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MIKHAIL GORBACHEV and the END of SOVIET POWER Also by John Miller

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MIKHAIL GORBACHEV and the END of SOVIET POWER Also by John Miller MIKHAIL GORBACHEV AND THE END OF SOVIET POWER Also by John Miller GORBACHEV AT THE HELM: A New Era in Soviet Politics? (edited with R. F. Miller and T. H. Rigby) Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power John Miller Senior Lecturer in Communist Politics La Trobe University, Melbourne M St. Martin's Press © John Miller 1993 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published in Great Britain 1993 by TIIE MACMILLAN PRESS L TD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world The author and publishers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Publications Committee of La Trobe University, Victoria, in the production of this book. A cataIogue record for this book is available from the British Li brary. ISBN 978-0-333-59194-9 ISBN 978-1-349-22459-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22459-3 First published in the United States of America 1993 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-09080-7 Library of Congress CataIoging-in-Publication Data Miller, John, 1940 Feb. 4- Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of Soviet power / lohn Miller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-09080-7 1. Soviet Union---Politics and govemment-1985-1991. 2. Soviet Union---Politics and govemment-1953-1985. 3. Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, 1931- . I. Title. DK288.M55 1993 947.085'4--<lc20 92-29615 CIP To Sue, Mary and Harold Contents Preface x Glossary xiii Chronology xv 1 An Outline of the Soviet System 1 Introduction I The Russian Heritage 3 The Mono-Organisational System 10 Features of Soviet Politics 13 2 What went Wrong under Brezhnev? 21 The Climate of the Khruschev Regime 21 The Climate of the Brezhnev Regime 23 The Social Compact and its Decline 26 What was Happening to Soviet Society? 36 3 Events since Brezhnev 38 The Interregnum 38 Gorbachev's First Year: Consolidation of Power 40 The Glasnost' Programme 44 The Struggle for Reconstruction 46 Perestroika 49 Collapse 50 4 The Making of Gorbachev 53 Questions about a Humdrum Career 53 Temperament and Personality 54 Political Experience 57 Gorbachev's Rise to Power 60 The Impact of Office 64 Political Character 70 5 Objectives, Agenda, Strategy 75 The Initial Situation and its Implications 75 First Moves: Glasnost' and Informal Groups 79 vii viii Contents Perestroika and its Imp!ications 81 The Problem with the Party 84 Crash Through or Crash? 87 6 Glasnost' and Interest Groups 90 Glasnost': Mechanism and Obstacles 90 The Scope and Limits of Glasnost' 94 The Advent of Press Freedom 98 The New Interest Groups 100 Gorbachev's Social Policies 106 7 Perestroika and Political Institutions 109 The Nineteenth Party Conference 109 The Constitutional Amendments of December 1988 112 The General Elections of March-May 1989 114 The New Legislatures 116 The Presidency 120 Assessment 123 8 Gorbachev and the CPSU 127 The Problem 127 Gorbachev's Point of View 130 Options for the CPSU 131 Disestablishment 134 Re-equipping the Party 137 Two, Three or Four Parties? 144 The End of the CPSU 148 9 Society and Politics under the Presidency 151 Politics Unbound 151 The Descent Into Autarky 153 The Ethnic Revival 155 Developments in the RSFSR 157 The Army in Politics 160 The Coalitions Form 162 10 The August Coup 166 Under Siege 166 The Tum to the Right 169 Vilnius 171 N ovo-Ogarevo 174 'A Sort of Traitors' 175 The Coup Confounded 180 Contents ix 11 De Union Treaty 183 The Plan for a Renewed Union 183 Aspirations and Options 185 The Shape of Negotiations 189 The Union Treaty 192 Aftermath 198 12 Reflections: Gorbachev, Communism and Rdonn 201 The Legacy of Communism 201 Perestroika: A Balance Sheet 203 Gorbachev's Achievement 206 Notes and References 210 Bibliography 237 Index 254 Preface This book is about the dramatic changes that brought an end to the Soviet Union and its ruling Communist Party in 1991, and about the leader who presided over this process between 1985 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev. Its structure is as follows. Chapters 1 to 3 set the scene, with treatment of Russia's long-term history and culture and the Soviet system; the problems that set in after Stalin's death; and a chronological framework for the Gorbachev period. