Russia

33. A. Reid, The Shaman’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia (London, 2002), pp. 133 passim; 160-61.

14: AUTOPSY ON A DECEASED EMPIRE

1. See Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1836, p. 42. As she points out, this policy of ‘rooting’ (korenizatsiia) also encouraged nepotism, cronyism, corruption and the creation of virtual fiefdoms, but then nationalism has always been used as a means of accessing political power and economic advantage.

2. V. Shlapentokh, ‘A normal system? False and true explanations for the collapse of the USSR’, TLS, 15 December 2000, pp. 11-13. The author herself conducted several of the surveys referred to.

3. Boris Aristov to Moscow, 18 October 1978, quoted in Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, p. 666.

4. Described by a sociologist involved - T. Zaslavakaia, ‘Novosibirsk report’, Survey, 28, 1 (1984), 88-108.

5. I have described the processes of collapse before in the context of the Soviet Bloc states themselves - Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, ch. 1, especially pp. 11ff.

6. It was reported that Soviet scientists eventually concluded that a mirror system fitted to their missiles could divert missiles sent against them. In practice it was unnecessary for all Soviet missiles to get through: the prospect of only two or three of them succeeding in destroying as many large American cities would have constituted an effective deterrent (and the fear of one reaching its target might have been enough). Meanwhile the cost of the arms race, some scholars argue, contributed to the destabilization. For an interesting account of Soviet science and references to some useful literature on the subject, see Y. Rabkin and E. Mirskaia, ‘Science and scientists in the post-Soviet disunion’, Social Science Information, 32, 4 (1993), 553—79.

7. In retrospect this turned out to be the best opportunity to create a genuine democracy that was to be offered, but at that moment it was too radical even for Gorbachev, and the chance was missed - cf. Archie Brown’s lecture at the School of Slavonic Studies, London, 1 March 2004.

8. The author’s observation. He was in Moscow and Kiev at the time.

9. See Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, pp. 445—6.

10. Quoted by David Remnick reviewing F. Chuyev’s interviews with Molotov and Ligachev’s autobiography in New York Review, 25 March 1993, pp. 33-8.

11. From this point on the text reflects BBC transcripts of broadcasts from the Soviet Union and the Bloc countries, SU/0472 i etc. and EE/0457 etc.

12. Gorbachev, 28 March 1989, BBC, SU 0419 i.

13. Gorbachev, 18 July 1989, BBC, SU/0515 C1/1-4, 22 July 1989.

14. BBC, SU/0527 i and 0536 i.

15. BBC, SU/0528 c1/1-6/.

16. I have told the story before in Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, pp. 12-15.

17. Interview of 25 February 1991 reported in the press.

18. Private communication confirmed by another eyewitness.

19. See A. Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse and the New Europe (Princeton, 1999), esp. pp. 11ff.

20. The point is suggested by M. Malia, ‘The August revolution’, NewYork Review, 26 September 1991, pp. 22—6. The account of the coup which follows also draws on this source, though the interpretation of events is mine,.

21. Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, p. 495. Service provides an account of the last days of the old regime which is sympathetic to Gorbachev.

22. For a useful summary of the economic decline and the political collapse consequent upon it, see the Quarterly Reports issued by The Economist’s Intelligence Research Unit for 1990 and 1991.

23. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1856, pp. 239, 241.

24. See A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, 1996).

15: REINVENTING RUSSIA

1. Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn, p. 211.

2. J. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (London, 2002), p. 56. Generally on the reforms see R. Service, Russia: Experiment with a People (London, 2002), ch. 9.

3. The Times, 18 July 2001, p. 20.

4. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, p. 139.

5. S. Cohen, Failed Crusade. America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York, 2000), p. 150.

6. P. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin (New York, 2000), is informative on the subject, particularly the links with the ‘Chechen mob’. The author was subsequently murdered.