In the summer, Raisa and I undertook a visit to Siberia, to the banks of the Yenisey. Viktor Astafiev invited us to his 70th birthday party. He was an important writer, a real, modern Russian classic, and although I did not see eye to eye with him (he could sometimes be over the top in his loves and hates), it would have been churlish not to accept the invitation. For the anniversary, our Foundation supported publication of Russkii Almaz [Russian Diamonds], a collection of his short stories.[3] Our meeting was very cordial.
I visited the city of Vladimir at the invitation of its young governor, Yury Vlasov, and remember completely informal meetings in the streets with local people. Some who came over seemed not entirely sure this really was Gorbachev. A clone perhaps, or just someone with a strong resemblance? But then I was bombarded with all sorts of questions: ‘How are you getting on now, after the Kremlin?’ ‘Where do you live?’ Somebody had been busily dunning into people’s heads that Gorbachev had emigrated and was now living in Germany, or perhaps America. ‘What is going on now, is that what you did Perestroika for?’ And again, ‘What do you think about the fighting in Chechnya?’
I met people working in local authorities, who had come from every district of the province to Vladimir for our discussion. By the Cathedrals of the Assumption and St Dmitry, the major architectural monuments of this millennial Russian city, I spoke to parishioners and tourists. In the cathedral, quite unexpectedly, a young priest came out to me and the church choir burst into chanting ‘O Lord, preserve him, unto many years of life’. They wished me good health and asked after Raisa.
The human warmth of our reception gladdened us, and confuted all the talk about virtually everyone in Russia hating Gorbachev, but I still had a sense of uneasiness.
My travels around the country, meetings, discussions in factories, informal contacts with a great variety of people, young and not-soyoung, long-serving workers, owners of small, medium and large businesses led me to the conclusion that people were increasingly losing faith in democratic reform and beginning to pin their hopes on a new ‘firm hand’. This prompted me to send an open letter on 26 October 1994 to the media:
Russia is going through extremely difficult times. Millions of Russians are living in hardship, suffering a sense of hopelessness. The security of our citizens and our very state are under threat. People are at the end of their tether. Unfortunately, many believe democracy is to blame for all this. Increasingly we hear it decried, and calls for dictatorship.
It is impossible to restore health to our lives without democratic government based on the trust and support of the majority of Russian citizens. I see the urgent holding of free, democratic elections of the president, parliament and local authorities as an essential step towards establishing democratic government.
We can rely only on ourselves, and I therefore suggest setting up public committees in the Centre and in the provinces to ensure free elections in Russia. Establishing them would be an important step in the struggle for a democratic alternative to both the present regime and attempts by fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists to drag the country back to totalitarianism.
Committees established by the citizens themselves will be able to protest against violations of the Constitution, facilitate the creation of credible guarantees of normal parliamentary and presidential elections, a fair election campaign and open counting of voting results under democratic scrutiny.
Overwhelmingly, the media were deaf to my appeal, my concerns and proposals. Izvestiya’s political commentator, Otto Latsis, only mentioned it in passing, adding that there was nothing new in Gorbachev’s appeal. The government’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, quoting just a few fragmentary sentences from the letter, accused me of inciting confrontation with the intention of forming an anti-Yeltsin alliance. There was not a word about the substance of the appeal, the need for free and fair elections. Almost two decades would have to pass before young, concerned people would appear in Russia prepared to actively join the fight for fair elections.
Chechnya: a war that could have been avoided
The last months and days of 1994 have gone down in modern Russian history as the beginning of a protracted, bloody war in Chechnya and Russia.
The pre-history of the war is a whole succession of rash decisions and irresponsible stunts. It all started with the ‘Parade of Sovereignties’, provoked by Yeltsin in his power struggle with the Soviet Union’s central administration. The would-be coup of the ‘State Emergency Committee’ in 1991 precipitated a serious crisis for the government in Checheno-Ingushetia.
I knew this republic well. They were our neighbouring republic in Stavropol where I lived and worked for many years, and I was fully aware of the many acute sensitivities that had built up there. This whole region requires a supremely cautious and meticulously gauged approach. Shoot-from-the-hip politicking in that part of the world is asking for trouble. Unfortunately, political bungling was precisely what was on offer from the people surrounding the Russian president when they decided to back General Djohar Dudaev, inveigling him into the forcible removal of the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic under its then leader, Doku Zavgaev. Dudaev found himself with a large quantity of arms at his disposal, left behind by the federal Russian forces who were withdrawn from the republic by the Russian Ministry of Defence. Had it not been for the 1991 coup and disintegration of the Soviet Union, nothing of that sort would have happened.
Dudaev consolidated his position, using the watchwords of sovereignty and independence for the Chechen people, in whom the appalling memory was still very much alive of their deportation under Stalin in 1944. The decline of the economy, growth of criminality, nationalist euphoria and sheer hatred hit the republic exceptionally hard and forced almost one-quarter of the population (nearly all of them Russian) to leave. Opposition to Dudaev’s government continued as it became increasingly entangled with mafia networks. For three years the federal government failed to regain political influence and control in Chechnya and the situation became increasingly intractable. The president of Russia decided to resolve the problem by force.
People in the know told me Yeltsin hesitated long and hard over whether or not to negotiate with Dudaev, and seemed inclined to do so until someone managed to inform him ‘just in time’ about some very unflattering remark Dudaev had supposedly made about the Russian president. Yeltsin rejected a proposal for negotiations and decided the time had come to show his decisiveness and willpower by resorting to the armed forces. ‘The president needed a small, victorious war to improve his approval rating’: these are the words of a member of Yeltsin’s immediate entourage at that time. In other words, he wanted to demonstrate the government’s effectiveness and intimidate opposition. Also, of course, to show Europe and the West how tough he was.
On 29 November 1994, Yeltsin issued an ultimatum to the Chechen leaders giving them 48 hours to cease fire and dissolve all illegal armed groups or face the declaration of a state of emergency in the republic. I could only support the call to end bloodshed, but everything else in the document was a gamble on the introduction of a state of emergency and force. This would involve all the accoutrements of a state of emergency: troops, tanks, aircraft, paratroopers, etc. I believed that was the wrong approach.
Reaction of the Russian public to Yeltsin’s gamble on a military solution was negative. The press condemned it. The Duma issued a statement calling for a return to seeking a peaceful settlement, and even decided later to set up a commission of enquiry into all the circumstances of the Chechen crisis. The Council of the Federation opposed the use of troops and military operations. Every opinion poll in Moscow and throughout Russia showed 65–75 per cent of citizens to be against deploying the military. The executive, however, demonstrated its authoritarianism by ignoring public opinion.