Moscow, December 25, 1991

Yeltsin faced a decision of enormous consequence. He could win full control of Russia, but the price would be high. Russia would lose the steppes of southern Siberia and “Russian” cities like Kharkov and Odessa, as well as the Crimea peninsula and Sevastopol, where the Russian fleet had been based since the reign of Catherine the Great.

In Moscow Gorbachev was also trying to relax after the strain of Foros. He took his wife to see a performance of Thornton Wilder’s play Ides of March, whose theme of betrayal he and Raisa found timely, and “really enjoyed it.” A stream of foreign dignitaries came to seek his assessment of the situation. He assured them that the centrifugal tendencies had been reversed. He warned one visitor, “If we fail to preserve the unitary state, we’re going to have another Yugoslavia on our hands. I bet my life on it.” Unlike the Serbs, however, who fought to preserve their hegemony in Yugoslavia’s provinces, Russians living in the republics were generally passive as the Soviet Union fell apart. Many of them foresaw only further misery and a return to a new era of totalitarianism if the center prevailed, and they were encouraged to support the process of disintegration by the most credible Russian figure of the time, Boris Yeltsin.

When at last he returned to Moscow, on Wednesday, October 10, Yeltsin found Russia in political chaos and his parliament a nest of political intrigue. Geared up for a long period of opposition, neither he nor the deputies had a firm idea of how to use the levers of power that were now within reach. Russian ministers were squabbling, and Rutskoy was warning of anarchy. The city was full of rumors of a second coup to prevent the USSR’s disintegration.³

Gorbachev, meanwhile, was busy trying to seize back the initiative by rallying the leaders of the republics to the cause of a new union treaty. He convened a meeting of the State Council the day after Yeltsin’s reappearance. The Russian president arrived late and remained sullen throughout. Nevertheless, the leaders of the republics agreed to form a new economic union, with discussions to take place later on a political union. A ceremonial signing of a cobbled-together economic treaty took place the following Thursday, October 18, in St. George’s Hall. Gorbachev fussed over the seating and whether champagne toasts should be televised (they were), and he made sure that the red flag was bigger than the flags of the republics. He personally decided on the types of chairs most suitable for an official dinner that followed in the St. Catherine Hall. He convinced himself that there was a momentum again for a single union state with a common defense and foreign policy. He conveyed this to the visiting German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who assured him of German support for the survival of the Soviet Union but had offended Gorbachev by visiting the independent-minded republics without liaising with Moscow. After Genscher left, Gorbachev called him an “elephant” and complained that he had behaved shabbily. ⁴

While seemingly in favor of the economic union, Yeltsin had been calculating his next big move. On Sunday, October 28, he delivered a shock. In a rousing speech to the Russian legislature, sitting in the Great Kremlin Palace, he declared that the only way out of the country’s crisis was by drastic action. Therefore he planned to free prices, end subsidies, and speed up privatization in the territory of Russia.

“The time has come to act decisively, harshly, without hesitation,” he announced. There would be difficult times ahead, but the alternative was ruin. “The period of moving in small steps is over. We need a major economic breakthrough…. If we don’t seize the real chance to break the unfavorable course of events, we shall condemn ourselves to beggary and our centuries-old state to disaster.” Swayed by his powerful oratory, the parliament gave Yeltsin the power to enforce his “big bang” economic reforms by decree. Even Gorbachev’s loyal aide Anatoly Chernyaev was impressed, seeing Yeltsin’s drive as a breakthrough to a new country and a new society.

The first Gorbachev knew about this bold initiative was when he glanced at the television in his office and saw that Yeltsin was speaking. The Russian president had not bothered to alert him, although they had spoken on the phone just the night before. He asked for the text of the speech. Next day he read it several times on the presidential plane en route to Madrid, where he was cohosting a Middle East conference with U.S. president George Bush. The economic mechanisms were fine, he thought. But it boiled down to one thing. This was a Russian initiative. The center had no role. Yegor Yakovlev, also on the plane, warned Gorbachev that Yeltsin clearly meant to destroy the Union.