The collapse of the Soviet system and the memoir literature

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 49, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 259-279

  Ellman, Michael ^a   Kontorovich, Vladimir ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0004431794     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668139708412439     Document Type: Article

References (126)

1. A number of papers based on interviews have already appeared. See for example Lane (1996). White et al. (1996).
2. Examples of destruction of primary records are that on 27 August 1991 Gorbachev's wife burned their old letters (Grachev, 1994a, pp. 223-224) and in the winter of 1991-1992 Gorbachev destroyed some of his notebooks (Gorbachev, 1995b, p. 275).
3. Ligachev also substantially qualifies El'tsin's account of the choice of Gorbachev as party leader (Ligachev, 1992, pp. 28-29 and 57-67).
4. The minutes of the meeting (Istochnik, 1993,0) confirm this. The minutes also suggest how this confusion may have arisen. They appear to conflate the two meetings and record them as if they were one. (This illustrates one of the weaknesses of reliance on archives as a method of historical research - the events recorded in the archives may never have taken place as recorded. It also emphasises the value of combining memoirs and contemporary official minutes in an integrated account of what took place.) For a popular, and very verbose, discussion by a former insider of the limitations of archival research for understanding Soviet history, see Pechenev (1996, pp. 3-22).
5. This applies, for example, to the Politburo meetings of 4 December 1986, 29 January 1990 and 2 March 1990. For details see below.
6. The version of the memoirs of former KGB general Kalugin which has appeared in the West is explicitly stated to have been 'adapted to the tastes of local readers' (Kalugin, 1995, p. 6).
7. N. K. Baibakov, the chairman of Gosplan, wrote a Note of Dissent to the Kirillin report of December 1979 (Latsis, 1993).
8. This belies the widespread view that 15 years at the helm of the KGB made Andropov extremely well informed about the country's problems (e.g. Ryzhkov, 1992, p. 43). According to Kryuchkov (1996a, p. 42), Andropov regarded himself as an ignoramus on economic matters.
9. Gorbachev started his own teach-ins with top government and academic economists even earlier (Boldin, 1994, pp. 36-37).
10. That Soviet military thinkers were 'paranoid' about SDI is confirmed by Sagdeev (1994, p. 307).
11. One source sets military expenditure at 34-36% of NMP, while another gives it as 8% of the GDP or 11% of the NMP in 1984. Yet another argues that the real level of military expenditure in the Brezhnev period is unknown (Pavlov, 1993, p. 15: Akhromeev & Kornienko, 1992, p. 17; Yakovlev, 1994, pp. 195, 288).
12. Maslyukov (1995), currently one of the leaders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, argues that 'the country needed reforms'. He also states that it had been desirable to end the cold war and political repression. See also Ryzhkov (1994; 1995, pp. 80, 540), Afanaseev (1994, p. 65) or Kryuchkov (1996a, pp. 273, 286).
13. In 1985 'the "elite" could and was determined to rule further, and the "masses", with the exception of a comparatively small group of the intelligentsia, did not dream of a change of system, which became very clear during subsequent events' (Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 11).
14. This has been corroborated by a number of people who were close to him (Gorbachev, 1995b, chapter 8; Kalugin, 1995, pp. 248-250; Katushev, 1993, p. 148; Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 34; Grishin, 1994; Kalgin, 1994; Grishin, 1996, p. 61).
15. This opinion is shared by Chazov (1992, p. 173) and Kryuchkov (1996b, p. 293). Other memoirists stress that Andropov would never have endangered the role of the party in society. One source maintains that Andropov did aim at significant democratisation and pluralisation of Soviet political and cultural life, but only about 15-20 years in the future, by which time he hoped that Soviet economic problems would have been overcome by successful economic reform (Grachev, 1994b, pp. 84-85).
16. Kunaev (1992, p. 239) paints a positive picture of both Andropov as General Secretary and of Shelepin. He criticises Shelepin's transfer from the Politburo and Council of Ministers to minor posts and subsequent retirement. He repeats his positive evaluation of Shelepin in Kunaev (1994, p. 257).
17. Akhromeev & Kornienko, 1992, p. 306; Boldin, 1994, p. 112 and Boldin, 1995, p. 152; Dobrynin, 1995, p. 637; and Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 13.
18. The word 'socialist' is used in this article in the Soviet sense.
19. Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 18. See also Kozyrev, 1995, p. 161.
20. Apparently, Gorbachev's Foreign Affairs Minister Shevardnadze considered cancelling Thatcher's visit to Moscow because of her speech attacking socialism (Zamyatin, 1995, p. 46).
21. See Gerschenkron (1971, pp. 287) on the flexibility of ideology.
22. This had not always been his position. In the late 1960s he seems to have been an adherent of the Shelepin faction (Aleksandrov-Agentov, 1994, p. 256).
