July 17, 2014 A Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile, which is not in the arsenal of the Ukrainian armed forces, brings down Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17, a Boeing 777, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. Fifteen crew members and 283 passengers die.
March 2014 The United States, the EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a number of international organizations, including the European Commission, NATO, the European Council, and others, introduce the first set of sanctions after Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia adopts countermeasures. Beginning of the collapse of the Russian economy.
September 2015 Responding to a request from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whom the Kremlin has supported from the start of the conflict in Syria, the Federation Council approves sending Russian military forces to Syria in the struggle against terrorism. Russia begins air strikes in Syria.
Notes
Notes from the translator are indicated by —Trans. at the end of the note.
Foreword
1. See P. Reddaway, “Should World Psychiatry Readmit the Soviets?,” New York Review of Books, October 12, 1989, 54–58; and for a detailed analysis of the abuse system, see P. Reddaway and the psychiatrist Sidney Bloch, Russia’s Political Hospitals: The Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union (London: V. Gollancz, 1977); and their Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry (London: V. Gollancz, 1984). The U.S. government published a 117-page account of the U.S. delegation’s visit.
Preface
1. Ivan A. Bunin (1870–1953) was a Russian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933.
2. Literally, the word perestroika means “reconstruction” (of the entire economic and political system).
3. This book was originally published in Russian: Andrei A. Kovalev, Svidetel’stvo iz-za kulis rossiiskoi politiki I: Mozhno li delat’ dobra iz zla? [Witness from behind the scenes of Russian politics, vol. 1, Can one make good from evil?] and Svidetel’stvo iz-za kulis rossiiskoi politiki II: Ugroza dlia sebia i okruzhaiushchikh [Witness from behind the scenes of Russian politics, vol. 2, A menace to oneself and those nearby] (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2012).
4. MGIMO represents Moscow State Institute of International Relations. —Trans.
5. The Soviets referred to the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 as the Caribbean crisis. —Trans.
6. Shurik is a diminutive of Alexander. —Trans.
7. Yury Andropov (1914–84) was then head of the KGB. —Trans.
8. This reference is to the workers’ uprising against the communist regime in East Germany in mid-June 1953 that was suppressed by Soviet military force. —Trans.
9. Fyodor I. Tyutchev (1803–73) was a Russian writer. The quotation is from “Silentium!,” a poem published in 1830. —Trans.
Introduction
1. Liudmila Alekseeva, one of the old veterans of the dissident movement in the USSR, writes in her unflinchingly honest book The Generation of the Thaw, “I did not know a single opponent of socialism in our country, although we were troubled by the inhumanity of our society. We adopted the slogans of the Czechoslovak reformers [in the Prague Spring of 1968] who fought against Stalinism. We shared the idea that was dear to our hearts of ‘socialism with a human face.’” Liudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva and Paul Goldberg, The Generation of the Thaw [in Russian] (Moscow: Izdatel’ Zakharov, 2006), 14–15.
2. See Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index, 2015,” January 27, 2016, www.transparency.org.
3. This phrase is borrowed from The Doomed City (1989) byArkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, well-known Russian science fiction writers.
1. Diplomacy and Democratic Reforms
1. Born in 1935 Glukhov became a career diplomat and was later Russia’s ambassador to Estonia.
2. Meaning sent to a correctional colony. —Trans.
3. The term applies to the Eastern Catholic Church, which is affiliated with Rome but has its own liturgy and rites. —Trans.
4. Murashkovites are a sect with Protestant, Judaic, and pagan features, formed by ex-Pentecostal I. P. Murashko in 1920 in the western USSR.
5. Only one doctor had to agree to detain the person—by force if necessary.
6. The oprichnina is the name of the secret police established by Ivan the Terrible. —Trans.
7. In early January 1991 Soviet troops shot and killed several Lithuanians among the thousands besieging the TV and Radio Building in Vilnius.
8. Nikolai I. Bukharin (1888–1938) was a top Bolshevik leader and opponent of Stalin’s who was executed on spurious charges of treason after a show trial, which outraged much of world public opinion.
