The Penguin History of Modern Russia

be given a hearing at the Congress of Soviets; and when Sakharov died in mid-December 1989, Gorbachev paid his respects at his coffin.

Nevertheless Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev’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 Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev’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 Gorbachev’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 desisted from undertaking a frontal attack on the draft platform; they even acquiesced in Gorbachev’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: Gorbachev was breaking with the dictatorial heritage of his hero Lenin.

Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev 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 relegating itself to oblivion. Gorbachev reversed Lenin’s policy as deftly as Lenin had introduced it. And while being innocent in his understanding of essential Leninism, Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev 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? Gorbachev 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 Ligachev after his successive demotions in 1989. Yet Polozkov was a much less prepossessing figure than Ligachev. Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev. One of Gorbachev’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 Ligachev 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. Gorbachev 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. Yet 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 Gorbachev’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 emigre 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 elites 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 elites as their own patrimony; and, after they had seen off the anti-corruption campaigns of Andropov in 1982–4 and Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, they settled down to enjoy their privileges. While detesting Gorbachev’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.

Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev’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 Gorbachev 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, Ligachev was defeated by Ukrainian party first secretary Ivashko, whom Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev’s victory did not satisfy Yeltsin and other communist radicals. They were annoyed by the down-grading of Yakovlev and urged Gorbachev 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 Gorbachev’s judgement. For the coup leaders would have had much greater difficulty if they had confronted a Soviet social-democratic party under Gorbachev that had split from the communist party.

But Gorbachev 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