. Even according to official figures, output from manufacturing and mining enterprises in 1990 fell by one per cent over the previous year.8 Retail trade was reduced to pitiful proportions. Massive state loans were contracted with Western banks. Imports of grain and industrial consumer goods increased. Gorbachëv refused to allow any factory or kolkhoz to go to the wall, and there were no bankruptcies. But the general economic condition was dire. Most Soviet citizens could hardly believe that so rapid a deterioration had taken place. Industry was on the verge of collapse. Inflation was rising; banking and commerce were in disorder.
They blamed Gorbachëv. What counted for them was not that the economy had basically been in long-term decline long before 1985 but that they themselves were worse off than for decades. Even if they were unaware of the huge technical flaws in the Law on the State Enterprise, they knew from direct experience that the attempt at reform had not worked and that Gorbachëv’s promises of economic regeneration had not been fulfilled. By 1990, people were wondering whether they would soon be starving. There had not been such fear about the popular living conditions since the end of the Second World War.
At this point of crisis there was danger to Gorbachëv if he was cautious and danger if he was daring. He would have had a somewhat easier time if he had known his mind on the economy. Although he wanted some basic reform, he was unclear about exact measures and schedules. Nor did he recognize the need to dispense with the services of Ryzhkov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Ryzhkov had voiced his unhappiness about extensive denationalization and monetary reform in December 1989.9 By June 1990 Ryzhkov yielded somewhat, but still called in opaque terms for a ‘regulated market’; he also announced that he would soon be introducing an increase in food prices so as to correct the gross imbalance in the state budget. Ryzhkov’s position combined the worst of both worlds: a half-hearted, drawn-out privatization programme and a further rise in the cost of living. The most radical among Gorbachëv’s advisers argued that the economy’s collapse was imminent. According to them, measures had to be deep, had to be rapid, had to be consistently imposed.
Even Gorbachëv’s agile mind had failed to assimilate basic economic concepts, and he simply refused to accept that consensus was unobtainable. In August 1990 he got permission from the USSR Supreme Soviet to create a commission to elaborate a plan for industrial, agricultural and commercial recovery – and Yeltsin agreed to co-operate with the commission. The result was the ‘500 Days Plan’, composed chiefly by Stanislav Shatalin. Gorbachëv supported it, but then vacillated under pressure from Ryzhkov. In September he ordered a reworking of the ‘500 Days Plan’ by Abel Aganbegyan to effect a compromise between the positions of Shatalin and Ryzhkov. This was like mating a rabbit with a donkey. Aganbegyan produced a predictably unworkable mixture of radical language and conservative ideas. But he had helped Gorbachëv out of his political complications, and in October the Supreme Soviet gave its assent to the set of ‘Basic Guidelines’ he presented to it.
At the time his angriest adversaries were the conservatives in the Congress of People’s Deputies who formed their own Soyuz (‘Union’) organization in October 1990.10 Most Soyuz members were Russians, but otherwise they were a diverse group. They included not only communist party members but also Christian believers, nationalist writers and ecological activists, and some of them were simply Russian functionaries who lived outside the RSFSR and were terrified about their personal prospects if ever the Soviet Union fell apart. Soyuz’s unifying belief was that the Soviet Union was the legitimate successor state to the Russian Empire. Its members were proud of the USSR’s industrial and cultural achievements of their country; they gloried in the USSR’s defeat of Nazi Germany. For them, Gorbachëv was the arch-destroyer of a great state, economy and society.
Gorbachëv was more disturbed by Soyuz than by those of his own supporters who wanted him to be still more radical. He knew that Soyuz had many undeclared sympathizers and that these were even to be found among central political and economic post-holders. Having backed down over Shatalin’s ‘500 Days Plan’ for the economy, he was sufficiently worried to give ground also in politics. One by one, he dispensed with prominent reformers in his entourage.
Alexander Yakovlev ceased to be one of Gorbachëv’s regular consultants after his
bruising treatment at the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress. Yakovlev and Gorbachëv ceased to appear publicly together. In November, Vadim Bakatin was asked by Gorbachëv to step down as Minister of Internal Affairs. Gorbachëv also lost his close party colleague Vadim Medvedev. Bakatin and Medvedev had been constant proponents of the need to take the reforms further and faster. Then, Eduard Shevardnadze followed. In his case he went without being pushed; but unlike the others he did not go quietly. In an emotional speech to the Congress of People’s Deputies on 20 December he declared that, unless Gorbachëv changed his present course, the country was heading for dictatorship. Thereafter Nikolai Petrakov, Gorbachëv’s economics adviser, also departed. Even Ryzhkov left the political stage, laid low by a heart condition.
Ryzhkov’s job as Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers was taken by Valentin Pavlov, the Minister of Finances. Pavlov was even more suspicious of reform than Ryzhkov; and the new Minister of Internal Affairs was Boris Pugo, who was known as an advocate of repressive measures. Gorbachëv’s choice of Gennadi Yanaev, who agreed with Pavlov and Pugo, as Vice-President of the USSR was another indication that Shevardnadze’s fears were not entirely misplaced. Furthermore, on 13 January 1991, Soviet special forces in Lithuania stormed the Vilnius television tower. Fifteen people were killed in this flagrant attempt to deter separatist movements throughout the USSR. Gorbachëv disclaimed any knowledge of the decision to use force, and the blame was placed upon officials at the local level.
Yet Gorbachëv retained his determination to protect the territorial integrity of the USSR. On 17 March he organized a referendum on the question: ‘Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet 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?’ Gorbachëv’s phrasing made it difficult for reform-minded citizens to vote against sanctioning the Union. But in other aspects of public life Gorbachëv was beset by trouble. Another Russian miners’ strike had broken out days earlier. In March, furthermore, supporters of Polozkov called an emergency session of the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies in a bid to oust Yeltsin; and Gorbachëv, still leaning in the direction of Pavlov and Pugo, allowed 50,000 Ministry of Internal Affairs troops to be introduced to the capital to prevent a demonstration in Yeltsin’s favour. For a brief time Moscow seemed near to upheaval. But Gorbachëv baulked at the potential violence needed to restore direct control. He was also impressed by the 200,000 Muscovites who took the risk of turning out for a rally in support of Yeltsin. At last – alas, far too late! – Gorbachëv definitively reverted to the agenda of reform.
The Penguin History of Modern Russia Page 57