Moscow, December 25, 1991

Koppel asks if Gorbachev could retain power if he wanted, given that he is still head of the Soviet armed forces. “There are people who change their positions to make sure they keep power,” replies Gorbachev coyly. “To me that is unacceptable. If what is happening didn’t matter to me and if I wanted to remain in government more than anything else, then that would be not too difficult to achieve.”⁵

It is a vain boast. The moment has passed when Gorbachev could achieve such a goal, though he will never concede that. Years later, putting a gloss on his ousting, he claims that sometimes his hands were itching to use force, but that he realized such a course of action could lead to a civil war and even a global nuclear conflict.

Gorbachev emphasizes to Koppel the most important message he wants to get across to the Americans, that there will be no nuclear foul-up. He draws attention to the portion of the speech containing his assurance to the world that he has done everything in his power during the transitional period to ensure safe control over nuclear weapons.

The American journalists are once more impressed at the calmness of the president. He is more relaxed than some days ago, Gorbachev tells them, as “the psychological stress is hardest until you make the decision.” Kaplan is struck too by his proud demeanor. “The one word I would use is ‘dignified,’” he recalled. “It was evident he wanted to be perceived as in control, not in control of the Soviet Union or Russia, but in control of himself.”⁶

Chapter 13 DICTATORSHIP ON THE OFFENSIVE

In the wake of the Russian parliament’s declaration of sovereignty in June 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had the option of trying to destroy each other or of entering into a political alliance. Something drastic had to be done. The Soviet economy was on the point of collapse. There were now chronic shortages of everything in the Russian capital. Even cigarettes had become scarce, and there were minor tobacco riots in several cities. The longest queues that summer were at photographers’ studios, as Muscovites were obliged to apply for identity cards for city stores to prevent country people stripping the shelves bare. Ration coupons were issued for clothes, shoes, and domestic appliances. Sugar was restricted to two kilograms per month per person. Butter was rarely seen. Flour and salt disappeared from the shops, and bread ran out daily. Meat was only available in expensive markets. Consumers were hoarding, making the shortages worse.

People told bitter anecdotes about how bad things had become. A forgetful old man stands outside a supermarket with an empty shopping bag, wondering if he has done his shopping or not. Many jokes were aimed at party privileges. In Congress a deputy complains to the presidium, “I want to work like I do under communism and live like under capitalism,” and is told, “No problem! Join us on the platform.” A Russian moves to Latvia in the hope that one day he will wake up abroad (he soon does). Another anecdote doing the rounds goes: “How does a clever Russian Jew talk to a foolish Russian Jew? By telephone from New York.”

The humiliation of Russians at their degraded state was compounded by the arrival of food parcels from Germany, the country the Soviet Union defeated in World War II. Praskoviya Fyodorovna, age seventy-eight, who had served as a wireless operator in the war, wept as she opened a typical cardboard box sent by a family in Dusseldorf. It contained a tin of cocoa, three slim bars of milk chocolate, two bulky slabs of Edel marzipan, a packet of wafer biscuits, a kilo of Diamant flour, and packages of sugar and rice. “And now they help the victorious,” she sobbed.¹

In Moscow the people standing in line reacted with indifference, even anger, when on October 15, 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leading role in the easing of tensions between East and West and the freedoms gained by Eastern Europe. As far as they were concerned, their lot had worsened while their leader was feeding his ego on the back-slapping international circuit. In an extraordinary swipe at his president, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov told reporters, “We must remember this certainly was not the prize for economics.”²