Moscow, December 25, 1991

Mikhail Gorbachev created the conditions for the end of totalitarianism, and Boris Yeltsin delivered the death blow. But neither is honored in Russia in modern times as a national hero, nor is the date of the transfer of power formally commemorated in Moscow. Contemporary leaders discourage any celebration of December 25, 1991. What happened that day is viewed by many in Russia as, in Vladimir Putin’s words, a “great geopolitical catastrophe.” It is a reminder that the fall of their once-mighty superpower was celebrated in the United States as a victory in the Cold War, rather than as the triumph of a people who peacefully overthrew a totalitarian system to embrace democracy and free-market economics. As a former Russian presidential chief of staff, Alexander Leontiyev, put it not long afterwards, “Americans got so drunk at the USSR’s funeral that they’re still hung over.”

Indeed what is remarkable is the number of Americans who gather around the deathbed for the obsequies for communist power. Never before or since are Russian and American interests so intertwined. The distrust and enmity of the long Cold War dissolves into a remarkable dalliance between the competing nuclear powers. Americans from the International Monetary Fund and from the Chicago School of Economics are to be found in Moscow collaborating with Russian policymakers on a new direction for the Russian economy. Their guiding hands are at the elbow of Yeltsin’s ministers as they embark on a mission unprecedented in economic history: the dismantling of the communist model and its substitution with the raw capitalism of neoliberal economics.

During a visit to Russia just days before Gorbachev’s resignation, U.S. secretary of state James Baker marvels at how, in all his meetings, one theme is uniform: “the intense desire to satisfy the United States.”³ With each of the new republics trying to establish positive relations with America, he reckons that “our ability to affect their behavior” will never be greater than at this time. American president George H. W. Bush observes that the behavior of the new states is “designed specifically to gain US support for what they had done.”⁴ The deference to the United States is such that all the emerging new countries declare their adherence to a list of democratic principles laid down by the Bush administration for diplomatic recognition.

In the dying days of the Soviet Union, American diplomats and Russia’s political figures enjoy such close relations that they consult each other almost on a daily basis. Gorbachev addresses the U.S. ambassador as “Comrade.” James Baker and his opposite number, Eduard Shevardnadze, dine in each other’s homes and gossip about world affairs. Friendly contacts take place between the top agents of the CIA and the KGB, who have spied on each other for decades. American evangelists show up in Moscow to rejoice and proselytize. A score of Christian leaders visit the Kremlin in the dying days of Soviet communism, and the most ardent cleric among them tells Gorbachev, “You are the person most prayed for in American churches, you are an instrument of God.”⁵ The Kremlin corridors echo during the last twenty-four hours with American accents, as U.S. television personnel crowd into the president’s office to record the final hours. The only televised interviews given by the great Russian rivals are to U.S. news channels.

Mikhail Gorbachev considers himself a personal friend of President Bush, who in the end tried to help him sustain a reformed Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin courts the U.S. president to gain his approval for breaking up that same entity. The former wants the approval of history; the latter craves international respect. Both measure their standing in the world by the quality of their relations with the United States. They are equally keen to assure Washington that the transfer of control over nuclear weapons will not endanger world peace. The Americans are just as anxious to maintain a friendship that advances their global interests and economic and political philosophy.

December 25, 1991, is therefore a high-water mark in Moscow’s relations with the Western world, and in particular the United States. Only once before in history has Russia looked to the West with such enthusiasm for inspiration. That was three centuries earlier, when Peter the Great introduced European reforms and moved the Russian capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg as a window to the West. His legacy survived until 1917 and the triumph of the Bolsheviks.

Many notable events also take place in Moscow this day. The red flag with its hammer and sickle is hauled down from the Kremlin for the last time, and the white, blue, and red tricolor of prerevolutionary Russia is hoisted in its place. The national parliament changes the name of the country from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Russian Federation, or simply Russia.