Moscow, December 25, 1991

After breakfast in the morning—in winter it is always hot cereal, served in the upper-floor living quarters by their servant Shura, who wears a head scarf and no makeup, as Raisa requires of all the female staff—the president crosses the corridor to his library, where glass-fronted bookcases reach to the ceiling. In a space in the rows of bound volumes is a framed black-and-white photograph of Raisa, his favorite, taken when she was a rather prim-looking student at Moscow University. There is another of his father, Sergey, posing in simple military tunic decorated with three medals and two Orders of the Red Star for his service in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. These pictures, and a valuable icon embossed with gold leaf depicting the Archangel Mikhail, which the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexey II, gave Gorbachev for his sixtieth birthday in March, will have to be packed with particular care when they leave.

Off the library is a small wood-paneled study with a desk of Karelian birch on which sit several white telephones and one red telephone beneath a transparent cover—the hotline for national emergencies, which the cleaners are instructed never to touch. Raisa has learned of late to dread these telephones ringing out, “like a gunshot, destroying the peace of the night,” bringing “shouts of despair, entreaties, suffering and, sometimes, death.”³

Petite and attractive at fifty-nine, Raisa too is showing the strain of this period of political upheaval. It has, as she puts it, tested her spirit, her mind, and her will and brought her incurable heartache and sleepless nights. Her health has been poor since she collapsed with a stroke during the attempted coup against Gorbachev in August. The stroke affected her power of speech and the movement in her right arm. The wrinkles on her once porcelain complexion reveal the torment of watching her husband shrink in stature day by day.

To Raisa, Mikhail Gorbachev is a man of destiny. Indeed many superstitious people have interpreted the distinctive birthmark on his head as an omen. But Mikhail and Raisa themselves believe they were once given a sign that he is special. When they were in their twenties, both had the same dream. They were in a deep, black well from which they were trying to get out, and they kept falling back. Finally they succeeded in escaping, and they saw in front of them a wide road and a huge bright sun. Raisa told her husband then, addressing him by his pet name, “Misha, you are destined for greatness.”⁴

Gorbachev has come to see himself as the embodiment of providence. He talks about his mission, of being chosen to carry out perestroika—a task that began as reconstruction of society and has come to mean for him the historic revival of Russia. He sees his forced abdication as the outcome of an epic struggle between good and evil, loyalty and treachery, hope and disillusion, generosity and vengefulness. To him this day of his downfall is a black page in history.

While in his study, the Soviet president has an opportunity to cast his eyes, for the umpteenth time, over his much-annotated resignation speech. It will be one of the most important pronouncements of his career. It will define him and his legacy and put down a marker for the future of the country. He has little influence over that now, of course. He is being forced to transfer power into the hands of incompetent, irresponsible people, ambitious and ruthless political adventurers, who he is firmly convinced are sacrificing the Soviet Union for the sake of their ardent desire to take over the Kremlin and push him out. Less than two weeks ago Gorbachev was telling George Bush on the telephone how confident he was that the Soviet Union would survive. At the time he had reason to believe that he would continue as president and would be residing indefinitely in the state dacha here in Razdory, on the banks of the Moscow River. The successor to Lenin has done everything to keep the Union in existence since it started falling apart after the August coup four months ago and the republics one after another began declaring their intention to break away. He has made himself hoarse trying to convince republic leaders, visiting statesmen, journalists, and anyone else who would listen that the country should not be split up, that it was absurd, that it would lead to famine, civil war, blood.

The demise of the superpower he inherited finally became inevitable the previous Saturday, when all the republics ganged up to reject even a weakened central authority. Only on Monday morning, just two days ago, did he decide—he had little choice—that he would announce his resignation this evening. It was only on Monday afternoon that he established the terms for a peaceful transition with his hated rival. This was a painful experience. And he is not even being accorded the dignity of a solemn farewell ceremony.