Moscow, December 25, 1991

The sticking point was whether there would be a single union state with some devolved sovereignty, as Gorbachev wanted, or a less centralized union of states, as the Russians insisted. If the latter idea prevailed, then the USSR was indeed finished. Burbulis made it clear that he envisaged Russia going it alone in the world. But when Shakhnazarov asked him if he were prepared to allow an independent Ukraine to keep the Crimea, Yeltsin’s adviser replied, “Absolutely not!” The Russian-populated peninsula in the Black Sea had been ceded from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev at a time when the Soviet Union was regarded as a permanent entity and it didn’t matter much. Now it did.

Both sides took a break to report to their respective masters. Gorbachev and Yeltsin conferred separately on the telephone. Yeltsin retreated from Burbulis’s hard-line position and said he would agree to an all-union army and foreign ministry. Gorbachev was somewhat heartened. He could perhaps salvage a confederation and a common market similar to, or even stronger than, the European Union.

Yeltsin had to capitulate very quickly on Crimea. The Russian president had raised the issue in a conversation with President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. He told him an independent Russia might have to redraw its borders with other republics, a reference to Crimea and Russian-speaking areas of northern Kazakhstan. “Well then, that’s war,” said Nazarbayev. “That’s civil war.” Yeltsin’s economic adviser, Yegor Gaidar, was also emphatic about the danger. “If you start to discuss the problem of the borders,” he said, “then you have civil war.” Yeltsin quickly closed this Pandora’s box. He could see every day on television the bloodshed that border disputes were causing in the former Yugoslavia.

The Russian and Soviet presidents could at least show a common face to the world again. “After the coup Russia has changed and so has the president,” Yeltsin declared grandly in a television interview. “He found within himself the courage to change his views. I personally believe in Gorbachev today much more than I did three weeks ago before the putsch.” The two rivals openly consulted each other during a session of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies. Their only altercation occurred when Yeltsin criticized Gorbachev for creating the climate for the coup, to which the Soviet leader retorted, “Don’t spit on me!”

On September 5 Gorbachev cajoled the congress to approve in principle a new union to be called a Union of Sovereign States, the details of which would be negotiated by the new State Council comprising the leaders of the willing republics. But it would be the last time his famous powers of persuasion would work their magic on a parliamentary assembly.

An anecdote made the rounds. The “Union of Sovereign States” meant the “Union to Save Gorbachev.” (The initials were the same in Russian.)

Gorbachev and Yeltsin performed together on ABC News on the morning of September 6. The much heralded program was postponed twice because of the hectic schedules of the participants. Sitting side by side in the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall, they told viewers they were getting along fine together.

“There were times when President Gorbachev thought I was a political corpse and I thought he ought not to be president,” said Yeltsin. “Now we are committed to common work—how to deal with a crisis.” Gorbachev agreed: “We do have to cooperate now.”

Then Yeltsin went to ground. Physical exhaustion and melancholy followed the intensity and excitement of battle. He spent almost two weeks on the beach at Yurmala on the Baltic coast; then on September 18, citing a minor heart attack, he retreated to Sochi on the Black Sea. He spent most of the time in a state of semiparalysis or dictating notes for the second volume of his memoirs.

Everyone, it seemed, was rushing to get books out. On October 4 Gorbachev sold a short text called The August Coup to HarperCollins for half a million dollars. It featured seven color pictures of himself with a smiling George Bush. It was written in such haste that a garbled reference to President Francois Mitterrand not calling Gorbachev at Foros nearly caused a diplomatic rupture with Paris. ²

In Sochi Yeltsin had a visit from Burbulis to discuss strategy. As they sat on deck chairs by the warm sea, his grey cardinal presented him with a “Top Secret” memorandum called “Russia’s Strategy in the Transitional Period.” It was a blueprint for a fully independent Russia. This would be achieved by going along with the new union negotiations until they failed, thereby preserving the appearance of legality. Yeltsin should then make his own arrangements with the other republics and consign the USSR to history.