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss Gorbachev, first as a person and then as a political leader. There follow three chapters on the principal aspects of his reforms, in the order in which they became prominent: the media and interest groups; political institutions; and the problem of the Communist Party. Chapters 9 and 10 survey Soviet society and politics in the last two years of the Union's existence, and Chapter 11 analyses the failed attempt to preserve it in a federal form. I seek to draw some conclusions in Chapter 12. My aim has been to provide a common sense interpretation of the subject for the non-specialist and non-Soviet reader. It is not easy to analyse and discern trends in events as they are happening, and next to impossible to combine this task with that of capturing the chaos, flux and sheer unpleasantness of revolutionary times, and I have not attempted the latter. Rather I have tried to analyse and interpret, in the hope that readers may be helped to make sense of a confusion of reports and impressions. There is a risk in this of reducing people's painful experience to insensitive and abstract formulae; if I seem guilty of this, I ask the reader's forgiveness. The book's focus is first on the domestic affairs and second on the politics of the Soviet Union's final years. I have given little direct treatment to foreign affairs or economic policy, for two reasons. Although they are important, I do not think they are central to an understanding of the Gorbachev experiment; and I am not at ease in economic or international analysis. The focus on politics means inevitably that a good deal of attention is paid to processes and personalities 'at the top' and perhaps too little to social processes; this is not an easy balance to strike, since social processes clearly affect politics. Some readers may be sceptical of my emphasis on the figure of M. S. Gorbachev, and when I embarked on the study I had not x Preface xi expected it to tum out like this. But Gorbachev set his stamp on events, more so than most western prime ministers or presidents and more than his immediate Soviet predecessors: no interpretation can avoid tackling his role, and it presents considerable intellectual puzzles. Others may be curious that I have said little explicitly about Gorbachev's or the Soviet 'ideology': I think the nature and function of ideology in Soviet affairs have been badly misunderstood by outsiders, and I hope I have provided some corrective to this throughout the book, by suggesting some purposes it really served. Studying the Soviet Union was like trying to describe icebergs or Arctic nunataks from what one could see above the surface. Informa- tion from inside the country was fragmentary and deliberately distorted and to make sense of things the student had to become a detective. Several of my readers have suggested lover-use phrases like 'must have'; indeed I do, and it illustrates the way in which circumstantial evidence and backing one's hunches assumed heigh- tened importance in this kind of work. The figure of A. A. Nikonov in Chapter 4 provides an example. In my card index of personnel I had three cards for persons of this name; I suspected they represented one and the same person at different stages of his career, but I could not demonstrate this until 1988. The book is based mainly on primary Soviet material and I have made relatively little use of secondary sources; I must confess that I find it difficult to work out a personal synthesis when others' opinions are too fresh in my mind. There is a price to be paid for this of course; lowe apologies to those I have unwittingly echoed without acknowl- edgment, and to those whose analysis was sharper than mine. The primary sources are the main Soviet newspapers and journals, and to some extent Soviet television; a vote of thanks goes to Australia's Special Broadcasting Service for relaying the Soviet news programme 'Vremya' in 1990-1. There is a limit to one man's reading, however, and I should have been lost without two sources of summary and comment on the rest of the Soviet media. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in their research materials rose magnificently to the challenge of analysing the last seven years; and the international computer network SOVSET' (managed by the Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies in Washington, DC) has brought up-to-date informa- tion and comment to an otherwise isolated writer. I should like to thank many people, but in particular Robin Jeffrey, Ross Martin, Angus McIntyre, Kate Mustafa, Rudolf Plehwe, Talis Polis, Harry Rigby and ViI'yam Smirnov for their generous comments xii Preface on my drafts; and Archie Brown, Hans-Joachim Fliedner, John Gooding, Marko Pavlyshyn, Peter Reddaway and David Wells for discussion of particular arguments or the supply of material.
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