1 CIA, Director of Central Intelligence, “The Deepening Crisis in the USSR: Prospects for the Next Year,” NIE 11-18-90 (November 1990), 15–18; declassified version obtained at http://www.foia.cia.gov.browse_docs.asp?
2 Ibid., 17–18. The 1990 NIE assumed, as almost all forecasts did, that the Soviet state in some form would have to survive for light at the end of the tunnel to be feasible. It did warn that economic difficulties “would make unilateral steps by the republics to assert their economic independence more likely.” But, of course, by the end of 1991 events had far outrun this possibility.
3 Vyacheslav Terekhov, interview with the author (June 5, 2001).
4 “Yeltsin Criticizes ‘Half-Hearted’ Reforms,” FBIS-SOV-90-049 (March 13, 1990), 74.
5 Boris Yel’tsin, Zapiski prezidenta (Notes of a president) (Moscow: Ogonëk, 1994), 163. In his June 1991 visit to Washington, Yeltsin told President Bush there was no way a military or police coup against Gorbachev would succeed or be attempted. George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), 505.
6 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 33.
7 Pavel Voshchanov, interview with the author (June 15, 2000). Voshchanov was present at the celebration.
8 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 34.
9 Oleg Poptsov, Khronika vremën “Tsarya Borisa” (Chronicle of the times of “Tsar Boris”) (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1995), 75.
10 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 148. I will cite this source often in the coming chapters. The coauthors are four former presidential assistants (Yurii Baturin, Mikhail Krasnov, Aleksandr Livshits, and Georgii Satarov), four former speech writers (Aleksandr Il’in, Vladimir Kadatskii, Konstantin Nikiforov, and Lyudmila Pikhoya), and a former press secretary (Vyacheslav Kostikov). I also interviewed six of the coauthors (Baturin, Kostikov, Krasnov, Livshits, Pikhoya, and Satarov).
11 The renaming occurred when the Russian Supreme Soviet was debating ratification of an agreement among CIS members concerning the nuclear arsenal. A deputy noted that Yeltsin had signed as president of “the Russian Federation,” and not of the RSFSR. Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov moved that the name be changed (with “Russia” as an alternative), and the motion passed unanimously.
12 “Minnoye pole vlasti” (The minefield of power), Izvestiya, October 28, 1991.
13 Valentina Lantseva, interview with the author (July 9, 2001).
14 Aleksandr Tsipko, “Drama rossiiskogo vybora” (The drama of Russia’s choice), Izvestiya, October 1, 1991.
15 Details in Marc Zlotnik, “Yeltsin and Gorbachev: The Politics of Confrontation,” Journal of Cold War Studies 5 (Winter 2003), 159–60. Gorbachev has bitterly reported that the day Yeltsin took over in the Kremlin, December 27, was three days ahead of the agreed-upon date, and that he held uncomely festivities there that morning with Gennadii Burbulis and Ruslan Khasbulatov. Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhizn’ i reformy (Life and reforms), 2 vols. (Moscow: Novosti, 1995), 2:622.
16 Years later, in January 2000, Vitalii Tret’yakov, as editor of the elite newspaper Nezavisimaya gazeta, put out a piece about Yeltsin called “Sverdlovsk Upstart.” He had been working on a book on Yeltsin’s career which was never published (some draft chapters were serialized in 2006 and have been cited in this book). Gorbachev rang him up with congratulations on the title. Tret’yakov, interview with the author (June 7, 2000).
17 Robert S. Strauss, interview with the author (January 9, 2006).
18 Baturin et al., Epokha, 226. Yeltsin described Gorbachev as having made a promise about nonparticipation, in “Boris Yel’tsin: ya ne skryvayu trudnostei i khochu, chtoby narod eto ponimal” (Boris Yeltsin: I do not conceal the difficulties and want the people to understand that), Komsomol’skaya pravda, May 27, 1992.