9. The State Emergency Committee was the group of plotters who sought to overthrow Gorbachev in the August 1991 coup and seize power in Moscow.
2. The August 1991 Coup
1. Otto Skorzeny was a colonel in the Nazi Waffen SS who was skilled in sabotage and special operations. In September 1943 he led a successful German operation to free Benito Mussolini from Allied captivity. —Trans.
2. Yevgeny Dolmatovsky (1915–94) was a minor Soviet poet and lyricist. —Trans.
3. Yury Shchekochikhin, “Odnazhdy ya vstretilsia s chelovekom, kotoryi perevozil ‘zoloto partii’” [I once met a man who was transporting the “party’s gold”], in S liubov’y: Proizvedeniia Yu. Shchekochikhina; vospomonaniia i ocherki o nem [With love: The works of Yu. Shchekochikhin; reminiscences and sketches of him] (Saint Petersburg: Inapress, 2004), 142–43.
4. Sergei Sokolov and Sergei Pluzhnikov, “Zoloto KPSS—desiat’ let spustia: Pochemu ‘novye russkie’ kapitalisty finansiruiut kommunistov” [The CPSU’s gold—ten years later: Why the ‘new Russian’ capitalists are financing the communists], Moskovskie novosti (Moscow news), August 5, 2001.
5. Sokolov and Pluzhnikov, “Zoloto KPSS.”
6. “Zhestkii kurs” [A tough policy], Analisticheskaia zapiska Leningradskoi assotsiatsii sotsial’no-ekonomicheskikh nauk [Analytic notes of the Leningrad Association of Social and Economic Sciences], Vek XX i mir [Twentieth century and the world] 6 (1990): 15–19; and Vladimir Gel’man, Tupik avtoritarnoi modernizatsii [The cul-de-sac of authoritarian modernization], February 23, 2010, http://www.polit.ru/article/2010/02/23/gelman.
7. Vadim Medvedev was a cautious colleague of Gorbachev’s from the CPSU Politburo.
8. V. I. Boldin, Krushenie p’edestala: Shtrikhi k portretu M. S. Gorbacheva [Collapse of the pedestal: Brush strokes for a portrait of M. S. Gorbachev] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Respublika, 1995).
3. Anatomy of a Lost Decade
1. A. N. Yakovlev, Omut pamiati [Whirlpool of memory] (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), 461.
2. Vladimir Bukovsky, To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, trans. Michael Scammel (New York: Viking Press, 1979), 247–48.
3. The OGPU was the Soviet secret police (the Joint State Political Directorate). The quoted material is from Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, 90–91.
4. P. Ya. Chaadaev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i izbrannye pis’ma [Complete works and selected letters] (Moscow: Nauka, 1991), 347.
5. See V. D. Topolyanskii, Skvozniak iz proshlogo [A draft from the past] (Moscow: Prava cheloveka, 2009), 182–83.
6. Topolyanskii, Skvozniak iz proshlogo, 190.
7. This decision was taken well before the election of Gorbachev. According to my information, Yegor Ligachev and Mikhail Solomentsev made Gorbachev’s support of this adventure a condition of their support for his candidacy as general secretary of the CPSU.
8. Alexander Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata [Boris Yeltsin: From daybreak to sunset] (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 209.
9. This budget-cutting policy entailed nonpayment of salaries and pensions and the impoverishment of the people.
10. According to official data, inflation was lowered from 2,600 percent in 1992 to 11 percent in 1997 and to 4.1 percent in the first half of 1998. In July 1998 inflation was 0.02 percent. The
federal budget in 1997 was fulfilled with a deficit of 3.2 percent of GDP as against 3.5 percent in the approved budget.
11. In this connection, Moscow did nothing to preserve its positions in these countries.
12. I was working at the time on the staff of the president of the USSR, was one of the two initiators of the Soviet proposals, and played the role of “battering ram” as we pushed for acceptance of the decision to attend and expand relations. Evgeny Gusarov of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the other initiator of this foreign policy initiative, which came to nothing.
13. Shevardnadze’s failure to attend the Rome session of the NATO Council made it impossible to adopt an official resolution regarding the start of a new stage of relations between the USSR and NATO and had serious consequences for the subsequent development of relations between Russia and the North Atlantic alliance and the West as a whole.
