Yeltsin

by Timothy J. Colton

  74 Benjamin Forest and Juliet Johnson, “Unraveling the Threads of History: Soviet-Era Monuments and Post-Soviet National Identity in Moscow,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92 (September 2002), 532.

  75 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 196. He mentions as one of the practical obstacles differences of opinion over restitution of nationalized property.

  76 Vladimir Mezentsev, “Okruzhentsy” (Entourage), part 4, Rabochaya tribuna, March 29, 1995. Twenty-nine deputies abstained on the Kryuchkov vote, which was held in July 1989; six voted against.

  77 Bakatin, Izbavleniye ot KGB, 120. See also J. Michael Waller, “Russia: Death and Resurrection of the KGB,” Demokratizatsiya/Democratization 12 (Summer 2004), 333–55.

  78 Gennadii Burbulis, third interview, conducted by Yevgeniya Al’bats (August 31, 2001).

  79 These were not misplaced fears. One of the difficulties in sorting out new responsibilities for the old KGB was that “many of its structures and functions were necessary for the preservation of a democratic society.” Waller, “Russia: Death and Resurrection,” 347.

  80 Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: ot rassveta do zakata (Boris Yeltsin: from dawn to dusk) (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 175; Aleksandr Korzhakov, interview with the author (January 28, 2002).

  81 Decree No. 2233, December 21, 1993, in Rossiiskaya gazeta, December 24, 1993.

  82 Sergei Kovalëv, interview with the author (January 21, 2001).

  83 Second Yakovlev interview.

  84 “It is hard labor for me to be filmed, as it is with any regulated, forced behavior. I sweat bullets, and I hate terribly to see myself on the screen.” Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 37. In Sverdlovsk, Yeltsin shone in televised performances where he did something concrete—answering citizens’ letters.

  85 Source: interviewers with former staffers. See on this general subject A. L. Il’in et al., Otzvuk slova: iz opyta raboty spichraiterov pervogo prezidenta Rossii (Echo of the word: from the work experience of the speech writers of the first president of Russia) (Moscow: Nikkolo M, 1999).

  86 Sergei Filatov, Sovershenno nesekretno (Top nonsecret) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2000), 103.

  87 Gorbachev’s long-windedness reminded Yeltsin of Leo Tolstoy, whose monumental novels he had not wanted to read as a schoolboy in Berezniki. Yeltsin, second interview with the author (February 9, 2002).

  88 Valentina Lantseva, interview with the author (July 9, 2001).

  89 Marietta Chudakova, interview with the author (April 14, 2003).

  90 Mark Zakharov, interview with the author (June 4, 2002). Yegor Gaidar had a similar conversation with Yeltsin in the spring of 1992, suggesting the Kremlin set up a new unit for selling the reforms. “Yegor Timurovich,” he said, “do you want me to re-create the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee? Look, as long as I am in charge that won’t happen.” Oleg Moroz, “Kak Boris Yel’tsin vybiral sebe preyemnika” (How Boris Yeltsin chose his successor), Izvestiya, July 7, 2006.

  91 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 397; Marafon, 63 (italics added). The latter passage is not in the English translation.

  92 A large body of research has established the political importance of the speech of U.S. presidents, leaving in dispute whether myth or substance predominates in it. See Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Richard J. Ellis, ed., Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998); and Shawn J. Parry-Giles, The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945–1955 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002).

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1 Boris Yel’tsin, Zapiski prezidenta (Notes of a president) (Moscow: Ogonëk, 1994), 166–67.

  2 As one scholar says of constitutional politics, it is about the components of a state or would-be state coming together, keeping themselves together, or being held together. The third path applies best to Yeltsin’s Russia. Alfred Stepan, “Russian Federalism in Comparative Perspective,” Post-Soviet Affairs 16 (April–June 2000), 133–76.

  3 Ibid., 165.

  4 Yevgenia Albats, “Bureaucrats and the Russian Transition: The Politics of Accommodation, 1991–2003” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2004), 93.

  5 For an overview, see Andrew Barnes, Owning Russia: The Struggle over Factories, Farms, and Power (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).

  6 Boris Yeltsin, third interview with the author (September 12, 2002).

  7 The auction process is analyzed in Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism (Toronto: Doubleday, 2000), chap. 8; and David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), chaps. 12 and 13.

