If that was the plan, it misfired. Bakatin and Gorbachev reported to the Supreme Soviet that the reasons for the incident were not known and that there had been no attempt to murder Yeltsin, and Yeltsin issued a statement fulminating at infringement on his “private life.” Yeltsin called off several public appearances, and some of his amateur helpers, fearing he was losing his touch, had “nervous eruptions verging on frenzy.”104 But nerves calmed, and the uproar blew over. Korzhakov offered to be his full-time security man and chaperone, to prevent further misadventures. Yeltsin soon perked up and was back on track.105 Greener pastures beckoned.
The house Yeltsin’s paternal grandfather, Ignatii, built in the village of Basmanovo around 1900. The home of his uncle Ivan is in the rear. His father, Nikolai’s, house was across the lane but no longer stands.
The small cottage in Butka in which Yeltsin was born in 1931.
The workers’ barracks in Berezniki where Yeltsin and his immediate family occupied a single room from 1938 to 1944. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Vasilii and Afanasiya Starygin, Yeltsin’s maternal grandparents, in a 1950s photo. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Boris with parents Klavdiya and Nikolai and brother Mikhail in Berezniki, 1939. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Railway School No. 95, where Yeltsin was a pupil from 1939 to 1945. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
The Pushkin School, which Yeltsin attended from 1945 to 1949. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Yeltsin as a ninth grader, 1948. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Creatively eating buckwheat porridge with a friend at the Urals Polytechnic Institute in the early 1950s. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Airborne (on the left) on the volleyball court at UPI, 1953. (SERGEI SKROBOV.)
Yeltsin (fourth row, third from left) in his student group at UPI, 1953. (SERGEI SKROBOV.)
Boris and Naina Yeltsin, early 1960s. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
The Yeltsin daughters in 1965; Yelena (left) was about seven, Tatyana five. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Reviewing a document as one of the secretaries of the Sverdlovsk obkom (regional committee of the Communist Party), 1975 or 1976. Yakov Ryabov, Yeltsin’s mentor, is second from left. Vladimir Dolgikh, a Central Committee secretary, is third from left. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Taking charge at a construction site as obkom first secretary, around 1980. Yurii Petrov, who later headed Yeltsin’s presidential office, is third from left. Oleg Lobov, who also served in high positions in the 1990s, is second from right, foreground. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Tending to the harvest, around 1980. Anatolii Mekhrentsev, chairman of the provincial government, is third from left. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Discussing city planning issues in Sverdlovsk, around 1980. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
At an exercise of the Urals Military District, around 1980. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
With Politburo colleagues at a session of the USSR Supreme Soviet, November 1986. First row, left to right: Yegor Ligachëv, Nikolai Ryzhkov, Andrei Gromyko, Mikhail Gorbachev. Second row: Vitalii Vorotnikov, Lev Zaikov, Mikhail Solomentsev. Third row: Vladimir Dolgikh, Yeltsin, Eduard Shevardnadze. (RIA-NOVOSTI/S. GUNEYEVA.)
As Moscow Communist Party leader, with constituents from the district he represented in the city council, June 1987. (RIA-NOVOSTI/ A. PETRUSHCHENKO.)
Orating at Luzhniki stadium, May 21, 1989. Gavriil Popov is first from left; Andrei Sakharov is second from right. (RIA-NOVOSTI/ I. MIKHALEVA.)
Speaking to the Interregional Deputies Group, December 1989, with co-chairmen (left to right) Andrei Sakharov, Yurii Afanas’ev, Gavriil Popov, Viktor Pal’m. (RIA-NOVOSTI/ V. CHISTYAKOVA.)
Leaving the hall after announcing his resignation from the Communist Party to the party congress, July 12, 1990. (RIA-NOVOSTI/V. BABANOVA.
Before a large gathering in Novokuznetsk, May 1, 1991. (RIA-NOVOSTI/D. KOROBEINIKOVA.)
Yeltsin’s first prime minister, Ivan Silayev, 1991. (AP IMAGES/CARL DUYCK.)
Atop Tank No. 110 during the attempted coup, August 19, 1991. Aleksandr Korzhakov is next to Yeltsin on the machine. (AP IMAGES/ BORIS YURCHENKO.)
Deflating Gorbachev’s authority before the Russian Supreme Soviet, August 23, 1991. (AP IMAGES/ BORIS YURCHENKO.)
Signing the Belovezh’e Forest accord, December 8, 1991. Gennadii Burbulis (far right) co-signs for Russia. Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine (second from left) and Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus (third from left) are also signatories. (RIA-NOVOSTI.)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Birth of a Nation
Gorbachev’s decision to begin political reform with his central government had a prodigious effect on the course of change. Because the society beneath was ever more restive—“moving to the left,” as Yeltsin put it, using “left” to mean hunger for change rather than in the socialist-capitalist dimension—and because curbs on contestation were breaking down, the next wave of change, in the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union and their provincial and local governments, was predestined to be more radical. Boris Yeltsin was checkmated at the USSR level. The Interregional Deputies Group was a minority in the Soviet congress, and he was not its unchallenged leader. With good reason, he felt he was in better sync than his adversaries, and even than his allies, with the times and with a popular constituency. Power and principle conjoined on a strategy of outflanking the general secretary and away from the moderation that had characterized Yeltsin’s views when he first took up the reform banner. It was “a classic polarizing game” intended to box Gorbachev in “and to create the conditions for a decisive break with the old order.”1