announced their break with the Soviet Union and their refusal to take part in any new federal or other arrangements. The future of the area is far from clear.
Gorbachev and his government received no support from the Russian republic, the gigantic R.S.F.S.R., as they were trying to control the non-Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union. To the contrary, before long the Russian republic, too, was making declarations and demands aimed at the central authorities and frequently co-operating with other discontented entities - all for good reason. To be sure, Russians enjoyed certain advantages within the Soviet Union, such as the privileged position of their language and a greater acceptance of their cultural and historical past, albeit in a Marxist-Leninist interpretation, but they remained poor, even poorer than the inhabitants of a number of other republics, and, all in all, they bore their full share of the deprivation, suffering, and oppression characteristic of the Soviet system. They were even denied such "local" institutions, granted to other republics, as their own branch of the Communist Party and their own academy of sciences, apparently, at least in part, because of the fear that these organizations might become too powerful and compete with the central Soviet ones.
The Russian republic acquired a remarkable, idiosyncratic leader in the person of Boris Yeltsin, an associate of Gorbachev, similar to him in his Party background and career, but much different in his extravagant manner and his populist and charismatic appeal. Dismissed on November 11, 1987, from his position as head of the Moscow Party organization for his criticism of the slowness of Gorbachev's reforming activity, Yeltsin made an unprecedented career in the Russian republic, culminating in his landslide election as its president on June 12, 1991, a stunning display of democratic procedure and popular support which neither Gorbachev nor any other leader in the central government could claim. Elections had already brought other liberals to office in the Russian republic, especially in its great cities, with Anatolii Sobchak becoming mayor of Leningrad and Gavriil Popov, of Moscow. It is worth noting that Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party on July 12, 1990, and Sobchak and Popov on the following day. Liberalism was combined with nationalism and a religious revival as historic towns, places, and streets regained their old names and as religious services, including public religious services, multiplied. The day Yeltsin was elected president, the Leningrad voters also decided that their city should again become St. Petersburg. Immense problems, of course, continued; indeed, the entire dazzling change acquired a certain operatic quality, while the basic processes of economic and social life were grinding down. The mere administration of the R.S.F.S.R. became a near impossibility, with everyone from the Tartars on the Volga to the Yakuts in eastern Siberia and the nomadic tribes of the far north laying claim to their historic rights, their diamonds, or their reindeer. The excruciating interplay between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, with its repeated reversals of positions, ranging from close collaboration to determined
attempts by each to drive the other out of politics, came to occupy center stage on the Soviet scene.
Eastern Europe and the World
Just when everything was beginning to unglue at home, Gorbachev and the Soviet Union lost eastern Europe, which, in turn, contributed mightily to a further ungluing. In retrospect, there appear to be two main explanations for the stunning events of the miraculous year of 1989: the enormous extent of the opposition - indeed, hatred - of the peoples of the satellite states to their communist system and regimes, and Gorbachev's decision against any Soviet army intervention in defense of his communist allies. It was the extent to which communism was bankrupt and despised in eastern Europe that most outside observers failed to take into account. As to Gorbachev's decision, the Soviet leader apparently initially naively believed that there should be perestroika in the satellite countries, as well as in the Soviet Union, and that restructuring would only strengthen the system. But once the system unraveled, and at a terrifying speed, he concluded that nothing could be done to save the old order. As he thundered against Soviet hardliners who accused him of betrayal, only tanks could block change in eastern Europe, and tanks could not be used forever.
Thus 1989 witnessed the collapse of communism in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and, of course, East Germany, which was to disappear entirely through absorption into the Federal Republic of Germany. Masses of refugees crossing newly opened frontiers, the once-formidable Berlin Wall acquiring souvenir status as it was being disassembled piece by piece, the corpses of Ceausescu and his wife, executed immediately after the overturn in Rumania, and so many other episodes and details will be enshrined in history books and human memory for ages to come. While each national case had its own peculiarities, such as the tremendous importance of West Germany for what happened in and to East Germany or the unique role of Solidarity in Poland, there were also common characteristics. Above all, communist regimes proved unable to survive intellectual and political freedom - glasnost, if you will - and, especially, free elections, beginning with the election in Poland on June 5, 1989. Even in the controversial cases of Rumania and Bulgaria - perhaps especially relevant for the Russian future - where much of the establishment seems to have survived well, the issues are the continuation of privilege and the brakes that old personnel may put on the democratic development of these countries, not the fear of a return to the days of Ceausescu and Zhivkov.
Although very hard hit, Gorbachev reacted to the events rapidly and imaginatively. Instead of mounting any kind of rear-guard action, especially on the central issue of the unification of Germany, Gorbachev fully accepted the unification, earning German gratitude - in particular, that of Chancellor Helmut
Kohl - as well as advantageous financial provisions for the withdrawal and relocation at home of Soviet troops and some other German aid. Moreover, the solution of the German problem and the Soviet abandonment of troublesome eastern Europe meshed well with Gorbachev's policy of peace and international co-operation. Soviet army troops finally left Afghanistan, although the Soviet Union continued to provide massive military aid to the government forces in the seemingly endless civil war. Extremely complex and long-drawn-out negotiations with the United States resulted, at the end of July 1991, in an agreement to reduce certain kinds of armaments. Commentators noted at the time that the new spirit of co-operation was even more significant than the particular provisions of the treaty. Although some disagreements and tensions remained, for example, in connection with the Japanese determination to regain some small islands in the Kurile chain seized by the Soviet Union toward the end of the Second World War or the American pressure to have the U.S.S.R. dump Castro and Cuba altogether, Gorbachev and his country were rapidly becoming respected supporters of world order. They played that role successfully in 1990 in the crisis and war following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, although the Soviet Union did not intervene militarily, and in 1991 in the aftermath of that war when international attention shifted to the continuous Arab-Israeli conflict. It should be added that in October 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Gorbachev's foreign policy could thus be considered a catastrophe, a great success, or both, depending largely on the point of view.
Domestic Developments