|
Soviet Union [USSR] Introduction
IN MID-1991 THE SOVIET UNION remained in a state of turmoil
after the weakening of the authority of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU) had profoundly disturbed the
socialist (see Glossary) system. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the general secretary of
the CPSU and president of the Soviet Union, had endeavored to
revitalize the country by reforming the party and the socialist
system without radically altering either one.
But his attempts at political reform
(
demokratizatsiia-- see Glossary) and economic restructuring
(
perestroika--see Glossary) shook the foundations of the
centralized, authoritarian
system that had been dominated and controlled by the party since
the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The design and construction of
the foundations were seriously flawed and would not support
extensive reform and restructuring.
The historical experience of the multinational Soviet Union is
varied and complex and hjelps illuminate contemporary events and
institutions. The histories of the predecessor states of the Soviet
Union -- Kievan Rus', Muscovy, and the Russian Empire--demonstrate
some long-term trends having applicability to the Soviet period:
the predominant role of the East Slavs, particularly the Russians;
the dominance of the state over the individual; territorial
acquisition, which continued sporadically; nationality problems,
which increased as diverse peoples became subjects of the state as
a result of territorial expansion; a general xenophobia, coupled
with admiration for Western ideas and technology and disruptive
sporadic campaigns to adopt them; and cyclical periods of
repression and reform.
The death knell of the Russian Empire came in March 1917, when
the people of Petrograd (present-day Leningrad) rose up in an
unplanned and unorganized protest against the tsarist regime and
continued their efforts until Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. His
government collapsed, leaving power in the hands of an elected
Duma, which formed the Provisional Government. That government was
in turn overthrown in November 1917 by the Bolsheviks, led by
Vladimir I. Lenin. The Bolsheviks (who began calling themselves
Communists in 1918) emerged victorious after a bitterly fought
Civil War (1918-21). They secured their power and in December 1922
established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union),
which included almost all the territory of the former Russian
Empire. The new government prohibited other political organizations
and inaugurated one-party rule, which exerted centralized control
over the political, economic, social, and cultural lives of the
people. Lenin, as head of the party, became the de facto ruler of
the country.
After Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph V. Stalin gradually assumed
supreme power in the party and the state by removing opponents from
influential positions. Stalin ordered the construction of a
socialist economy through the appropriation by the state of private
industrial and agricultural properties. His ruthless policy of
forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture caused
massive human suffering, as did his purge of party members. As the
initiator of the
Great Terror (see Glossary), Stalin also decimated
the economic, social, military, cultural, and religions elites in
the Russian Republic and in some of the non-Russian republics.
Millions of citizens were executed, imprisoned, or starved.
Nevertheless, the Soviet state succeeded in developing an
industrial base of extraordinary dimensions, albeit skewed toward
military and heavy industry rather than consumer needs. Stalin
believed that the rapid development of heavy industry was necessary
to ensure the Soviet Union's survival. His fear of attack led to
the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, enabling
the Soviet Union to acquire the eastern portion of Poland (western
Ukraine), the Baltic states, and Bessarabia but failing to
forestall for long the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union that began
in June 1941. After several crushing military defeats, the Red Army
finally gained the offensive in 1943, expelled the enemy, and, by
1945, had occupied most of Eastern Europe. Although more than 20
million Soviet citizens died as a result of the war, the world was
forced to acknowledge the tremendous power of the Soviet military
forces.
In the postwar period, the Soviet Union converted its military
occupation of the countries of Eastern Europe into political and
economic domination by installing regimes dependent on Moscow. It
also pursued its goal of extending Soviet power abroad. The Western
powers reacted to Soviet expansionism, and thus began the Cold War.
Simultaneously, Stalin rebuilt the devastated Soviet economy while
retaining central planning and the emphasis on heavy industry and
military production rather than satisfying the needs of the
citizens. Suppression of dissent and human rights continued
unabated.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev gradually
became the dominant Soviet leader and, in a dramatic move,
renounced his predecessor's use of terror and repression. He
continued, however, a confrontational foreign policy toward the
West. His attempts at domestic reform, particularly in agriculture,
and his instigation of a missile crisis in Cuba, which almost
launched a nuclear war, contributed to his ouster as party leader
and head of state in 1964. After an extended period of collective
leadership, Leonid I. Brezhnev assumed party and government power
and initiated a foreign policy of détente with the West. He
continued the traditional economic policy of emphasizing heavy
industry and military production over civilian needs.
At the death of Brezhnev in 1982, the political, economic, and
cultural life of the country was controlled by a conservative,
entrenched and aging bureaucracy. Brezhnev's successors, Iurii V.
Andropov and Konstantin U. Chernenko, were in power too briefly
before their deaths to effect lasting change, although Andropov
attempted to initiate some reforms. When Gorbachev was selected
general secretary of the CPSU and head of the Soviet state in 1985,
the deterioration of the Soviet socialist system had nearly reached
crisis proportions. Gorbachev announced that "revolutionary" change
was required to revitalize the country, and he began his programs
of
perestroika,
glasnost' (see Glossary), and
demokratizatsiia.
Gorbachev's efforts at political and economic reform, however,
unleashed a flood of events leading to a profound political crisis
and broad nationality unrest while leaving fundamental economic
problems unresolved. Several of the nationalities having
union republic (see Glossary) status began to seek greater political and
economic autonomy; indeed, some sought complete independence from
the Soviet multinational federation. Longstanding rivalries and
enmities among nationality groups that had been suppressed by
successive Soviet regimes exploded in some areas of the country,
causing loss of life and property. Thus, the authoritarian
socialist system, although undergoing tentative restructuring,
became less capable of effectively responding to societal disorder
and of implementing necessary fundamental change rapidly. In the
1990s, Gorbachev's policy of perestroika offered the people
little in substantive, near-term economic improvement, and his
policies of glasnost' and demokratizatsiia resulted
in rapidly raising their expectations while lessening the regime's
controls over society. As a result, in mid-1991 the Soviet Union
appeared to be a disintegrating federation with a collapsing
economy and a despairing, confused society.
