Moscow, December 25, 1991

Conor O’Clery MOSCOW, DECEMBER 25, 1991 The Last Day of the Soviet Union

To Stanislav and Marietta

Goodbye our Red Flag.
You slipped down from the Kremlin roof
not so proudly
not so adroitly
as you climbed many years ago
on the destroyed Reichstag
smoking like Hitler’s last fag.
Goodbye our Red Flag.
You were our brother and our enemy.
You were a soldier’s comrade in trenches,
you were the hope of all captive Europe,
But like a Red curtain you concealed behind you
the Gulag
stuffed with frozen dead bodies.
Why did you do it,
our Red Flag?
…I didn’t take the Tsar’s Winter Palace.
I didn’t storm Hitler’s Reichstag.
I’m not what you call a “Commie. ”
But I caress the Red Flag
and cry.

—Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “Goodbye Our Red Flag”

RUSSIAN/SOVIET DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Afanasyev, Viktor, editor of Pravda, 1976–1989

Afanasyev, Yury, historian, pro-Gorbachev deputy

Akayev, Aksar, elected president of Kyrgystan in 1990

Akhromeyev, Sergey, marshal of the Soviet army, putschist

Alksnis, Viktor, army officer, campaigned against Gorbachev

Andropov, Yury, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1982–1984

Bakatin, Vadim, pro-reform minister, last chairman of the KGB

Baklanov, Oleg, head of Soviet military-industrial complex, putschist

Belyaev, Igor, documentary maker, friend of Gorbachev

Bessmertnykh, Alexander, Soviet minister for foreign affairs, fired after August coup

Boldin, Valery, Gorbachev’s chief of staff, putschist

Bonner, Yelena, widow of Andrey Sakharov

Bovin, Alexander, USSR/Russia ambassador to Israel

Brezhnev, Leonid, first, then general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1964–1982

Burbulis, Gennady, close associate of Yeltsin

Burlarsky, Fyodor, pro-reform editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta

Chernenko, Konstantin, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1984–1985

Chernyaev, Anatoly, close associate of Gorbachev

Chubais, Anatoly, Yeltsin’s deputy prime minister, responsible for privatization

Gaidar, Yegor, Yeltsin’s deputy prime minister, responsible for shock therapy

Gamsakhurdia, Zviad, elected president of Georgia in 1991

Gerasimov, Gennady, Soviet foreign affairs spokesman

Gorbachev, Mikhail, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1995–1991, president of the Soviet Union, 1990–1991

Gorbacheva, Irina, daughter of Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev

Gorbacheva, Raisa, wife of Mikhail Gorbachev

Grachev, Andrey, Gorbachev’s press secretary

Grachev, Pavel, army general, sided with Yeltsin in August coup

Grishin, Viktor, Moscow party chief, 1967–1985

Kalugin, Oleg, KGB dissident

Karimov, Islam, elected president of Uzbekistan in 1990

Khasbulatov, Ruslan, chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet, 1991–1993

Khrushchev, Nikita, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1953–1964

Komplektov, Viktor, USSR/Russian ambassador to the United States

Korotich, Vitaly, pro-reform editor of Ogonyok, 1986–1991

Korzhakov, Alexander, Yeltsin’s security chief

Kozyrev, Andrey, Russian minister of foreign affairs

Kravchenko, Leonid, head of central television, fired after August coup

Kravchuk, Leonid, elected president of Ukraine in 1991

Kryuchkov, Vladimir, chairman of KGB, putschist

Kuznetsov, Alexander, Yeltsin’s personal cameraman

Lebed, Alexander, army general, sided with Yeltsin in August coup

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, founder of Soviet Union

Ligachev, Yegor, conservative member of Politburo

Lukyanov, Anatoly, chairman of USSR Supreme Soviet, 1990–1991, putschist

Luzhkov, Yury, mayor of Moscow, 1992–2010

Moiseyev, Mikhail, army general, supported August coup

Murashev, Arkady, liberal Moscow police chief

Nazarbayev, Nursultan, elected president of Kazakhstan, 1990

Nenashev, Mikhail, head of state television until 1990

Palazchenko, Pavel, interpreter for Gorbachev

Pankin, Boris, Soviet minister for foreign affairs after August coup

Pavlov, Valentin, Soviet prime minister, putschist

Petrov, Yury, aide to Yeltsin

Petrushenko, Nikolay, army officer, campaigned against Gorbachev

Plekhanov, Yury, KGB general who held Gorbachevs prisoner during August coup

Poltoranin, Mikhail, ex-editor, Yeltsin press secretary

Popov, Gavriil, mayor of Moscow, 1990–1992

Primakov, Yevgeny, director of foreign intelligence service after August coup