Read Online Seize the Moment by Richard Nixon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Nixon
Ads: Link
the reactionary forces of the Communist old guardâthe nomenklatura, the economic central planners, the KGB, and the military top brass. Real reformers turned against him and called for accelerated change, not retrenchment, insisting only full democracy and free-market economics could save the country. The brightest and the best left him and joined Yeltsin. He was left with yes-men, second-raters, and hard-liners who used him rather than serving him. The problem was not just that Communist hard-liners occupied the seats in the cabinet room but that their ideas formed part of Gorbachevâs mind-set. The hard-liners were not an incidental part of his administration but an integral part of his vision.
In making common cause with the reactionaries, Gorbachev rolled back some of his own reforms. He curtailed glasnost, sharply limiting the permissible criticism and opposition views presented in the media, particularly on television. Though he denied giving the orders, he endorsed after the fact the actions of security forces that led to the killing of twenty-one people by the brutal OMON internal security forces in Latvia and Lithuania. He denounced cooperatives even though they accounted for only 1 percent of GNP in 1990. He recentralized economic controls to strangle budding private enterprise. And in January 1991, he launched a much-heralded economic reform plan worthy of a Brazilian junta: its centerpiece was a confiscation of high-denomination currency that only served to further undercut confidence in the ruble.
In April 1991, Gorbachev appeared to recognize that he had turned down a dead end. Hard-line allies could guaranteehis grip on power, but they provided no program to rebuild the country. Meanwhile, the reformers were gaining strength, with Yeltsin only weeks away from a massive mandate in the presidential election in the Russian republic. Gorbachev backpedaled toward the reformers. He initialed an agreement on the future of reform and a new union treaty with Yeltsin and the leaders of eight other republics, moving in some ways toward a more reformist line.
While Gorbachev had temporized, however, the reform movement had taken on a momentum of its own. Independent democratic political parties took root. The press refused to be shackled again. The Communist party suffered a hemorrhage of resignations, with 25 percent of its 20 million members breaking ranks in a pell-mell struggle to escape a sinking ship. Despite their minority status, pro-reform factions in the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of Peopleâs Deputies managed to hamstring some antidemocratic legislation. All fifteen republic governments declared their sovereignty and asserted the supremacy of their laws over those of the center. Six republic governments held free and fair elections, with their new leaders openly challenging the Kremlin in what Gorbachev called a âwar of laws.â Among the people, fear of the once-mighty regime evaporated. Massive prodemocracy ralliesânumbering in the hundreds of thousandsâtook place in Moscow and other cities, some even in defiance of explicit decrees from Gorbachev. This trend culminated in June 1991 with the resounding victory of Boris Yeltsin in a free presidential election in the Russian republic.
When the Communist hard-liners temporarily ousted Gorbachev two months later, they soon discovered that the smooth overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964 could not be reenacted. Before Gorbachev, Soviet leaders could intimidate the entire country by repressing a few dissidents. But Gorbachevâsreforms had corroded the system. While the coup leaders controlled the levers of power, those levers no longer flawlessly operated the machinery of repression. Kryuchkov, Yazov, and Pugo gave the orders to crack down, but their subordinates opted not to carry them out. Even if the coup had not collapsed within sixty hours, it would have soon degenerated into a replay of the downfall of the East German
In making common cause with the reactionaries, Gorbachev rolled back some of his own reforms. He curtailed glasnost, sharply limiting the permissible criticism and opposition views presented in the media, particularly on television. Though he denied giving the orders, he endorsed after the fact the actions of security forces that led to the killing of twenty-one people by the brutal OMON internal security forces in Latvia and Lithuania. He denounced cooperatives even though they accounted for only 1 percent of GNP in 1990. He recentralized economic controls to strangle budding private enterprise. And in January 1991, he launched a much-heralded economic reform plan worthy of a Brazilian junta: its centerpiece was a confiscation of high-denomination currency that only served to further undercut confidence in the ruble.
In April 1991, Gorbachev appeared to recognize that he had turned down a dead end. Hard-line allies could guaranteehis grip on power, but they provided no program to rebuild the country. Meanwhile, the reformers were gaining strength, with Yeltsin only weeks away from a massive mandate in the presidential election in the Russian republic. Gorbachev backpedaled toward the reformers. He initialed an agreement on the future of reform and a new union treaty with Yeltsin and the leaders of eight other republics, moving in some ways toward a more reformist line.
While Gorbachev had temporized, however, the reform movement had taken on a momentum of its own. Independent democratic political parties took root. The press refused to be shackled again. The Communist party suffered a hemorrhage of resignations, with 25 percent of its 20 million members breaking ranks in a pell-mell struggle to escape a sinking ship. Despite their minority status, pro-reform factions in the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of Peopleâs Deputies managed to hamstring some antidemocratic legislation. All fifteen republic governments declared their sovereignty and asserted the supremacy of their laws over those of the center. Six republic governments held free and fair elections, with their new leaders openly challenging the Kremlin in what Gorbachev called a âwar of laws.â Among the people, fear of the once-mighty regime evaporated. Massive prodemocracy ralliesânumbering in the hundreds of thousandsâtook place in Moscow and other cities, some even in defiance of explicit decrees from Gorbachev. This trend culminated in June 1991 with the resounding victory of Boris Yeltsin in a free presidential election in the Russian republic.
When the Communist hard-liners temporarily ousted Gorbachev two months later, they soon discovered that the smooth overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964 could not be reenacted. Before Gorbachev, Soviet leaders could intimidate the entire country by repressing a few dissidents. But Gorbachevâsreforms had corroded the system. While the coup leaders controlled the levers of power, those levers no longer flawlessly operated the machinery of repression. Kryuchkov, Yazov, and Pugo gave the orders to crack down, but their subordinates opted not to carry them out. Even if the coup had not collapsed within sixty hours, it would have soon degenerated into a replay of the downfall of the East German
Similar Books