14. As far as the author knows, this statement was not prepared in advance, and Yeltsin’s press secretary had to “correct” the head of state.
15. It was irrational because Moscow was unable to influence the decisions that were taken. NATO’s role in stabilizing the international situation was not taken into account at all. It was illogical because not a single one of the architects or implementers of Russian foreign policy, as well as the pundits who supported this policy, could answer the question of how states that were partners of Russia’s could be united in an alliance that was hostile toward it.
16. Regarding the priority of republic legislation over federal laws, in the constitutions of Sakha (Yakutia) Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia, procedures were included for the ratification of federal laws by the republics’ organs of state power.
17. For example, see those of the Republic of Adygeia, the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, the Karachaevo-Cherkessia Republic, the Krasnodarskii and Stavropolskii territories, and the Voronezh, Moscow, and Rostov regions. In the republics of Sakha (Yakutia), Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Komi, and Tuva, voting rights were accorded only to the citizens of these republics. The right to be elected head of state or of the legislature was likewise restricted exclusively to citizens of these areas.
18. As far as I know—I took part in behind-the-scenes efforts at a peaceful resolution of the Chechen problem in 1997–98—the Chechens themselves, including their chief negotiator Movladi Udugov, had a very imprecise notion of Chechen sovereignty. According to participants in the negotiations, the Chechens did not envision for themselves any sort of sovereignty except within Russia. They did not grasp that the concept of sovereignty meant something else. Thus, without understanding its actual content, the Chechens’ clumsy use of a term that Yeltsin had uttered was far from being the least of the reasons for the discord between Moscow and Grozny. This, in turn, obviously demonstrates that Russian politicians ascribe much more meaning to words than to actions.
19. Violations of the rights of Russians living in Chechnya, an allegation that the Russian authorities love to point to as the main reason for launching the war, cannot be taken seriously.
20. This agreement was signed on August 30, 1996, by Secretary of the Security Council Alexander Lebed and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Chechnya Aslan Maskhadov. What was envisioned was a cessation of military hostilities and the holding of a democratic general election in Chechnya. Resolving the question of the status of Chechnya was put off for five years, until 2001.
21. I was a supporter of granting Chechnya the right to self-determination, including the right to secede from membership in the Russian Federation, combined with the unconditional restoration of the educational and health care systems and the industry of the republic. In my opinion, this not only was a moral imperative but also was dictated by the purely pragmatic consideration of strengthening the Russian state system even in the event that Chechnya proclaimed its independence and actually seceded from Russia. Without question, such an option had to be provided. This was especially necessary because the actual rebuilding of the republic, not just in words, would have been the surest way to keep Chechnya in the Russian Federation.
22. According to the estimates of specialists, constructing one kilometer of border fencing would cost about $400,000 and one entry and exit point about $4 million. Further, to all appearances, this option must have been understood in the Kremlin, in the presidential administration, and in the government when the decision was taken to begin the Second Chechen War, but I cannot bear witness to this as I was hospitalized at the time.
23. The leading human rights defender Sergei Kovalev told me he had established the facts for certain that Russian troops had committed atrocities that were ascribed to the Chechens. For example, in his words, to raise the “fighting spirit of the troops,” the successors of the red commissars placed mutilated corpses and genitals severed by the Special Forces on the armored troop carriers but asserted that it was the work of the Chechens. Generally Moscow cultivated hatred toward the Chechens and toward residents of the Caucasus as a whole.
24. Many believe that these incursions were operations by the special services with the goal of legalizing the start of the Second Chechen War. This is indirectly confirmed by Sergei Stepashin’s pronouncement that the Kremlin began planning the military operations in Chechnya in March 1999. Additional evidence is the close link between Shamil Basaev and Boris Berezovsky. See, for example, J.-M. Balencie and A. de la Grange, Mondes rebelles: Guérillas, milices, groupes terroristes (Paris: Éditions Michalon, 2002), 1444.
