At that time, I felt uncomfortable distracting people by asking them to solve my problems. Inadvertently my case played out against the supporters of Boris Yeltsin, because a lot of people saw not the plots of the KGB in it, but an error in reckoning of the modern reformers. To be honest, if I hadn’t prudently linked my fate to the ruling elite of that time, the idea of the Communists coming to power would have been even worse for me. While Yeltsin was at the helm, a hope still flickered under the pressure from the international community, especially from the democratic countries, that the authorities in Russia could listen to common sense and concede. However, if the Bolsheviks returned, it would undoubtedly mean many years in jail for me. I did my best trying to help the democratic forces hold up in this brutal struggle, emphasizing in my numerous interviews and articles published in Moscow, Bashkortstan, and Tatarstan, that the development of democracy in our country was a necessary condition for the fight against chemical weapons.
In the spring of 1993, a referendum was scheduled to take place on the people’s confidence in the policy of democratic and economic reforms in the country. At that time a broad range of ecological organizations in Udmurtiya, Chuvashiya, and the Saratov region were actively protesting the planned barbaric destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles in their regions. The local populations were very anxious about this prospect and felt that it meant that the authorities were unwilling to consider the interests of ordinary people.
The policy of the Presidential Conventional Committee for Problems of Biological and Chemical Weapons was provocative and played into the hands of the Communists. Under these circumstances, it was extraordinarily convenient from everyone’s point of view to fire General Anatoly Kuntsevich, the odious chairman of that committee, in disgrace. Then the people from the affected regions could decide to vote for the policy of President Yeltsin, because they would see this gesture as a portent for the safe destruction of the chemical weapons stockpiles. I expressed this idea to the democratic leaders in the RF Supreme Soviet, Sergei Yushenkov and Valery Menshikov. Unfortunately, they couldn’t or didn’t want to take resolute action.
The same fate befell my initiative to revive the Sunday Tatar concerts in Kazan which were broadcast on short wave radio. Numerous radio stations for jamming the foreign “voices,” had become useless in the onslaught of the era of Glasnost. In 1989 the U.S.S.R. government decided to put them to better use for developing cultural links between nations. Regular broadcasts of Tatar music started on the weekends, and the Tatar Diaspora living in Moscow finally got a chance to know their own music better. It was at a time when the U.S.S.R. leaders were interested in negotiating a signed agreement with Tatarstan, which had justly demanded the same rights for itself that the so-called union republics enjoyed.
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed and Russia was transformed into a sovereign state, it seemed that the process for granting Tatarstan the right to make independent decisions and to have a real government was evolving more rapidly. I have already written about what happened later, when Tatarstan decided to conduct a referendum on the issue of sovereignty. Then democrats of every shade, Communists, and nationalist-chauvinists united against this “impudence” of the Tatars. There were no limits to the defamation of my people in the press, on radio, and on TV.
In April of 1993, after lengthy reflection, I called the secretary of Mikhail Poltoranin, who headed the Committee for Radio and Television at that time. I briefly explained the objective of my proposed visit and asked him to spare me 10 minutes to lay out my plans. I wanted famous Tatars – democratically-minded scientists, public figures, and writers to speak on the radio and on TV and call for voting in favor of Boris Yeltsin’s policy at the coming referendum. A gesture of good will was necessary in order to do so – a sign of readiness for cooperation and the resumption of the Tatar concert broadcasts on weekends, which had been cancelled. Poltoranin’s secretary responded that his chief was very busy, and I had to call his deputy Sergei Yushenkov about it. Yushenkov agreed to meet me and I arrived at the appointed time. In the past I had briefly met with him, to state my position regarding the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles, so I didn’t have to introduce myself.
I thought that President Yeltsin ought to make a special statement on this subject. Yushenkov got interested in this idea, and he promised that he would immediately talk it over with Sergei Filatov, Yeltsin’s Chief of Staff. Yushenkov also said he would help put into operation the idea of having the Tatar language broadcasts resumed, and he immediately phoned several of the chief producer’s offices at TV and radio stations. As far as I understood, they promised to help and asked me to call. However, in Russia it is difficult to ensure any kind of real and positive result, no matter what you do, without a direct order…
I am sorry that I wasn’t more persistent and didn’t ask Yushenkov to use this method. The result was the proverbial “football,” when you are thrown around with your initiative like a ball. But I decided to do what little I could, and I endlessly dialed the numbers that Yushenkov had given me. The people I called were constantly “out” or “in a meeting.” Finally my patience was exhausted.
Fortunately, as Yushenkov told me the next day, Filatov had approved of my idea of having the Russian President make a statement on chemical weapons. To implement this idea I had to meet with Aleksei Yablokov, the Presidential Advisor for Ecology.
I met him back in January of 1993 in his huge office on the third floor of the Kremlin palace. The vast windows opened up on the Square of the Cathedral of Ivan the Great, where the Tsar-cannon, which has never fired a single shot, is displayed.
When Yablokov learned the reason for my call, he immediately agreed to have a talk with me. Another day I met him and explained my proposal for the Russian President to make a statement regarding the destruction of stockpiles of chemical weapons. Aleksei Vladimirovich agreed with this idea and gave a number of recommendations about how I could develop my project further. The next morning I brought a revised version of the President’s statement to him. Three days later he called me at home to say that he had managed to produce a compromise version of the statement and to get the approval stamps of all the respective services, including the Committee on Conventional Problems, and that the President was just about to sign it. After the statement was signed (five days before the referendum), Yablokov called me again. I went to the Kremlin to see him and he gave me a copy. I cite this statement below and can say that to this day it has fundamental significance connected with the issue of the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles in Russia.
We are distributing the text of the statement of President B. N. Yeltsin of the Russian Federation on the issue of chemical weapons.
In the past few months the public in a number of regions has been seriously concerned about the issue of the destruction of chemical weapons.
In the preceding decades, tens of thousands of tons of military chemical agents have been produced and stockpiled in Russia. The world has changed, and Russia’s position in the world has changed: we are not going to attack anybody. The time has come to rid ourselves of chemical weapons which we have inherited from the past legacy. This is not only Russia’s view, but also the opinion shared by the one hundred and thirty eight countries which have signed the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons this year in Paris.