Moscow, December 25, 1991

Now in a position to make, rather than demand, concessions, Yeltsin responded in kind and dropped his insistence on full Russian sovereignty—which he was as yet unable to implement in any case. After a daylong discussion, Gorbachev dictated a statement, which the nine presidents signed, noting that they were all prepared to work together on a new union treaty. They retired for dinner and toasts to a new beginning. For Gorbachev it was a load off his mind, “and a glimmer of hope emerged.” Yeltsin felt “warmed and excited” after the lengthy session.

Nevertheless, the new civility between Gorbachev and Yeltsin did not extend beyond the drawing rooms and lawns of Novo-Ogarevo. Yeltsin’s political ambitions were soaring. To no one’s surprise, he announced that he would run for president of the Russian republic in the groundbreaking election for which he had got a mandate on the back of Gorbachev’s referendum. Gorbachev professed to be neutral but took steps to undermine Yeltsin’s chances. Oleg Shenin, a Central Committee secretary, claimed that Gorbachev, who often referred to Yeltsin as “unbalanced,” repeatedly gave him an assignment to locate some documentation about Yeltsin’s health. During the campaign the KGB provided Gorbachev with transcripts of Yeltsin’s conversations with his security chief, Alexander Korzhakov, at a Moscow tennis club. The pleasant lady at the club who insisted on giving them postmatch refreshments in her office ensured that they lingered within range of the KGB microphones installed there.

Yeltsin realized that without access to television he was at a disadvantage compared to a candidate with the backing of Gorbachev’s Kremlin. Of all the republics, Russia was the only one without its own television channel. In those days Soviet television had two channels, Channel 1 for news and major events and Channel 2 for sports and cultural and educational programs. Both were broadcast throughout the Soviet Union. As the campaign got under way, the Russian parliament pressured Kravchenko to cede control of Channel 2 to the Russian government. The television chief gave in, for once without consulting Gorbachev. The president was furious and raged at Kravchenko, “How dare you help my opponents like this!”¹

Gorbachev correctly saw that a Russian channel would not only help Yeltsin but become a propaganda tool against him. It went on air under its new masters on May 13, 1991, with fast-paced news and satirical sketches, including one of an old woman singing a song with the words “Gorbachev first banned vodka. Now he is banning food.”²

In advance of the June election Yeltsin chose as his running mate Alexander Rutskoy, a former combat pilot and Afghan War hero whom he described as a real tiger, a macho man who would make middle-aged matrons swoon with delight. His only problem with the deputy was that he used expletives all the time, something Yeltsin abhorred. The straight-laced provincial was intolerant of the bad habits of others. Yeltsin also detested smoking and would take a cigarette from the fingers of a smoker sitting near him—on one occasion it was Hannelore Kohl, the wife of Chancellor Kohl of Germany³—and stub it out.

His principal opponent was Nikolay Ryzhkov, but the humorless bureaucrat had only a record of failed economic reforms to show. The ebullient mood of the Yeltsin campaign was conveyed in an anecdote about a military helicopter pilot saying, “Welcome aboard, future president of Russia,” and Yeltsin replying, “Thank you, future general!”

Yeltsin won handily with his platform of radical economic reform and privatization in a more sovereign Russia. He received forty-six million votes compared to thirteen million for Ryzhkov and six million for the extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Gorbachev’s preferred runner, Vadim Bakatin, got fewer than three million votes. Yeltsin believed he won because the other candidates represented the old failed order while he embodied a yet nonexistent country that everyone was waiting impatiently to appear. He had also shown that it was possible to be a Russian patriot while supporting greater freedom for the other republics. Their common enemy was the center, representing Soviet imperialism. And at the heart of the center was Gorbachev.