23. '1937' in the USSR referred to the Stalinist mass terror.
24. The decision to proceed with economic and political reforms simultaneously is commonly seen as Gorbachev's main mistake by his opponents (Akhromeev & Kornienko, 1992, pp. 313-314; Kunaev, 1992, p. 295).
25. In May 1989 Gorbachev told Zhao Ziyang that Soviet experience showed that without political reform economic reform was impossible, since the old political forces would derail it (Gorbachev, 1995c, pp. 443-444). He said the same to Li Peng in April 1990 (Gorbachev, 1995c, p. 452).
26. Repeated in Yakovlev, 1994, p. 253. See also Vorotnikov, 1996, and Medvedev in Istoricheskie..., p. 125.
27. In the USSR, the word 'vigilance' always referred to the activities of the KGB.
28. In November 1985 Gorbachev himself described strengthening defence as 'the holy of holies' (Vorotnikov, 1995, p. 79).
29. See Kurtzweg, 1987, p. 151.
30. In the Brezhnev period, apart from the General Secretary himself and the Minister of Defence, only two members of the Politburo were also members of the Supreme Defence Council, the Foreign Minister (Gromyko) and the head of the KGB (Andropov). (The Supreme Defence Council and the Supreme Military Council seem to be the same body.) (Dobrynin, 1995, p. 234).
31. A former CC official attaches great importance to the Afghan factor in destabilising the Soviet system (Grachev, 1994b, pp. 66-67).
32. Chernyaev confirms that Gorbachev took the Rust affair very seriously (Chernyaev, 1993, pp. 156-161).
33. This is supported by Dobrynin, 1995, pp. 624-626.
34. In the USSR, the word 'nationalism' had very negative associations. (The corresponding 'positive' word was 'patriotism'.)
35. Although it is more in the nature of theorising than direct observation, it is interesting to note that two former senior Soviet officials - Akhromeev & Kornienko (1992, p. 313) - argued that the rewriting of article 6 (this was the article which legalised the one-party system) of the USSR constitution in 1990 deprived the centre of a very important means of control over the republics. This led to conflicts between the republics and the centre and the republics themselves which had serious adverse economic consequences. Akhromeev & Kornienko argue that these conflicts were not mainly a result of problems inherited from the past: 'the chief reason for what took place was the mistakes of the leadership in the period since 1985'.
36. The memoirs of some Western diplomats and politicians active in 1985-91 have been published and these can be checked against the Soviet memoirs to get a fuller picture.
37. Pravda, 7 June 1995. In his memoirs he writes that in the 1970s understood that to initiate changes in our country was only possible from above. To a considerable extent this determined my attitude to the proposal to transfer [from Stavropol] to work in the CC of the CPSU' (Gorbachev, 1995b, p. 170).
38. Gorbachev states that from the very beginning of his rule he aimed to subject his absolute power to democratic control (Gorbachev, 1995c, p. 626). This self-congratulatory remark lacks independent confirmation.
39. Chernyaev is characterised as Gorbachev's 'faithful and most reliable' assistant, his 'alter ego' (Grachev, 1994a, p. 241).
40. Chernyaev, 1993, p. 71; Gorbachev, 1995b, pp. 293, 379-380; Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 13.
41. Shakhnazarov, 1993, p. 191; confirmed by Petrakov, 1995.
42. The last part of this quotation, which explicitly draws attention to the unintended nature of the collapse of the USSR, is not in the English edition (Boldin, 1994, p. 238). Further on in the Russian edition Boldin partially qualifies his support for the 'unintended consequences' interpretation. He writes; 'Speaking about the mistakes of the General Secretary, his hasty steps and insufficiently thought out decisions, I start out from the position that the mistakes made by Gorbachev were a result of his character, of his sympathy or antipathy for one or another party, economic or state leader. But I cannot guarantee that they were not planned actions, consciously designed to undermine the party and state' (Boldin, 1995, p. 423). These sentences too are not in the English edition (Boldin, 1994, pp. 286-287).
43. Two groups argue that the Soviet collapse was deliberately engineered. One, including former top officers of the KGB, maintains that the CIA used its 'agents of influence' in the Soviet leadership to destroy the Soviet system (Kryuchkov in Prokhanov, 1995 and in Kryuchkov, 1996a and 1996b; Bobkov, 1995, p. 370). Sometimes a masonic plot is added to this scenario (Valovoi, 1993, pp. 134-135). Another group consists of more respectable authors interweaving innuendo with factual narrative that often directly contradicts their own dark hints. These include Boldin (see the preceding note); Ryzhkov (1994) revising his memoirs; and Pavlov (1995).