  8 Oleg Poptsov, Khronika vremën “Tsarya Borisa” (Chronicle of the times of “Tsar Boris”) (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1995), 71.

  9 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 168.

  10 See Stephen Holmes, “What Russia Teaches Us Now: How Weak States Threaten Freedom,” The American Prospect 33 (July–August 1997), 30–39; David Woodruff, Money Unmade: Barter and the Fate of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); William Alex Pridemore, ed., Ruling Russia: Law, Crime, and Justice in a Changing Society (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005); and Timothy J. Colton and Stephen Holmes, eds., The State after Communism: Governance in the New Russia (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).

  11 Brian D. Taylor, Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1689–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 307–9.

  12 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 259–60.

  13 Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 440–41, citing Matthew Wyman, Public Opinion in Postcommunist Russia (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997), 166–67.

  14 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 153, 394. While Yeltsin never described himself as nostalgic for the USSR, his wife did in one interview in 1997: “Like everyone, I have nostalgia for the Soviet Union, when we all lived together like in a big family. And now it is as if everyone has run off. Friends of mine from the institute [UPI] live abroad—in Minsk, in Ukraine, in Kazakhstan.” Interview of March 1, 1997, on Ekho Moskvy radio, at http://www.echo.msk.ru/guests/1775.

  15 Boris Yel’tsin, Prezidentskii marafon (Presidential marathon) (Moscow: AST, 2000), 62.

  16 Seventy-one percent of the USSR’s 11,000 strategic warheads were based in Russia, 16 percent in Ukraine, 12 percent in Kazakhstan, and 1 percent in Belarus. Russia’s control was 100 percent for submarine-launched strategic weapons but only 62 percent for missile-delivered warheads and 24 percent for aircraft-delivered warheads. Yegor Gaidar, Gibel’ imperii: uroki dlya sovremennoi Rossii (Death of an empire: lessons for contemporary Russia) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006), 421–22.

  17 Author’s first interview with Andrei Kozyrev (January 19, 2001) and second interview with Yegor Gaidar (January 31, 2002). U.S. President Clinton’s main adviser for Russia and Eurasia recalls Kozyrev as “obsessed” with the Yugoslav situation and as worrying that the use of force against the Serbs would stir up nationalist passions and bring “a Russian Milošević” to power. Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), 73–74.

  18 Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 92.

  19 First Kozyrev interview.

  20 Ambassador Strauss provided informal feedback on a draft of Yeltsin’s speech to Congress. Yeltsin asked how members of Congress would question him at the session and was relieved to hear that foreign guests were not interrogated. Author’s interviews with Strauss and James F. Collins (both on January 9, 2006). Collins was Strauss’s top deputy in the embassy.

  21 “Russian President’s Address to Joint Session of Congress,” The Washington Post, June 18, 1992. Richard Nixon, Yeltsin’s great admirer, watched the speech on television. “When Yeltsin made statements that Nixon b
elieved were not getting a properly enthusiastic response, he yelled to the Congress through the television, ‘Cheer, you jerks!’” Monica Crowley, Nixon in Winter (New York: Random House, 1998), 97.

  22 Niall Ferguson and Brigitte Granville, “‘Weimar on the Volga’: Causes and Consequences of Inflation in 1990s Russia Compared with 1920s Germany,” Journal of Economic History 60 (December 2000), 1061–87.

  23 James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2003), 94.

  24 Nigel Gould-Davies and Ngaire Woods, “Russia and the IMF,” International Affairs 75 (January 1999), 7–8. The IMF announced $1 billion in external support to Russia in July 1992, $3 billion in June 1993, and $6.8 billion in April 1995.

  25 Talbott, Russia Hand, 286. Clinton made this statement to U.S. government officials on a flight to Russia the night of August 31–September 1, 1998.

  26 Goldgeier and McFaul, Power and Purpose, 54.

  27 Talbott, Russia Hand, 32, 63.

  28 Ibid., 115, 145.

  29 Reginald Dale, “Clinton’s ‘Preposterous’ Suggestion,” http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/06/09/think.2.t_0.php.