Internationally, the Soviet Union's affairs also appeared to be
in a state of fundamental change. Beginning in late 1989, the
Soviet Union's East European empire crumbled as citizens in
Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and
Romania overthrew their communist dictators with at least the tacit
approval of Gorbachev. Earlier in the year, the people of Poland
and Hungary had overthrown their communist systems. The actions of
the peoples of Eastern Europe led to the dissolution, in May and
June 1991, respectively, of the two Soviet-dominated, multinational
organizations, the Warsaw Pact
(see Soviet Union USSR - Appendix C) and
the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
(Comecon;
see Soviet Union USSR - Appendix B) that had helped bind Eastern Europe to
the Soviet Union. In a collaborative
effort with the United States, Gorbachev met with President George
H.W. Bush at Malta in December 1989 and at Washington in May-June
1990 to effectively end the Cold War and to move toward a
cooperative relationship. In August 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed
the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which required the United
States and the Soviet Union to cut their nuclear weapons within
seven years so that each side would have only 4,900 ballistic
missile nuclear warheads as part of a total of 6,000 "accountable"
warheads. The two countries had been engaged in the Strategic Arms
Reduction Talks (START) since 1982. In another collaborative
effort, the Soviet Union voted with the United States and an
international coalition of nations to oppose the invasion of Kuwait
by Iraq, a nation that had been the recipient of substantial
amounts of Soviet military advice, equipment, and weapons.
It was Gorbachev's
"new thinking" (see Glossary) in foreign
policy that produced the most dramatic and far-reaching results of
his reform efforts. In addition to the significant developments
just mentioned, these included the withdrawal of Soviet armed
forces from Afghanistan; acceptance of national self-determination
for the East European communist countries and a promised complete
withdrawal of Soviet troops from those countries; agreement to a
unified Germany remaining in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO); and the ending of support for Cuban military operations in
Angola. The international community began to regard the Soviet
Union as less menacing and acknowledged that the actions it had
taken contributed substantially to the ending of the Cold War.
Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991 for his
foreign policy initiatives and for their impact on world affairs.
By no means, however, did the Soviet Union abandon its foreign
policy goals. It continued its economic and military support of
some longstanding allies, such as Afghanistan, Cuba, and Vietnam,
as well as Third World client states, although it often chose to
act covertly, in the hope of receiving economic aid from the West.
In 1991 the Soviet economy continued to be beset with serious
problems that had brought the Soviet Union to the point of crisis.
The problems included poor planning by government officials;
inefficient production methods; lack of incentives to boost
efficiency; lack of worker discipline; unemployment,
underemployment, and strikes; shortages of food and consumer goods;
theft of state property; wasteful use of resources; prices
distorted by a lack of market mechanisms; and investments of scarce
funds in projects of dubious value. The system of central planning
and rigid control by Moscow bureaucrats was partially disrupted by
economic problems and the regime's policy of perestroika.
Nevertheless, almost all natural resources, agricultural and
industrial
enterprises (see Glossary), transportation and
communications systems, and financial institutions remained in the
hands of the party-controlled government. In addition, the vast
majority of workers remained, effectively, salaried employees of
the government. Although the 1977 Constitution, as amended and
changed, provided for cooperative or collective ownership of
property, it also stated that the "socialist ownership of the means
of production" was the foundation of the economy, and socialist
ownership remained the preferred form of ownership. The Gorbachev
regime, however, sought to devise a restructuring program that
would enable market forces rather than government planners to make
many economic decisions. Thus, in the early 1990s the economic
reform envisioned by Gorbachev in the late 1980s seemed to be
shifting away from centralized planning to a market-oriented
economy.
Indeed, in 1990 the Supreme Soviet debated several proposals
for economic reform before it, in October of that year, approved
one endorsed by Gorbachev called "Guidelines for the Stabilization
of the Economy and Transition to a Market Economy." This program
saw no alternative to shifting toward a market economy but provided
neither a detailed plan nor a schedule for implementation. It did,
however, establish four phases for the transition: first,
stabilization of the economy and initiation of the privatization of
state-owned enterprises; second, liberalization of prices,
establishment of a safety net for people adversely affected, and
exercise of fiscal restraints over government expenditures; third,
adjustment of the pay scale for workers and institution of housing
and financial reforms; and fourth, as markets stabilized,
transformation of the ruble from being nonconvertible to
convertible, so as to enable Soviet and foreign businesses to
exchange currencies at international rates. Price reform, a key
element of the transition to a market economy, was to be
administered and monitored carefully by central authorities. This
transition was estimated to require two years. An important, but
not easily achieved, requirement for its success was the integrity
of the union and its constituent republics.
In spite of its many economic and political problems, the
Soviet Union had more of the natural and human resources essential
for industrial production than any other country in the world. It
had vast quantities of important minerals and abundant energy
supplies. It also had a very large, technically qualified labor
force and a higher percentage of people working in industry than
most Western nations. Yet, industrial productivity regularly fell
behind planned goals for several reasons. First, raw materials,
including fuels, had become less readily available in the heavily
industrialized and heavily populated European part of the Soviet
Union, while the Asian part of the country, which contained
abundant natural resources, continued to lack an industrial
infrastructure and the stable, skilled labor force necessary to
extract the needed materials. Second, the formidable, and perhaps
impossible, task of uniting materials, energy, and skilled workers
with appropriate industrial enterprises on a timely and cost-
effective basis was the responsibility of the increasingly
bureaucratic central planning agencies that responded to political,
rather than economic, priorities. Third, industrial enterprises,
particularly those engaged in exclusively nondefense production,
were constrained by obsolescent machinery and a lack of innovation.
Producing and distributing food in sufficient quality, variety,
and quantity had eluded the Gorbachev regime, as well as all the
other regimes since the Bolshevik Revolution. Fresh fruits,
vegetables, and meats were in chronically short supply in the
stores owned and operated by the government, and imports of grain
and meat were frequent and necessary. Nevertheless, possessing the
world's most extensive cultivated area, a large agricultural labor
force, considerable investment in machinery, chemical fertilizers,
and irrigation, the Soviet Union had made itself the world's second
largest grower of agricultural commodities and was first in many of
them. The main reason for the anomaly between the high agricultural
potential and the low food availability in the stores was the
centralized administration of agriculture by bureaucratic planners
who had little understanding of local conditions. Other reasons for
the anomaly included the inadequacy of incentives, equipment, and
modern techniques available to farm workers; the cold climate and
uncertain moisture conditions; the failure of the transportation
system to move harvested crops promptly; the lack of adequate
storage facilities; and the paucity of refrigerated transportation.
Massive amounts of foodstuffs simply rotted in the fields or in
storage.
Bypassing the government system, peasant farmers, most of whom
were women, raised about one-fourth of the country's food on their
private plots and then sold their produce privately. The area thus
farmed amounted to about 3 percent of the total cultivated area,
most of which was on
collective farms (see Glossary) and
state farms (see Glossary).
The transportation system, owned and operated by the
government, continued in 1991 to exhibit serious deficiencies,
particularly with respect to its limited capacity, outdated
technologies, and poor maintenance. The main purpose of
transportation in the Soviet Union, as determined by successive
regimes, was to fulfill national economic needs that the party
decided on, rather than to serve the interests of private
businesses or citizens. The structure of the subsidized Soviet
transportation system was greatly affected by the large size,
geographic features, and northern climate of the country. Also, the
distribution of the population and industry (largely in the
European part) and the natural resources (largely in the Asian
part) helped determine the transportation system's structure.
