Despite the pressure to which I was being subjected, I stood firm. I expressed willingness to meet the president of the Constitutional Court, but not as part of any trial. I did so not out of fear for my reputation, or, indeed, my life. Lacking presidential legal immunity, I was prepared for anything. I was guided by considerations of principle, considering that the exploitation of the law and constitutional oversight for political purposes was as unlawful as it was immoral. I considered it tantamount to elevating despotism to a policy, and destroying the fundamentals of modern governance and civilization.
Evidently aware that he had painted himself into a corner, Valeriy Zorkin went on television to deliver a statement, demeaning for a judge and offensive to me:
I believe that by failing to appear in court Mikhail Gorbachev has signed his own verdict… Perhaps I am infringing the law by revealing my own, as it were, personal thoughts, but I find myself increasingly inclined to think that Gorbachev in his present capacity is effectively becoming an encumbrance for Russia.
I protested against these remarks by the president of the Constitutional Court and, as provided for by the law on information, demanded that I should be given an opportunity to respond to these accusations and clarify my position in a live broadcast with the same format and the same team of presenters.
The chairman of the Russian State Television and Radio Corporation, Oleg Poptsov, on the grounds that Zorkin’s broadcast press conference had ‘not been organized on the initiative of RTR’, refused to give me airtime. In principle, he went on to say, he did not exclude the possibility of broadcasting ‘within reasonable limits’ M. S. Gorbachev’s answers in a video recording in news or other programmes, although this would not be possible in the immediate future mainly ‘for technical reasons’.
Well, that is what happens to people who are not free to act as they choose, and not prepared to stand up for a matter of principle. Their technology inexplicably breaks down, and they destroy something of fundamental importance in themselves.
The controversy surrounding the Trial of the CPSU, and the whole climate in society and politics, were increasingly fraught with intolerance and authoritarianism. The main features of the opposed parties, or gangs, were mutual hostility and a desire to crush all who stood in their way or were political adversaries. Literally every day of that first post-Soviet year further strengthened my belief that we were heading towards a new setback for the growth of democracy initiated by Perestroika that might even bring it to an end.
I decided to speak out publicly about this just as soon as might be, and the opportunity presented itself at the airport, where I found journalists awaiting my return from Willy Brandt’s funeral. The vendetta and vengeful behaviour of my political opponents was not only a campaign to discredit Gorbachev.
It is a premeditated project to mask the absence of any considered and imaginative policy. I can see no constructive responses to Russia’s pressing social problems in President Yeltsin’s addresses to the Supreme Soviet. This situation could lead to termination of the move towards democracy in Russia, with far-reaching consequences for our country, the CIS, Europe and indeed everyone. Both the president and the government like to call themselves democrats, but have no inclination to listen. They ignore everyone. The times, however, demand a rallying of all the patriotic supporters of reform. I do not want to see Yeltsin fail, but I do want him to find some means of bringing together all those eager for successful continuation of reforms. If the president neglects to do this, he will go down to defeat.
That prediction was made less than a year before the Supreme Soviet of Russia was bombarded by tanks.
The Trial of the CPSU proved a complete damp squib, largely, I believe, because of the stance I adopted. This was not a matter of personalities, just that, in the end, the Constitutional Court had to agree with my points of principle. The Court came to the only possible logical conclusion: consideration of the constitutionality of the CPSU should be terminated on the grounds that the CPSU ‘had effectively disintegrated’ in August–September 1991 and ceased to be a nationwide organization. Could it not have taken such an obvious decision at the outset, without all the excited political shenanigans?
The provocative intentions of those who set up the Trial of the CPSU had been frustrated, but all the time I was watching what was going on, I could not help feeling its future consequences were likely to be very negative.
The slide towards social catastrophe
The efforts of the Russian president and government, and of orthodox communists stuck in the past, to intimidate and wear me down with endless accusations and slanders did not, of course, enhance my life. They were an irritant, but far more disquieting was what was happening in the country as a result of the government’s rushed and reckless actions. What I read in the newspapers, and heard when talking to people, painted a thoroughly depressing picture.
At the end of the year, a report, compiled jointly with other research centres, was published by the Institute of Socio-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Its main conclusion was: ‘The social and socio-political situation developing in the course of 1992 in Russia is nothing short of a slide towards social catastrophe.’
The report’s authors had to conclude that the radical reform policies of the past year had been a complete failure. ‘We have been unable to discern positive results or progress in any of the directions of the reforms.’ This had brought about an abrupt reduction in the number of people supporting the radical course. Society had moved rapidly from faith that the reforms would rapidly yield positive results to alienation and rejection of official policy. This swing in Russian public opinion resulted, the report said, from a catastrophic fall in the standard and quality of people’s lives.
The rapid rise in prices, destruction of productive capacity and the government’s disregard of the basic social interests of ordinary citizens have led to impoverishment of the majority of Russia’s population. Russians have known no comparable fall in the level of social welfare since the Great Patriotic War of 1941–5.
A bacchanalia of disregard for the law and unprecedented destabilization of the economy, bringing about chaos, had led to a sharp rise in corruption and effectively an abdication of power to corrupt individuals and the mafia. From this, the report’s authors concluded: ‘A government that encourages corrupt elements of the state bureaucracy and black economy operators to seize and share out public property cannot expect to enjoy wide social support.’
Unsurprisingly, the deputies elected just two years previously by a direct vote in free elections reacted against what was taking place. In December 1992, the Seventh Congress of People’s Deputies of the Supreme Soviet of Russia sharply criticized both the way the economic shock policy had been conducted and its results. Speakers lambasted the government and First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who was in charge of economic policy. (The government was formally headed by Yeltsin.)
Gaidar had previously been one of the team working on plans for the Soviet economy’s transition to a market economy. He gave the impression of being a serious, knowledgeable, energetic person. I imagine that, if Perestroika had not been cut short, he would have found his place as an academic economist, and perhaps in managing the country’s economy. The disintegration of the Soviet Union meant, however, that his potential and that of his young team were exploited by Yeltsin’s group in pursuit of primarily political ends. By the time Gaidar joined the government, the country’s financial system had been wrecked (not without the connivance of that same Supreme Soviet that was now so highly critical of his record). The mistakes made by the reformers compounded the consequences of the collapse of economic ties between the former Soviet republics. Gaidar was very concerned about what was happening, but not in a position to change the overall policy or make serious adjustments to it.