  30 Russia requested the Council of Europe seat in May 1992. In May 1998 it ratified the council’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and anti-torture protocol and recognized the right of petition of its citizens to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Russians today file more suits with the court than any other nation. To conform to European norms, Yeltsin established a moratorium on executions in 1996 and in June 1999 commuted the sentences of 713 death-row prisoners. Three post-Soviet states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) joined the EU in 2004; seven other post-communist countries joined in 2004 and 2007.

  31 A. L. Litvin, Yel’tsiny v Kazani (The Yeltsins in Kazan) (Kazan: Aibat, 2004), 71.

  32 CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Politics of Russian Nationalisms,” SOV 91-10044 (October 1991), 13; declassified version obtained at http://www.foia.cia.gov.browse_docs.asp?

  33 The republics numbered sixteen until 1991, when four lesser ethnic entities (autonomous oblasts) were reclassified and the Chechen-Ingush republic broke in two, bringing the total to twenty-one. One surviving autonomous oblast and ten “autonomous districts” remained of inferior standing after the reshuffle; three of the eleven voted for sovereignty. The process is well laid out in Jeffrey Kahn, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 102–23.

  34 Elise Giuliano, “Secessionism from the Bottom Up: Democratization, Nationalism, and Local Accountability in the Russian Transition,” World Politics 58 (January 2006), 295; Rashit Akhmetov, “Provody” (Sendoff), http://tatpolit.ru/category/zvezda/2007-05-04/285.

  35 See Dmitry Gorenburg, Minority Ethnic Mobilization in the Russian Federation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 125. As many as 20,000 protested during the October session of the Tatarstan Supreme Soviet, and more than fifty were injured in clashes with the police. Altogether, 142 nationalist rallies were held in Tatarstan between 1987 and 1993.

  36 Aleksandr Tsipko, “Drama rossiiskogo vybora” (The drama of Russia’s choice), Izvestiya, October 1, 1991. Four of Russia’s ethnic republics and twenty-nine of its other territories exceeded the population of Estonia, whose separation from the USSR Yeltsin recognized in August 1991.

  37 M. K. Gorshkov, V. V. Zhuravlëv, and L. N. Dobrokhotov, eds., Yel’tsin–Khasbulatov: yedinstvo, kompromiss, bor’ba (Yeltsin–Khasbulatov: unity, compromise, struggle) (Moscow: TERRA, 1994), 130.

  38 See especially Kahn, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law, 123–32, 153–54 (story about Burbulis at 153); Akhmetov, “Provody” (Shaimiyev’s feats); Dmitry Gorenburg, “Regional Separatism in Russia: Ethnic Mobilisation or Power Grab?” Europe-Asia Studies 51 (March 1999), 245–74; and Giuliano, “Secessionism from the Bottom Up,” 276–310.

  39 On August 21, 1991, Yeltsin removed by decree the chief executives of three provinces (Rostov, Samara, and Lipetsk). He first appointed individuals to this office on August 24. But on August 22 Yeltsin asserted the right to name “presidential representatives,” who were there independent of the holders of the local office.

  40 Outside of war-torn Chechnya, the only republic where Yeltsin ever stepped in to name a president was Karachayevo-Cherkessiya in September 1995, at the request of the local parliament.

  41 Secondary accounts mention republic proposals in the provinces of Arkhangel’sk, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Orël, Primor’e, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Vologda, and Voronezh. For comparisons, see Philip G. Roeder, Where Nation–States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 192–93; and Yoshiko M. Herrera, Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 194–244.

  42 Timothy J. Colton and Cindy Skach, “A Fresh Look at Semipresidentialism: The Russian Predicament,” Journal of Democracy 16 (July 2005), 113–26.

  43 Khasbulatov heard about the agreement from news reports while on a visit to South Korea. He wanted to talk about it with Yeltsin by telephone but had to settle for Naina Yeltsina. Rutskoi was informed about the deal by one of Khasbulatov’s deputies. Author’s interviews with Khasbulatov (September 26, 2001) and Rutskoi (June 5, 2001).

  44 Josephine T. Andrews, When Majorities Fail: The Russian Parliament, 1990–1993 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 26.