Railroads were the primary mode of transporting freight and
passengers over long distances. Trucks were used mainly in urban
and industrialized areas to transport raw materials from rail lines
and manufactured products to them. Buses were the primary mode of
conveyance for people in urban areas. For the vast majority of
people, automobiles, which numbered only about 12 million, were not
an important means of transportation. Without perceiving a need to
move people or freight long distances on roads, successive Soviet
regimes saw little economic reason to build a modern network of
highways, even in the European part of the country. Roads outside
of cities generally had gravel or dirt surfaces and were poor by
Western standards. For intercity and long-distance travel where
time was a factor, the government airline, Aeroflot, provided low-
cost transportation but had few amenities, and it had a safety
record that concerned many Western passengers.
Foreign trade, which might conceivably contribute to solving
the Soviet Union's economic problems, traditionally played a minor
role. The Soviet government preferred instead to strive for self-
sufficiency in all areas of the economy. With extensive natural
resources, including energy sources, decision makers saw foreign
trade primarily as a device to serve international political
interests. Thus, after World War II the Soviet Union's primary
trading partners were the East European communist countries and
other socialist and socialist-oriented countries. Trade with Third
World countries was also conducted primarily for political rather
than economic reasons and often involved the exchange of Soviet-
made weapons and military equipment for raw materials. Trade with
the West, particularly the United States, varied according to the
political climate and the requirement for
hard-currency (see Glossary) payments. The Soviet Union acquired
hard currency by
selling its minerals, fuels, and gold bullion on the world market,
primarily to the West. In turn, the Soviet Union bought Western
manufactures, especially high-technology items, and agricultural
products, mainly grains. In the late 1980s, Soviet foreign
indebtedness, principally to West European commercial banks, rose
substantially, reaching US$54 billion in 1989, in part because the
price of oil and natural gas, the main hard-currency exports, fell
on the world market. Soviet exports to communist and other
socialist countries consisted primarily of energy, manufactures,
and consumer goods. In mid-1991 increasing hard-currency
indebtedness, decreasing oil production, mounting domestic economic
problems, and a requirement for advanced technology forced
Gorbachev to seek increased participation in international economic
organizations, trade with foreign countries, foreign economic
assistance, and reduction of unprofitable trade with the Soviet
Union's allies. Foreign trade and economic assistance were urgently
needed to make the economy more efficient, as well as to help
improve the standard of living.
The living conditions of the majority of the Soviet people were
more comparable to some Third World countries than to those of an
industrially developed superpower. Even Soviet sources acknowledged
that about 55 million people (approximately 20 percent of the
population) were living below the official poverty level, but some
Western analysts considered that far more people were, in fact,
impoverished. The availability and distribution of food, clothing,
and shelter were controlled by the government, but the supply was
inadequate and generally became worse as the Gorbachev regime
attempted economic reforms.
The cost to Soviet consumers of many essential consumer items
and services was remarkably low compared with the cost of similar
items and services in the West. Soviet prices were set artificially
low by the government, which subsidized the cost of selected items
in an attempt to ensure accessibility by all citizens. The
practical impact of the subsidies, however, was to distort the real
production and distribution costs, reduce the availability of the
items, and inflate the real cost of other items that were not
subsidized. Another impact was to increase the resistance of
citizens to price increases when the regime tried to adjust the
prices of items and services to correspond more closely to the real
costs of their production and distribution.
Many educational benefits were free and guaranteed to the
citizens by the Constitution. Education, mandatory through the
eleventh grade, provided excellent schooling in mathematics,
foreign languages, and the physical sciences. Training in these
fields was offered at universities, which were generally available
to children of the elite, and at institutes, which were available
to students without political connections. Universities and
institutes were excellent by Western standards but tended to be
very narrowly focused. The main purpose of education in the Soviet
Union was to produce socially motivated and technically qualified
people who were able to serve the state-run economy. In 1991
educators were developing reforms for the state-controlled system
that included the privatization of schools.
Medical services were also guaranteed by the Constitution and
enabled government officials to claim that the Soviet Union had the
world's highest number of doctors and hospital beds per capita.
Similar to the purpose of education, the main purpose of medical
care was to ensure a healthy work force for the centrally
controlled economy. Training of health care professionals, although
not as advanced as that in the West, prepared the large numbers of
doctors, the majority of whom were women, and medical assistants to
attend to the basic medical needs of the people, millions of whom
lived in rural or geographically remote areas. Medical care was
free of charge, but to obtain specialized, or sometimes even
routine, medicines or care, ordinary citizens used bribes or
blat (see Glossary). Although hospital care was available
without charge, it was comparable to some Third World countries
because of the lack of modern medical equipment and some medicines
and supplies, such as sterile syringes, and because of poor
sanitation in general. Members of the elite, particularly high-
level party, government, economic, and cultural officials and their
families, were served by a much higher quality health care system
than that available to average citizens.
Soviet society, although officially classless according to
Marxism-Leninism, was divided into four socio-occupational groups
by Western sociologists: peasants and agricultural specialists;
blue-collar workers; white-collar workers; and the party and
government elite and cultural and scientific intelligentsia. Social
status was also affected by the level and field of education, place
of residence, nationality, and party membership and party rank.
High socio-occupational status was generally accompanied by above-
average pay, but more important for the individual, it offered
increased access to scarce consumer goods, and even foreign goods,
as well as social prestige and other perquisites for the individual
and his or her family. The pay of some skilled laborers exceeded
that of many professionals, including teachers, doctors, and
engineers, because Marxism-Leninism exalted manual work. Despite
earning less money, however, professionals generally had higher
social status than manual workers. The pay for many occupations was
set low by government planners, requiring two incomes to maintain
a family's living standard that often was at the poverty level. In
contrast, the members of the elite of Soviet society not only
received substantially higher salaries but also had access to
special food and consumer goods stores, better housing and health
care, and increased educational opportunities.
Women, although according to the Constitution the equal of men,
were treated as if they were of a political, economic, and social
status that was inferior to men. The vast majority of women worked
because of economic necessity, but most often in low-paying
positions. They endured the greater share of the burden of living
in a country where the regime placed superpower military status
above citizens' needs and desires for adequate housing, food,
clothing, and other consumer goods. Crowded living quarters, often
with shared bathrooms and kitchens that usually lacked modern
kitchen appliances made life difficult. Waiting in long lines every
day to purchase food and other essentials was another burden borne
mostly by women, who received little assistance from their spouses
and even less from the male-dominated society and the socialist
regime. Although given some special benefits, including generous
maternity and child care leave by the government, Soviet women were
generally overburdened. As a consequence of the domestic stresses,
the Soviet Union had high rates of abortion, alcoholism, and
divorce, most evident among the Slavic nationalities.