25. During his presentation at the Kennan Institute in Washington on April 24, 2002, Sergei Yushenkov emphasized “the virtual lack of any system of civilian control over the activities of the special services in Russia” and “the absolute unwillingness of Russian authorities to pay attention to this and to carry out a truly objective, independent investigation” of the explosions in the apartment houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk, as well as of the events in Ryazan. According to the official version, the FSB was conducting exercises in Ryazan, but according to a widely disseminated view, shared by Yushenkov, a terrorist act was averted. He presented a version of events according to which a coup d’état took place in Russia on September 23. Here is why: On September 23, a group of governors of twenty-four persons, with the initiator of the group being the governor of the Belgorod region, Yevgeny Savchenko, demanded that the president of the Russian Federation turn over all power to Prime Minister Putin. And that same day, September 23, the president issued a secret decree that was the basis for the start of military actions in Chechnya, the beginning of the Second Chechen War. These actions and steps were taken precisely because of the view in Russian society that the explosions in Volgodonsk, Moscow, and of the house in Ryazan had been perpetrated by Chechen fighters. On September 24, Putin gave the order to the troops to commence military operations in Chechnya. Incidentally, this was the prerogative of the president. Moreover, in accordance with our constitution, armed force could be utilized only in three situations, none of which was present.
26. The exact number of wounded was not provided. Some observers believe the terrorist acts in the fall of 1999 that, without evidence, were ascribed to the Chechens were actually the work of the Russian special services.
27. Putin called for finishing off “the terrorists in the john.” The staff of the Security Council devised its own glossary according to which the Chechen fighters were called bandits. Banditry, according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, is considered a criminal offense; thus someone may be labeled a bandit only by a court of law.
28. Speaking of Wahhabism, although I am using Moscow’s official terminology, I am fully aware that the definition is extremely controversial.
29. According to approximate data, there were more than twelve million Muslims in the North Caucasus, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, Chuvashia, and the Mari-El Republics; in Siberia; in Ulyanovsk, Samara, Astrakhan, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, and Ryazan regions; and in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and elsewhere. At the time, there were 2
,739 registered Islamic religious associations (24 percent of religious associations registered in the country). Moreover, the actual number of functioning Islamic organizations was significantly higher, since in a number of regions they arose spontaneously and were not registered.
4. How the System Really Works
1. Andrei Illarionov, “Reformy 90-kh v Rossii proveli vo blago nomenklatury!” [The reforms of the 1990s in Russia were carried out for the benefit of the nomenklatura!] Komsomolskaia pravda, February 9, 2012.
2. The ministry that Adamov then headed was (and is) located near the Kremlin on Ordynka Street.
3. Sergei Dovlatov (1941–90) was a Russian writer who achieved success as an exile in the United States. —Trans.
4. One wise chief, the target of many denunciations owing to his position, would store accounts in a specially designated file without reading them and take them outside of town and burn them.
5. See, for example, chapter 5, p. 211.
6. Anatoly Kovalev, Iskusstvo vozmozhnogo: Vospominaniia [The art of the possible], (Moscow: Novyi Kronograf, 2016), 202–3.
7. This is a reference to their novel Monday Begins on Saturday (1965). —Trans.
5. Inside the Secret Police State
1. Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, 8.
2. Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, 247–48.
3. Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, 11–12.
4. Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, 358.
5. Hélène Blanc and Renata Lesnik, Les prédateurs du Kremlin, 1917–2009 (Paris: Édition du Seuil, 2009), 127.
6. Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 166–99.
7. Academician Georgy Arbatov was in his day an intimate of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin; his is a record for political longevity among intimates of top leaders in the USSR and Russia. Arbatov wrote, “If we still possess in some form democratic procedures and institutions, elections, transparency, the rudiments of a lawful state, then for these we must thank not the ‘liberal economy’ connected with [Yegor] Gaidar’s ‘shock therapy,’ nor Yeltsin’s actions as president. This is what remains from the Gorbachev Era, that his successors have been unable to weed out or stamp out entirely.” G. A. Arbatov, Yastreby i golubi kholodnoi voiny [Cold War hawks and doves] (Moscow: Algoritm & Eksmo, 2009), 104.
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