The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

Television producers were tapping into the moods Gudkov and his colleagues had documented in their survey. In the years between the 1989 and 1994 studies, Russians had grown tired of thinking about the future. They were drawing their sense of identity from the past, and they were imbuing this past with an additional air of wholesome conservatism.

the "open," "simple" quality-less Russian outsourced his agency to something or someone more powerful. An element of the nostalgia that was becoming evident by the end of 1995 was the longing for a strong leader, capable of exerting the force for which Homo Sovieticus was ever prepared. Yeltsin no longer seemed suited for the role: he was passive, often absent, always embroiled in yet another tussle with the parliament, though these had long since stopped seeming fateful. His army was fighting a hopeless, protracted war against Russian citizens in Chechnya, and Yeltsin himself, who had once seemed larger than life, was fumbling even this opportunity to demonstrate his resolve. On two occasions Chechen insurgents took large groups of hostages on territories adjacent to Chechnya, in an effort to force Russia to negotiate. The first time, Yeltsin went

missing and his prime minister had to handle the negotiations; the second time, Yeltsin made incoherent televised comments.⁵ The war had lost him the support of the old dissidents and many of the new liberal economists who had worked in his government, but this served only to reinforce a tendency that had been evident for a couple of years: Yeltsin was increasingly surrounding himself with old Soviet hands. In the population at large, the war was unpopular but not so unpopular that it could arouse protests of any scale—after a few attempts, efforts to organize demonstrations devolved into a weekly miniature rally, more of an information session held by a few activists staffing a table in central Moscow. The war did not arouse passions, but in 1995 Yeltsin's popularity plummeted into the single digits.⁶ In 1996, as he approached the end of his first term, his political life seemed to be over.

Yeltsin, democrat though he was, had a distinctly monarchical obsession with choosing a successor. In August 1994 he cruised into Nizhny Novgorod on a river liner sailing down the Volga and, stepping ashore to speak to the crowds, announced that he had settled on a successor: Boris Nemtsov. "I just want to say that he has grown so much that we can now set our sights on his being president," said Yeltsin. The awkward phrasing showed that the decision was Yeltsin's, not the younger man's.⁷ Nemtsov remained the heir apparent until he began voicing his opposition to the war in Chechnya. In 1996 the people of Nizhny Novgorod collected a million signatures against the war—with a population of 3.7 million, this meant that nearly all adults in the region signed. Nemtsov rode in a Nizhny Novgorod-made van to deliver the signatures to the Kremlin. He had the driver stop just outside the fortress and marched straight into Yeltsin's office, one of the fat cardboard binders with petitions in his hands.

"What do you think," asked Yeltsin, addressing him in the familiar, as one might address a child. "Are these signatures for me or against me?"

"If you stop the war, they will be for you, and if you don't, they will be against you."

When Nemtsov left, he assumed he was no longer Yeltsin's chosen successor. He did not hear from the president for months.⁸

In March 1996, Yegor Gaidar, the former prime minister, came to Nizhny Novgorod to ask Nemtsov to run for president. He joined Nemtsov on a visit to one of the collective farms, and what he saw only affirmed his resolve. Nemtsov, who had been governor during four and a half years of struggle and extremely complicated reforms, was genuinely beloved in his region. Unlike Gaidar, whose name was associated with every unpopular move made by the Russian government and whose manner and looks made him seem aloof and condescending, Nemtsov was a natural politician, charismatic and attractive in an approachable way. Gaidar argued that Nemtsov could become the true democratic candidate and beat both Yeltsin and the resurgent Communists in the election. Nemtsov said that he could not betray Yeltsin. Gaidar argued in favor of principle over personal loyalty, and failed.⁹