The Soviet Union comprised more than 100 nationalities, twenty-
two of which had populations of over 1 million. The Russian
nationality made up only about 51 percent of the total population,
according to the 1989 census, but the two other East Slavic
nationalities--the Belorussians and the Ukrainians--together
constituted about another 23 percent of the population. Some of the
cultural and linguistic diversity of the Soviet nationalities could
be seen when contrasting the North European heritage of the
Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians with that of the Mongol,
Persian, and Turkic roots of the Central Asian, Kazakhs, Kirgiz,
Tadzhiks, Turkmens, and Uzbeks, all of Soviet Central Asia. The
cultures and languages of the three major nationalities of the
Caucasus region--the Armenians, Azerbaydzhanis, and Georgians--were
significantly different from each other as well as from the other
nationalities. These fourteen nationalities, together with the
Moldavians, each had union republic status. Many other
nationalities were granted "autonomous" status in territorial and
administrative subdivisions (i.e., autonomous republics,
autonomous oblasts, and
autonomous okruga--see Glossary). It should be
noted, however, that despite the semblance of autonomy, real
political and economic power was retained in Moscow, and the
Russians remained, in mid-1991, the dominant nationality in the
political and economic life of the Soviet Union. It should also be
noted that some nationality groups were brought into the Soviet
Union under duress, and others were annexed by force by its
predecessor, the Russian Empire.
Several of the non-Russian nationalities formally objected to
being part of the communist-controlled Soviet Union and had long
viewed Russians as oppressors. In addition, many of the non-Russian
peoples had had serious and longstanding disagreements and
rivalries with neighboring peoples of other nationalities. Partly
as a defense against criticism by non-Russian nationalities,
Russians in some areas began to reassert their own nationality, but
in other areas they felt compelled to leave their homes in some
non-Russian republics because of anti-Russian sentiments.
Successive Soviet regimes, including that of Gorbachev until the
late 1980s, maintained that all peoples of the Soviet Union lived
harmoniously and were content with their circumstances. When
Gorbachev initiated reforms that relaxed the regime's system of
constraints, the latent discontent erupted into disturbances and
violence, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Each nationality, having its own history, language, and
culture, attempted to preserve its distinctive heritage and, in
most cases, was permitted by the government to provide language
instruction for children to that end. Nevertheless, instruction in
Russian was also required, and Russian was the official language of
the Soviet regime, although only a small percentage of non-Russians
spoke and read Russian fluently. The religions of the various
nationalities were almost universally repressed by the official
antireligious policies of successive regimes. Although Gorbachev
authorized the reopening of many churches in 1989 and 1990, most
churches, mosques, and synagogues remained closed, but in mid-1991
religion began playing an increasingly significant role in the
lives of some of the people.
The most important demestic reform put forward by Gorbachev was
demokratizatsiia, the attempt to introduce greater
participation by citizens in the political process. Having risen to
leadership in the Soviet state through the party, Gorbachev
attempted to use the party to implement his reform program, but
with limited success. Since 1917 the party had held, in fact, the
"leading and guiding role in Soviet society," but that role was
formally abolished in March 1991 when the Supreme Soviet, as part
of its program of demokratizatsiia, amended the Constitution
and revised Article 6 to permit other parties to exist. The party
thereby lost the legal basis for its authority over the government,
economy, and society throughout the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s
and early 1990s, even before the constitutional change, the CPSU's
effectiveness in leading the Soviet Union appeared, to most
observers, to have diminished markedly. The party had been unable
to make the Marxist-Leninist system function effectively on a
continuing basis. This systemic failure, however, had not led to a
complete renunciation of the underlying socialist ideology by mid-
1991. This fact led many party members to resign in protest against
the party's failure to promote genuine change, or in acknowledgment
of the declining relevance of the party, or as a renunciation of
Marxism-Leninism as a viable doctrine, or, perhaps, in recognition
of the fact that continued membership could be detrimental to their
future careers.
Among the many prominent party members who had resigned by mid-
1991 were three former Politburo members: Boris N. Yeltsin formerly
also the Moscow party secretary; Eduard A. Shevardnadze, formerly
also the minister of foreign affairs; and Aleksandr N. Iakovlev,
formerly also a member of the CPSU Secretariat. The latter two were
long-term, close advisers to Gorbachev. Yeltsin, however, was
probably the most politically powerful of the former party members.
He had been picked by Gorbachev for the Moscow post in 1985 but
angered the party hierarchy with his outspoken criticism of the
party and was dismissed from both that post and the Politburo in
1987. In a remarkable political comeback, however, Yeltsin was
elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 and in 1990
was elected chairman of the supreme soviet of the Russian Republic,
by far the largest and most important of the fifteen constituent
republics of the Soviet Union. But his most significant victory
came in June 1991, when he was elected to the newly created
position of president of the Russian Republic by a majority of 57
percent of the voters in the Russian Republic in a direct, popular
election. Meanwhile, the popularity of Gorbachev among Soviet
citizens had fallen to less than 10 percent, according to a Soviet
poll. Yeltsin's popularity among citizens of the Russian Republic
was apparently based, in part, on his political agenda, which
included establishing a market economy with private property rights
and denationalizing government-owned enterprises; shifting more
decision-making power from the central authorities to the
republics; and reducing the power of the party, the size of the
armed forces, and the influence of the Committee for State Security
(Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti--KGB). This ambitious agenda
could not be accomplished quickly or easily under the best of
circumstances, and some intellectuals and other Soviet citizens
mistrusted Yeltsin as a leader.
Despite the CPSU's loss of many members--both prominent and
rank-and- file members--and despite its loss of constitutional
exclusivity and its failure to lead the country effectively, the
party remained the Soviet Union's major political force and bastion
of reaction in mid-1991. No longer the monolithic, disciplined
power it had once been and often divided along nationality lines,
the party retained as members, however, a large percentage of the
male population over the age of thirty and having at least ten
years of education, the segment of the population that had
traditionally made the decisions and managed the affairs of the
country. They and the party as a whole appeared to give Gorbachev
their support. The party's de facto power appeared strong in the
central government bureaucracy, in most city governments, in some
republic governments, and in many administrative subdivisions but
was weak in certain other republics and administrative
subdivisions. Party members generally remained in charge of the
Soviet government's controlled economy from the central planning
organs and the military-industrial complex to the individual
enterprises. And party members remained in positions of
responsibility in the transportation, communications, agriculture,
education, mass media, legal, and judicial systems. The party's
power was weakest among the non-Russian nationalities, where some
party leaders were prompted to advocate national sovereignty in an
effort to maintain their positions. Significantly, the party was
strongest among the leadership of the armed forces, the KGB, and
the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del--
MVD). These organs of party power--and their predecessor
organizations--had been used to maintain the party's preeminence
since the Bolshevik Revolution, and in mid-1991 the party continued
to use them.