  45 Gorshkov, Zhuravlëv, and Dobrokhotov, Yel’tsin–Khasbulatov, 201.

  46 Khasbulatov interview.

  47 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 265. Chernomyrdin had declared in December, when appointed premier, that he intended to work closely with the congress. This prompted Yeltsin’s press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, to write a sarcastic pseudonymous article about him in a newspaper. Chernomyrdin complained to Yeltsin, who told Kostikov his criticism was fair but he should keep it to himself, and “I will sort things out with Chernomyrdin myself.” Ibid., 322–33.

  48 Ibid., 293.

  49 Gorshkov, Zhuravlëv, and Dobrokhotov, Yel’tsin–Khashulatov, 324–25.

  50 Boris Yeltsin, first interview with the author (July 15, 2001).

  51 Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: ot rassveta do zakata (Boris Yeltsin: from dawn to dusk) (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 158–59. He says the agent to be used was chloropicrin, which causes lachrymation and vomiting; in high enough doses, it can lead to serious injury or death.

  52 Gorshkov, Zhuravlëv, and Dobrokhotov, Yel’tsin–Khashulatov, 369–71.

  53 The Constitutional Court had ruled that the results on the third and fourth questions would be binding only if a majority of the entire electorate came out in favor.

  54 Dmitri K. Simes, “Remembering Yeltsin,” http://www.nationalinterest.org/BlogSE.aspx?id=14110.

  55 Leon Aron, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 514.

  56 Baturin et al., Epokha, 345.

  57 I owe this point to Valentin Yumashev, who knows Yeltsin’s political thinking as well as anyone. Yeltsin describes his conversations with Grachëv about the constitutional crisis, and his confidence in Grachëv’s support, in Zapiski, 350–51. On September 16 Yeltsin paid a call on the Dzerzhinsky Motorized Rifle Division, which reported to the MVD.

  58 Previously undisclosed details from the author’s second interview with Vladimir Bokser (May 11, 2001) and interview with Vitalii Nasedkin (June 9, 2001).

  59 Baturin et al., Epokha, 357.

  60 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 347.

  61 Ibid., 375; Gorshkov, Zhuravlëv, and Dobrokhotov, Yel’tsin–Khasbulatov, 526.

  62 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 347.

  63 Ibid., 384–86, describes the scene with Grachëv, as does Sergei Filatov, Sovershenno nesek
retno (Top nonsecret) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2000), 317. On the allimportant responsibility question, see Robert V. Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics: Duty, Dictatorship, and Democracy Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998), 260–62; and especially Taylor, Politics and the Russian Army, 295–301.

  64 Louis D. Sell, “Embassy Under Siege: An Eyewitness Account of Yeltsin’s 1993 Attack on Parliament,” Problems of Post-Communism 50 (July–August 2003), 61.

  65 This act is described in Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 198.

  66 Some opposition sources put the death toll much higher, at 500 or even 1,000.

  67 Yeltsin’s chief of staff, Sergei Filatov, proposed the plebiscite to him on October 5, having fielded a suggestion to this effect from Yurii Ryzhov, the Russian ambassador to Paris (who had heard it from the Sorbonne law professor Michel Lesage). Yeltsin agreed immediately, says Filatov (Sovershenno nesekretno, 325–26). But Yeltsin had consistently favored putting a new constitution to the electorate, and so was returning to this idea rather than discovering it.

  68 Valerii Zor’kin had favored a “zero option” whereby Yeltsin and parliament would face election at exactly the same time. Yeltsin was never for it, although it would probably have yielded better electoral results for him than those realized in December 1993.

  69 “Prezident Rossii otvechayet na voprosy gazety ‘Izvestiya’” (The president of Russia answers the questions of the newspaper Izvestiya), Izvestiya, November 16, 1993.

  70 Unnamed speaker on October 23, in Konstitutsionnoye soveshchaniye: stenogrammy, materialy, dokumenty (The Constitutional Conference: stenographic records, materials, documents), 20 vols. (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1996), 19:163.

  71 Timothy J. Colton, “Public Opinion and the Constitutional Referendum,” in Timothy J. Colton and Jerry F. Hough, eds., Growing Pains: Russian Democracy and the Election of 1993 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1998), 293. Fifty-five percent of the electors voted on the constitution. A Yeltsin decree had set the bar for confirmation at a 50 percent turnout and a 50 percent positive vote. This was much lower than the absolute majority of the entire electorate required by the Russian law on referendums, adopted in October 1990.