54 Saikin interview.
55 Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 54–58.
56 Vitalii Tret’yakov, “Fenomen Yel’tsina” (The Yeltsin phenomenon), Moskovskiye novosti, April 16, 1989.
57 “Vypiska iz vystupleniya,” 7–8. George W. Breslauer, Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), detects similarities with the populism of Nikita Khrushchev a generation before. There were some commonalities, but Khrushchev was a much less radical agent of change than either Yeltsin or Gorbachev. The definitive study is William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: Norton, 2003).
58 Vladimir Mezentsev, “Okruzhentsy” (Entourage), part 2, Rabochaya tribuna, March 25, 1995.
59 According to Jonathan Sanders, the Moscow-based staffer who worked with producer Susan Zirinsky, “I pointed out that we were sending one of our most respected correspondents to do the interview, someone who was a veteran of the Nixon White House and was personally quite interested in him [Yeltsin]. At this point, the ever clever Ms. Zirinsky pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten photo of Diane Sawyer and said this was the star who would be doing the interview. Now, remember what the Soviet anchorwoman looked like in the mid-1980s? Remember how much [Richard] Nixon was respected? And remember how much Boris Nikolayevich understood intuitively about the power of the media? So we did the interview.” Sanders, personal communication to the author (October 9, 2005).
60 “Pribavlyat’ oboroty perestroiki” (Quicken the pace of perestroika), Moskovskaya pravda, April 4, 1987.
61 Colton, Moscow, 576.
62 Gavriil Popov, interview with the author (June 1, 2001).
63 “Vypiska iz vystupleniya,” 5; “Mera perestroiki—konkretnyye dela” (The measure of perestroika is concrete affairs), Moskovskaya pravda, March 30, 1986.
64 Andrei Karaulov, Vokrug Kremlya: kniga politicheskikh dialogov (Around the Kremlin: a book of political dialogues) (Moscow: Novosti, 1990), 96.
65 Tret’yakov, “Sverdlovskii vyskochka,” part 3, 86–91. Aleksei Stakhanov was a miner in the Donbass area of Ukraine who in 1935 set a USSR record for digging coal on his shift. The Stakhanovite movement was organized to imitate his fervor. It experienced a revival in 1988, eleven years after Stakhanov’s death.
66 “Vypiska iz vystupleniya,” 3.
67 The resolution was about services in one of Moscow’s municipal districts. Two deputies voted against it and three against proposed amendments. Press reports did not mention Yeltsin’s role, which I learned about in my interview with Arkadii Murashov (September 13, 2000).
68 On the flavor of these hothouse organizations, see Judith B. Sedaitis and Jim Butterfield, eds., Neformaly: Civil Society in the USSR (New York: U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, 1990). A then-deputy of Saikin’s reports that Yeltsin telephoned Gorbachev for advice before meeting the Pamyat group. Prokof’ev, Do i posle zapreta KPSS, 186–88.
69 Speech to Central Committee, January 27, 1987, in RGANI, fund 2, register 5, file 34, 73.
70 Gorbachev, Zhizn’ i reformy, 1:310, 371 (italics added).
71 Korzhakov writes (Boris Yel’tsin, 61) that during the Georgia visit Yeltsin played with his security detail and staff every day, starting the first morning at five A.M. They then invited the local champions, who for one of their matches engaged a professional athlete. The Muscovites still won.
72 Boris Yel’tsin, Zapiski prezidenta (Notes of a president) (Moscow: Ogonëk, 1994), 270.
73 Yel’tsin, Ispoved’, 95.
74 Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin, 58.
75 Ibid., 55. Korzhakov, though of proletarian origin, exemplified Muscovite condescension when describing in his book (50) Yeltsin’s musical activities: “Yeltsin was born in the village of Butka, and there it was a prestigious thing to play on the spoons.” In an interview in 1989 (Karaulov, Vokrug Kremlya, 100), Yeltsin was still thin-skinned about Sverdlovsk, saying it was “not on the periphery” and that it had more to teach the rest of Russia than to learn from it.
76 “Vypiska iz vystupleniya,” 5; Yel’tsin, Ispoved’, 90; “Deputaty predlagayut, kritikuyut, sovetuyut” (The deputies recommend, criticize, and advise), Moskovskaya pravda, March 15, 1987.
77 Tret’yakov claims to have heard from former subordinates of Yeltsin that some of the questions at encounters like this were planted by organizers and that Yeltsin prepared his answers in advance. Tret’yakov, “Sverdlovskii vyskochka,” part 4, Politicheskii klass, May 2006, 103.
78 “Vypiska iz vystupleniya,” 7, 9–10. Yeltsin instituted the changes in the workday immediately after taking office. Prokof’ev, Do i posle zapreta KPSS, 63.
79 Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (New York: Norton, 1962), 155–56.
CHAPTER SIX
1 Boris Yel’tsin, Ispoved’ na zadannuyu temu (Confession on an assigned theme) (Moscow: PIK, 1990), 116. Gorbachev, too, reports in his memoirs being unhappy with the unsociability of official Moscow. But he was much better acquainted than Yeltsin with its ways. He spent five years at university in Moscow, and general secretaries and Politburo members often holidayed or took the cure at the mineral-springs resorts of Stavropol Province.
2 Ibid., 69, 115–16, 119. The inconsistencies in Yeltsin’s discussion of his housing and perks are brought out in Vitalii Tret’yakov, “Sverdlovskii vyskochka” (Sverdlovsk upstart), part 3, Politicheskii klass, April 2006, 82–84, 88–90. Tret’yakov maintains that Gorbachev’s former dacha was posher than what Yeltsin had the right to and this created nervousness on his part. There may be some exaggeration in the Yeltsin account. A former chief of Kremlin protocol notes, for example, that candidate members of the Politburo were entitled to two cooks, not three, and that their monthly food allowance was half that of full members. Vladimir Shevchenko, Povsednevnaya zhizn’ Kremlya pri prezidentakh (The everyday life of the Kremlin under the presidents) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2004), 124.
3 Den’ v sem’e prezidenta (A day in the president’s family), interview with El’dar Ryazanov on REN-TV, April 20, 1993 (videotape supplied by Irena Lesnevskaya).
4 Tret’yakov, “Sverdlovskii vyskochka,” part 3, 90.
5 Vladimir Voronin, a city hall functionary at the time, interview with the author (June 15, 2001).
6 Boris Yeltsin, third interview with the author (September 12, 2002).
7 Author’s first interview with Aleksandr Yakovlev (June 9, 2000) and interviews with Arkadii Vol’skii (June 13, 2000) and Anatolii Luk’yanov (January 24, 2001). Several individuals who attended the October 1987 plenum of the Central Committee told me Yeltsin mentioned Raisa there, and the claim is made in Aleksandr Yakovlev, Sumerki (Dusk) (Moscow: Materik, 2003), 405. Aside from Yeltsin’s memory, the published transcript and unpublished archival materials, which I have examined, confute this.
8 Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire (New York: Random House, 1995), 223. At a public meeting in May 1990, someone passed Yeltsin a note asking if he thought Soviet television spent too much time on Raisa. He replied that he thought it did. “I spoke to Gorbachev about this. He was insulted.” Vladimir Mezentsev, “Okruzhentsy” (Entourage), part 3, Rabochaya tribuna, March 28, 1995.