During the late 1980s, the popular elections that Gorbachev had
instigated produced revitalized legislative bodies that could
compete with the party for power at the all-union, republic, and
lower levels of government. These elections spurred millions of
ordinary citizens to become more politically involved than they had
ever been and prompted many of their elected representatives to
challenge party officials and other central authorities.
Politically active individuals, including CPSU members, former
prisoners in the
Gulag (see Glossary), and citizens motivated by a
variety of concerns created or joined disparate political action
groups. For the most part, these groups represented liberal and
democratic viewpoints, particularly in urban areas such as Moscow
and Leningrad, or national interests in the non-Russian republics
and administrative subdivisions. But conservative, reactionary, and
pro-Russian groups also sprang up. The various liberal groups often
opposed the CPSU and the central authorities but lacked positive,
unifying goals and programs, as well as practical experience in
democracy's way of coalition building, compromise, and the rule of
law. They struggled to form political parties with broadened
geographical and popular bases. But without the extraordinary
financing, organization, communications, and material support
retained by the CPSU, the emergent political groups found the
competition especially difficult. Leaders in all fifteen republics
asserted the precedence of their republics' laws over those of the
central government and demanded control over their own natural
resources, agricultural products, and industrial output.
Leaders of several republics proclaimed complete independence,
national sovereignty, and separation from the Soviet Union. Within
many of the republics, however, officials of various minority
nationalities in administrative subdivisions sometimes proclaimed
their subdivision's independence from their republics or passed
laws contradictory to the laws of higher legislative or executive
bodies. Hence the Constitution, Gorbachev's decrees, and laws
passed by the Supreme Soviet, by the supreme soviets of the
republics, or by the
soviets (see Glossary) of the various
subdivisions were often disobeyed with impunity.
This so-called "war of laws" among the legislative and
executive bodies at various levels contributed to the forging of an
agreement between Gorbachev and the leaders of nine of the fifteen
republics in April 1991. This agreement, which Yeltsin, played a
key role in formulating, promised that the central government would
permit the republics to have more economic and political autonomy
and that the republics would fulfill their economic and financial
obligations to Moscow. At the time of the agreement, Gorbachev and
Yeltsin and the eight other republic leaders endorsed, in
principle, a revised draft of a new treaty, which would in effect
reestablish the Soviet Union on a different basis from the original
union treaty of 1922. The republics that did not sign the agreement
were to be excluded from its provisions.
The six republics refusing to join the agreement between
Gorbachev and the nine republics were the Armenian, Estonian,
Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Moldavian republics. In these
republics, the people had elected to their republic legislatures
representatives who, for the most part, were not CPSU members but
rather were advocates of the primacy of their nationality vis-à-vis
the central regime in Moscow. The leaders of these republics
indicated that they did not wish to be part of the Soviet Union and
were attempting to sever their political ties with it and establish
themselves as independent countries. The six republics together
constituted about 1.4 percent of the territory and about 7.2
percent of the population of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the Gorbachev regime continued its efforts to
finalize a new union treaty that would replace the 1922 union
treaty. During 1990 the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics
elected noncommunist governments. The elected representatives voted
for independence from the Soviet Union and sought the same
independent status that they had had before being absorbed into the
Soviet Union in 1940. (It should be noted that the United States
never recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania into the Soviet Union.) Gorbachev and the Supreme Soviet
did not recognize the independence of the three Baltic states, and
the Soviet armed forces were employed to disrupt their independence
drives. It is likely that separation of the three republics was
also hindered, in part, because their economies were closely
intertwined with those of the other republics, particularly with
that of the Russian Republic.
In March 1990, the regime created the office of the presidency
in accordance with changes in the Constitution. The president and
vice president were supposed to be elected by direct popular vote,
but, by special exception, Gorbachev and Gennadii I. Ianaev were
elected as the first president and vice president, respectively, by
vote of the Congress of People's Deputies. The president, who could
serve a maximum of two five-year terms, was authorized by the
changes in the Constitution to appoint and remove high-level
government officials; veto laws and suspend orders of the Council
of Ministers; and declare martial law or a state of emergency,
subject to approval by a two-thirds majority of the Supreme Soviet.
Also created in 1990 were two organizations designed to support
the presidency. The new Presidential Council was given
responsibility for implementing foreign and domestic policies and
for ensuring the country's security. The new Council of the
Federation, which was headed by the president of the Soviet Union
and consisted also of the "supreme state official from each of the
fifteen constituent republics," had duties that included developing
ways to implement a nationalities policy, recommending to the
Supreme Soviet solutions for interethnic problems, and ensuring
that the union republics complied with international treaties. The
creation of the presidency with its two supporting bodies was seen
by some Western observers as helping Gorbachev to provide his
regime with a renewed political power that was based on
constitutionally established government organs rather than on the
CPSU, the traditional source of political power.
In November 1990, Gorbachev proposed the establishment of
several other new bodies (all directly subordinate to him) designed
to strengthen the executive branch of the government. The new
bodies included the Cabinet of Ministers (replacing the Council of
Ministers), the Security Council, and the Coordinating Agency for
the Supervision of Law and Order. The Presidential Council was
dissolved, and its functions were given to the Council of the
Federation, which was designated the chief policy-making organ in
the country. These administrative changes appeared to some analysts
to be an attempt by Gorbachev to recover the authority and control
that his regime had lost during conflicts with several secessionist
republics, as well as during disputes with radical and conservative
opponents of his reforms. Gorbachev was, in the view of some
analysts, also attempting to counter calls for his resignation for
failing to initiate and implement measures that would cure the
country's economic and political ills.
One of Gorbachev's main instruments in his attempt to improve
the country's condition was his policy of glasnost'. Through
this policy he used the mass media to arouse the people who would
help change the way the bureaucratic system functioned. He and all
prior leaders of the Soviet Union had used the mass media and
artistic expression to help govern the people and direct the
society's course. Politicizing the mass media and the arts served
not only to secure the regime's power but also furthered the role
of the CPSU and the dominance of
Marxism-Leninism (see Glossary) in
the social, cultural, and economic life of the country. In the late
1980s, however, Soviet mass media and the arts became part of the
revolution in information technologies that swept the globe and
could not be sealed off from the Soviet Union. The regime needed
those same technologies to compete with the West and to prevent
falling further behind economically and technologically.