44. The KGB and GRU regarded Yakovlev as a US agent (Boldin, 1995, pp. 263-266). According to Vorotnikov (1995, p. 434) in his speech of 17 June 1991 at the USSR Supreme Soviet, Kryuchkov implied that G. Popov, then mayor of Moscow, was a CIA agent. (This accusation is not in the published text - see Kryuchkov, 1996b, pp. 387-392. Possibly this is a result of what Kryuchkov describes as 'small cuts' in the published version.)
45. In the corresponding section in the Russian edition of this book Boldin ascribes this role to Yakovlev and Medvedev (Boldin, 1995, p. 153). Elsewhere in the Russian edition, however, he observes that 'the basic ideas of perestroika were formulated by A.N. Yakovlev' (Boldin, 1995, p. 165).
46. A lengthy extract from this letter is in Yakovlev, 1994, pp. 205-212.
47. This was, ex post, also the view of A.S. Chernyaev (Chernyaev, 1993, p. 32).
48. Chernyaev's account of this meeting differs substantially from that of Vorotnikov (Vorotnikov, 1995, pp. 356-357).
49. A 'round table' with representatives of the republics, to work out new relations between the centre and the republics, was called for a month later, in a memo to Gorbachev dated 5 April 1990, by Yakovlev and others (for the full text see Shakhnazarov, 1993, pp. 463-465).
50. See the long interview with him on pp. 65-94 of Nenashev (1993). The passage cited in the text is on page 73.
51. Vorotnikov's account of this Politburo meeting differs substantially from Chernyaev's account (Vorotnikov, 1995, pp. 346-347).
52. He was elected President on 15 March 1990, thus fulfilling a more than two-year old ambition (Chernyaev, 1993, p. 210).
53. In the summer of 1990 he had to agree that the Union party leader should continue to have the title of general secretary rather than chairman (Gorbachev, 1995b, p. 543). The first important issue on which Gorbachev was defeated by a vote in a party forum concerned the choice of a leader for the newly created Russian Communist Party. Polozkov was chosen at its founding congress in June 1990, although Gorbachev had expressed a preference for Kuptsov. While important, this outcome did not affect the main line of Gorbachev's policies.
54. '...the "recoil variant"...was connected with the attempt to reanimate the administrative system, to return to 1985 (we clearly understood that the recoil would not stop at that date and would continue right up to 1937)' (Abalkin, 1991, p. 121).
55. This phrase comes from the covering letter to Ryzhkov (Abalkin, 1991, p. 122).
56. Ibid.
57. Ryzhkov (1992, p. 329 and 1995, pp. 440-441) puts the total number of proposals reviewed at 87. According to Abalkin and Gorbachev, Aganbegyan reviewed 13 reform proposals out of around 40 available (Istoricheskie..., 1995, pp. 24-25).
58. L. Abalkin, Neispol'zovannyi shans (Moscow, Politizdat, 1991).
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60. Sergei Akhromeev & Georgii Kornienko, Glazami marshals i diplomata (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1992).
61. A. M. Aleksandrov-Agentov, Ot Kollontai do Gorbacheva (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994).
62. G. A. Arbatov, The System (New York, Times Books, 1992).
63. N. K. Baibakov, Sorok let v pravitel'stve (Moscow, Respublika, 1993).
64. V. Bakatin, in Nenashev, 1993.
65. F. D. Bobkov, KGB i vlast' (Moscow, Veteran MP, 1995).
66. Valery Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World (New York, Basic Books, 1994).
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70. A. Dobrynin, In confidence (New York, Random House, 1995).
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72. E. Gaider, Dni porazhenii i pobed (Moscow, Vagrius, 1996).
73. Alexander Gerschenkron, 'Ideology as a System Determinant', in Alexander Eckstein (ed.), Comparison of Economic Systems (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971).
74. M. Gorbachev, 'Andropov: Novyi general'nyi secretar' deistvuet', Svobodnaya mysl', 1995a, 11.
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78. A. Grachev, Kremlevskaya khronika (Moscow, Eksmo, 1994b).
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84. F. K. Katushev, 'Samoe vrednoe - primerivat' na sebya chuzhie modeli i ignorirovat' sobstvennyi opyt', in Nenashev, 1993.
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87. Andrei Kozyrev, Preobrazhenie (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1995).
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115. G. Shakhnazarov, Tsena svobody (Moscow, Rossika, 1993).
116. S. Shatalin, ' "500 dnei" i drugie dnei moei zhizni', Nezavisimaya gazera, 31 March and 2 April 1992.
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120. Kira Vladina, 'Ded epokhi', Nezavisimaya gazeta, 10 August 1994.
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122. Vitalii Vorotnikov, 'Stranu derzhit inertsiya sotsializma', Sovetskaya Rossiya, 20 January 1996.
123. S. White et al., 'Interviewing the Soviet elite', The Russian Review, 55, 2, April 1996.
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125. A. N. Yakovlev, Gor'kaya chasha (Yaroslavl', Verkhne-Volzhskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1994).
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