19 It was Yeltsin who had the ban eased to allow Gorbachev to fly to Berlin for the funeral of Willy Brandt, the former German chancellor. He phoned the court chairman, Valerii Zor’kin, to press the case. Jane Henderson, “The Russian Constitutional Court and the Communist Party Case: Watershed or Whitewash?” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 40 (March 2007), 7.
20 Yeltsin actually took the initiative to repair relations with Yegor Ligachëv. He had a staffer telephone Ligachëv in 1994 or 1995 and offer to enlarge his pension. Ligachëv hotly refused. Oksana Khimich, “Otchim perestroiki” (Stepfather of perestroika), Moskovskii komsomolets, April 22, 2005.
21 Aleksandr Rutskoi, interview with the author (June 5, 2001).
22 Voshchanov interview.
23 Alexei Kazannik, “Boris Yeltsin: From Triumph to Fall,” Moscow News, June 2, 2004. Cinema director El’dar Ryazanov filmed an interview with Yeltsin and his wife and daughters in the apartment in April 1993. Yeltsin stayed clear of the kitchen stool because it had a nail protruding from the seat; it was one of a set given him by friends in Sverdlovsk on his fortieth birthday in 1971. Den’ v sem’e prezidenta (A day in the president’s family), interviews by Ryazanov on REN-TV, April 20, 1993 (videotape supplied by Irena Lesnevskaya).
24 Tat’yana D’yachenko, “Papa khotel otprazdnovat’ yubilei po-domashnemu” (Papa wanted to celebrate his birthday home-style), Komsomol’skaya pravda, February 1, 2001.
25 Zavidovo staff reported that Yeltsin’s retinue occupied it “in the spirit of conquerors.” He first inspected it with Yurii Petrov and Korzhakov in November of 1991. Yurii Tret’yakov, “‘Tsarskaya’ okhota” (The tsar’s hunt), Trud, November 20, 2003. Such a perception was inevitable, given the magnitude of the change. The provincial locales all had public park land and commercial facilities as well as a secured compound for the president and other officials. Volzhskii Utës is primarily a healthcare facility. Facilities for the Soviet leadership outside Russia, notably Foros in Ukraine and Pitsunda in Georgia, were, of course, not available to Yeltsin.
26 Boris Yeltsin, third interview with the author (September 12, 2002).
27 Yel’tsin, Zapiski, 35.
28 Boris Yel’tsin, Prezidentskii marafon (Presidential marathon) (Moscow: AST, 2000), 335. He switched back to a ZIL briefly in 1997, during a campaign against use of expensive foreign vehicles, then went back to the Mercedes. The Ilyushin-62 was replaced in 1996 by a larger Ilyushin-96.
29 Yurii Burtin, “Gorbachev prodolzhayetsya” (Gorbachev is continuing), in Burtin and Eduard Molchanov, eds., God posle avgusta: gorech’ i vybor (A year after August: bitterness and choice) (Moscow: Literatura i politika, 1992), 61.
30 Muzhskoi razgovor (Male conversation), interview of Yeltsin by El’dar Ryazanov on REN-TV, November 7, 1993 (videotape supplied by Irena Lesnevskaya).
31 In some of Yeltsin’s comments on the issue, there were intimations of patriotic pride and also of the right to live well, just as his countrymen were all entitled to live now. A campaign pamphlet in 1996 said of his transportation: “The president of Russia, like the president of any other country and like millions of other Russian citizens, does not go to work on a trolley bus.” “Special privileges,” it said, were an impossibility in post-communist society, in that luxuries were no longer distributed through secret channels and citizens with means could purchase them on the open market: “Ministers travel in Mercedes, yet anyone who is capable of earning enough money can buy a Mercedes…. In any department store, you can buy the same suit as [Prime Minister Viktor] Chernomyrdin and the same cap as [Moscow Mayor Yurii] Luzhkov.” Prezident Yel’tsin: 100 voprosov i otvetov (President Yeltsin: 100 questions and answers) (Moscow: Obshcherossiiskoye dvizheniye obshchestvennoi podderzhki B. N. Yel’tsina, 1996), 18.