In the late 1980s, the regimes, first that of Andropov and then
that of Gorbachev, relaxed their monopoly on the press and modern
communications technology and eased the strictures of
socialist realism (see Glossary), thus permitting open discussion of many
themes previously prohibited. The implementation of the policy of
glasnost' made much more information about government
activities, past and present, accessible to ordinary citizens, who
then criticized not only the government but also the CPSU and even
Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state. Editors, journalists, and
other writers transformed newspapers, journals, and television
broadcasts into media for investigative reports and lively
discussions of a wide variety of subjects that had been heavily
censored before glasnost'. The works of previously banned
writers, including Joseph Brodsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, both
exiled winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and such exiled
authors as Vasilii Aksionov and Vladimir Voinovich, were published
in the Soviet Union. Thus, the regime began to lose control of the
policy of glasnost', and the censors began to lose control
of the mass media. In June 1990, the Supreme Soviet passed a law
that purportedly sanctioned freedom of the press, but later that
year the regime began again to restrict news reporting,
particularly on radio and television. Still, in mid-1991 the mass
media continued to offer interesting news and diverse viewpoints--
although some less independent and revelatory than they had been in
the late 1980s--that were eagerly followed by the people.
Another result a side effect of Gorbachev's policy of
glasnost' was the exposure and public discussion of the
severe degradation and official neglect of the environment that had
been perpetuated by successive regimes in the drive to achieve
industrial and national security goals at any price. Rivers were
diverted with little regard for the consequences, and industrial
pollutants were discharged directly into rivers, lakes, and the
air. Two of the twentieth century's worst man-made environmental
disasters struck the Soviet Union: the Chernobyl' nuclear power
plant accident, the consequence of from an insufficient regard for
safety in the goal to obtain increased energy; and the loss of huge
amounts of water from the Aral Sea. Although the death toll from
the Chernobyl' accident in 1986 was initially low, millions of
people continued to live on radioactive land and raise and consume
contaminated food. In addition to the human costs, cleaning up and
repairing the aftereffects of the accident, which continued to leak
radioactive gases in 1991, were estimated to cost hundreds of
billions of
rubles (see Glossary) by the year 2000. The other major
environmental disaster was the near destruction of the Aral Sea,
whose main sources of water were diverted to irrigate arid land for
the purpose of raising cotton and other crops beginning in 1960.
Other environmental problems included the severe pollution of
rivers and lakes and widespread air pollution, particularly in the
European part of the Soviet Union.
In the late 1980s, environmental concern spurred the formation
of genuine grass-roots ecology groups that pressed the authorities
to remedy the harmful conditions. Often these groups were supported
by or were merged with nationality groups advocating increased
self-determination or independence but nevertheless had little
political power. Despite the efforts of the grass-roots groups,
resolving the Soviet Union's many environmental problems, in the
view of many Western specialists, will be costly and long-term. The
Gorbachev regime as of mid-1991 had not redirected its economic
policies regarding industrial and agricultural production, resource
extraction, and consumption to provide adequate protection for the
environment.
Another effect of glasnost' was the official
acknowledgment of past civil and human rights abuses and the marked
improvement in people's rights during Gorbachev's regime. The
advancement of civil and human rights for the people of the Soviet
Union was courageously sought by Andrei Sakharov, a winner of the
Nobel Prize for Peace in 1975, who moved from internal exile in
Gor'kiy to membership in the Congress of People's Deputies in
Moscow before his death in December 1989. Freedom of speech and the
press grew enormously after censorship was officially abolished.
Freedom to assemble peacefully for political purposes, with or
without government authorization, was tested frequently, generally
without serious incident. (In January 1991, however, armed Soviet
troops on two different occasions reportedly killed or wounded
several dozen unarmed demonstrators occupying buildings in the
Latvian and Lithuanian republics.) Political rights of individuals
were enhanced when the Supreme Soviet approved legal authority for
a multiparty system. But in 1991 the emerging political groups were
too fragmented and weak to seriously challenge the power of the
CPSU except in cities such as Leningrad and Moscow and in several
of the republics' legislatures. In 1990 the regime expanded the
right of citizens to emigrate. About 180,000 Jews departed for
Israel, 150,000 Germans departed for a united Germany, and about
55,000 citizens emigrated to the United States. And, finally,
independent trade unions were allowed to form, and strikes, made
legal in 1989, were permitted by the regime, even one involving
over 600,000 miners in several areas of the Soviet Union in 1990.
In the late 1980s, the Gorbachev regime released many prisoners
of conscience (persons imprisoned for their political or religious
beliefs) from imprisonment in the Gulag, from internal exile, and
from psychiatric hospitals. Although authorities could still
legally detain and arrest people without warrants, political
killings, disappearances, or psychiatric hospitalizations for
political or religious beliefs were rare. Nevertheless, human
rights practices in the Soviet Union remained in transition in
1991.
Of major concern to successive Soviet regimes was the system of
internal security, which in 1991 consisted primarily of the KGB and
the MVD. They had been powerful tools for ferreting out and
suppressing political and other internal threats to rule by the
CPSU. The party always considered the KGB its most vital arm and
maintained the closest supervision and control over it. The party
controlled the KGB and MVD by approving personnel appointments
through the
nomenklatura (see Glossary) system and by
exercising general oversight to ensure that party directives were
followed. Party control was also exerted specifically and
individually because all KGB officers and the majority of MVD
officers were members of the CPSU. Party membership subjected them
to the norms of
democratic centralism (see Glossary) and party
discipline.
Internal security forces, particularly the KGB, had broad
authority to employ severe and sometimes violent methods against
the Soviet people while enforcing the regime's directives and
thereby preserving the party's dominant role in the Soviet Union.
In mid-1991 the KGB, under Vladimir A. Kriuchkov, and the MVD,
under Boris K. Pugo beginning in October 1990, continued to give
their loyalty and substantial support to the party. Thus, the
internal security organs continued to oppose radical change and
remained a significant, and perhaps immobilizing, threat to some
citizens advocating substantial economic and political reform. At
the same time, the internal security organs, particularly the KGB,
continued to take advantage of the party's need for their vital
support by exerting influence on the party's policies and the
regime's decisions.
Like the KGB and MVD, the armed forces traditionally were loyal
to the party and beneficiaries of the party's decisions. Control of
the armed forces by the party was exercised primarily through the
military leaders, the overwhelming majority of whom were loyal
party members and followers of Marxism-Leninism. The armed forces
were controlled by the party through networks of uniformed party
representatives and covert informers who reported to the CPSU. Most
of the middle and junior grade officers, although probably members
of the CPSU or its youth affiliate, the
Komsomol (see Glossary),
were, in the view of some Western observers, less bound to party
doctrine than were the senior military leaders. The vast majority
of the military rank and file, however, were not affiliated with
the party and resented the covert informers in their midst and the
political indoctrination they endured.
The Soviet Union's military establishment was the justification
for its international ranking as a superpower. With the world's
largest military establishment--nearly 6 million people in uniform
and a large arsenal of nuclear missiles--the Soviet Union's
superpower status appeared justified on a military, if not on an
economic, basis. The military establishment consisted not only of
the armed forces but also of the internal security forces and an
extensive military-industrial complex, all of which had priority
use of human and economic resources. Decisions regarding the use of
most human and material economic resources continued to be made by
party members. The majority of the citizens, however, were
dissatisfied with the party's decision-making role and were not in
favor of Gorbachev's reform efforts. But the majority of people
were not allowed to choose alternative national leadership and
appeared unwilling to exert their influence to radically change the
course of events out of fear of the armed forces, and perhaps of
civil war.
The armed forces consisted of the five armed services
(Strategic Rocket Forces, Ground Forces, Air Forces, Air Defense
Forces, and Naval Forces), extensive support and rear service
organizations, and specialized and paramilitary forces, such as the
Airborne Troops, the Internal Troops of the MVD, and the Border
Troops of the KGB. The Internal Troops and the Border Troops had
military equipment, organization, training, and missions. The most
strategically significant of the five armed services were the
Strategic Rocket Forces, whose main purpose was to attack an
opponent's nuclear weapons, military facilities, and industry with
nuclear missiles. The Ground Forces, the largest and most
prestigious of the armed services, were also important, in part
because the senior officers typically held high-level positions in
the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
Of the five armed services, the Strategic Rocket Forces in mid-1991
maintained the capability of destroying targets in the United
States and elsewhere, and the Ground Forces continued to have the
world's largest numbers of tanks, artillery pieces and tactical
nuclear weapons.
The armed forces were not without internal problems, however.
The combat losses sustained in Afghanistan and the withdrawal
without victory had a profound effect on the armed forces and
tarnished their image in the eyes of the party and the society as
a whole. The armed forces were also disturbed by mounting
nationality problems, including the refusal of many non-Russian
conscripts to report for induction, the continuing interethnic
conflicts among conscripts, and the demographic trend in which non-
Russians are likely to outnumber Russians in the biannual conscript
inductions. The Soviet armed forces also lacked a well-trained,
experienced, and stable noncommissioned officer corps, such as that
forming the basis of many Western armies. Gorbachev's announcement
in 1988 of a unilateral reduction of 500,000 officers and men from
the armed forces and his announced cutbacks in the armed forces'
share of the government budget were not received with enthusiasm by
the military hierarchy.
The doctrine, structure, and missions of the Soviet armed
forces were based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism. One of these
theories rested on the principle, formulated by the nineteenth-
century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, that war is
a continuation of politics and that the aim of war is the
attainment of a military victory. Marzism-Leninism added that
military victories can accelerate the victory of socialism
throughout the world. Marxism-Leninism also provided the
theoretical basis for Soviet military science and for the tactical
operations of military units. In practice, Marxism-Leninism was
interpreted and applied solely by the CPSU, whose leaders were
party members and indoctrinated followers of Marxism-Leninism.
Thus, when Gorbachev characterized Marxism-Leninism as an outdated
dogma in July 1991 and called on the CPSU Central Committee to
abandon it in favor of social democratic principles, military
leaders probably were surprised and dismayed.
Under the direction of the party, the armed forces were
organized and equipped mainly to accomplish offensive missions, the
success of which were indispensable to victory in war. Although
Soviet military doctrine was always defensive, according to Soviet
leaders, Western specialists regarded it as offensive in emphasis
because it stressed offensive strategy, weapons, and forces to
achieve victory in war. As directed by Gorbachev, however, military
leaders emphasized the defensive aspects of the doctrine. Gorbachev
also directed that the military establishment adopt the doctrine of
"reasonable sufficiency," new to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, to
facilitate the conversion of portions of the military industrial
complex to support civilian, consumer-oriented requirements.
With the apparent support of the armed forces, the internal
security organs, and the governmental economic bureaucracies, the
CPSU continued its efforts to control events in the country in mid-
1991. Despite its problem-plagued economy and society and its
altered international situation, the Soviet Union remained one of
the two most powerful countries in the world. Its size and
location, natural resources, industrial capacity, population, and
military strength made it of continuing importance. Having large
quantities of almost all the strategic minerals and large reserves
of coal, iron ore, natural gas, oil, timber, gold, manganese, and
other resources, the Soviet Union required little material support
from beyond its borders. It was self-sufficient in coal, natural
gas, and oil, the major fuels needed for its extensive industry.
Industrial development had been a keystone of economic policies of
all Soviet regimes beginning with the Bolshevik Revolution and had
resulted in a higher percentage of Soviet citizens working in
industry than in most Western nations. Soviet industrial
development, however, always favored heavy industry, for reasons of
national security and military production. Light industry, which
mainly produced goods for consumers other than nonmilitary needs,
such as agriculture, always had low priority. The emphasis on heavy
industry produced some spectacular successes, particularly with
regard to the production of large quantities of military equipment
and weapons systems. As a result of this emphasis, however, the
Soviet people had to settle for food, clothing, and housing of
generally poor quality and insufficient quantity.
In mid-1991 the people gave the Gorbachev regime only minimal
support and were beginning to reject the party's right to rule the
Soviet Union. Gorbachev, however, continued to proclaim himself a
communist and to align himself with opponents of reform on some
issues but with advocates of reform on other issues. He thus lost
the support of almost all the democratic and market- oriented
reformers and remained acceptable to the hard-line opponents of
reform mainly because they lacked an alternative leader. Gorbachev
apparently could not permanently join either the reformers or their
opponents, but neither could he allow either group to gain
continuing supremacy because his role as the arbiter of conflicting
views would be unnecessary. His zigzags perhaps enabled him to
remain in a position of power, but he continued to lose
effectiveness as the director of major events in the country and
therefore his relevance as a leader and reformer. His six years of
historic political reform opened the Soviet Union to fundamental
change. The reform effort, however, was not accompanied by
significant changes in the party's ideology or the government's
structure, and the irresolute and sporadic attempts to transform
the centrally controlled economy into a market-based system had had
little real success. Meanwhile, the country continued in its
chaotic turmoil as the economy worsened, the regime became weaker,
and several of the republics became more insistent on their
national independence. The Soviet Union remained in flux and
unpredictable.
August 16, 1991
* * *
Early in the morning of August 19, 1991, events began to occur
that would have the greatest historical impact on the Soviet Union
since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, according to George F.
Kennan, one of America's foremost Soviet specialists. They began
when Soviet radio television and broadcasts announced that
Gorbachev, who was vacationing in Crimea, had been replaced by a
committee of high-ranking party and government officials because
"ill-health" prevented him from performing his presidential duties
at a time when the country faced "fatal dangers." The officials,
who called themselves the Committee for the State of Emergency,
placed themselves in charge of the country and put Gorbachev under
house arrest. The committee was headed by the vice president of the
Soviet Union, Gennadii I. Ianaev, who was named acting president,
and included the chairman of the KGB, Vladimir A. Kriuchkov; the
minister of internal affairs, Boris Pugo; the minister of defense,
Dmitrii T. Iazov; and chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers,
Valentin Pavlov. Anatolii I. Luk'ianov, the chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, supported the committee, as did
other CPSU leaders in the government, armed forces, internal
security forces, and military-industrial complex. The committee
issued several decrees that suspended democratic political
organizations; promised housing improvements and the freezing or
reduction of prices on some food items; banned publication of
several newspapers and journals; forbade labor strikes and public
gatherings; and declared martial law in Moscow. In an appeal to the
people, Ianaev pledged to ensure the territorial integrity of the
Soviet Union and indicated that the new union treaty, which was
scheduled to be signed on August 20, would be reevaluated before
final acceptance. In an appeal to foreign leaders, Ianaev stated
that treaties and other international agreements signed by the
Soviet Union would be upheld by the committee, but he warned
against attempts by foreign governments to change Soviet
boundaries.
The announcements by the leaders of the coup d'état brought
immediate reactions, mostly negative. In Moscow crowds of people
protested in the streets and eventually confronted tanks of the
armed forces in defense of the building housing the Russian
Republic's supreme soviet. Tens of thousands of people rallied
around Yeltsin, who urged them to continue resisting the coup and
asked the troops not to fire on fellow citizens. Masses of people
in many other Soviet cities demonstrated against the coup, and
leaders of most of the republics denounced the coup. On the second
day of the coup, three people were killed attempting to defend the
supreme soviet building against tanks. Soviet troops occupied radio
and television facilities in the Estonian and Lithuanian republics,
and the Estonian and Lithuanian legislatures declared immediate
secession from the Soviet Union. President Bush and other foreign
leaders voiced strong opposition to the coup, which they termed
"illegal," and called for the organizers to restore Gorbachev to
power.
Firm opposition from the Soviet people, Yeltsin and other
republic leaders, and international figures was not the only
problem facing the initiators of the coup. Some of the armed forces
defected to the opposition, and some others--for examples, General
Evgenii Shaposhnikov, commander in chief of the Air Forces, and
General Powel Grachev, commander of the Airborne Troops--refused to
obey the orders to deploy. Many other military leaders, as well as
many senior members of the party, government, and media, apparently
took no overt stand but waited to see if the coup was likely to
succeed.
Early on the third day, the coup collapsed. The committee
disbanded and the Ministry of Defense directed all troops to leave
Moscow. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union formally reinstated
Gorbachev as president, and he returned to Moscow from Crimea. He
returned to find that the political environment in Moscow and in
many other places in the Soviet Union was radically different from
the one that had existed before the coup attempt. At the urging of
Yeltsin, Gorbachev, who had originally replaced coup members with
their close subordinates appointed persons more acceptable to the
reformers. Shaposhnikov was appointed minister of defense, Vadim V.
Bakatin the chairman of the KGB, and Viktor Barannikov the minister
of internal affairs.
The failed coup and the events immediately following it
represented a historic turning point for many reasons. The CPSU,
which was a main bond linking the coup leaders, was seriously
discredited and, with it, the party-dominated central government.
Splits in the party deepened, throwing it further into disarray,
and the party was banned by leaders in several republics. The
position of conservative and reactionary leaders, who were mainly
party members, was weakened relative to that of the advocates of
substantial political and economic reform. In addition, Gorbachev,
who had appointed or approved the appointment of the coup leaders
and failed to forestall the coup, was diminished politically.
Although he rejected collaborating with the coup leaders Gorbachev,
fully advocated neither democracy nor a free-market economy and was
viewed by many observers as a figure of mainly historical
importance. Yeltsin, who had publicly defied the coup leaders,
rallied the people to resist, and faced the tanks, used his
position as the popularly elected president of the Russian Republic
and his forceful personality to change the course of events. He
altered Gorbachev's appointments, made economic and political
agreements affecting the whole country, and revised the proposed
new union treaty.
Although the precise roles that the armed forces, KGB, and MVD
took during the coup were unclear, some of these organs failed to
respond to manipulation by the party
apparatchiks (see Glossary).
Some elements of the armed services, for example, opted not to
support the coup. The vast majority of the armed forces, KGB, and
MVD, however, were not actively involved in the coup and therefore
did not attempt to influence the course of events. These organs
traditionally had opposed change, and their considerable power
remained available for commitment in a future struggle. The
positions of the nationalities seeking independence sovereignty,
and secession was also strengthened as a result of the failure of
the coup. Ten of the fifteen republics declared or reaffirmed their
independence. The United States, as well as the European Community,
recognized Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as separate and
independent states. Finally, advocates of reform, in general, and
democratic reform, in particular, were seen as ascendant by some
Western observers, as a result of the coup. But perhaps equally as
important, the advocates began to include not only members of the
intelligentsia but also tens of thousands of ordinary citizens.
Their activism helped defeat the coup, and it is possible they will
be encouraged to participate in the democratic movement and thus
help alter their political condition.
On September 5, 1991, another effect of the coup's failure
occurred: the Congress of People's Deputies after an ultimatum by
Gorbachev, dissolved both itself and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, after voting to transfer state power to a transitional
government. The transitional government, which was largely
controlled by the republics, was designed to rule until a new
constitution and a new union treaty could be prepared and approved.
It consisted of the State Council, a new bicameral Supreme Soviet,
and the Interrepublican Economic Committee. The State Council, with
Gorbachev as the head, had as members the leaders of the republics
participating in the new "voluntary" union. The State Council acted
as the collective executive, and its responsibilities included
foreign affairs, national defense, and internal security. The
Interrepublican Economic Committee, with members chosen by the
republics, was responsible for coordinating the economic relations
of the republics and the management of the national economy.
Gorbachev chose the committee chairman with approval of the State
Council. In one of its first acts, the State Council recognized the
complete independence of the former Estonian, Latvian, and
Lithuanian republics.
By successfully instituting a transitional government,
Gorbachev once again displayed his masterful talent for tactical
improvisation and political survival. Nevertheless, the political
situation in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was
unstable, and the economy continued to worsen. Most of the people,
having persevered through years of harsh authoritarian rule, were
not optimistic about their future.
September 7, 1991
Raymond E. Zickel
Data as of May 1989
|
