Book Report #6. "Boris Yeltsin" by John Morrison

Sometimes, you read a book by accident. It was certainly by accident that I picked up Boris Yeltsin: from Bolshevik to Democrat by Reuters correspondent John Morrison, published in 1991. It was not on my list.

But, over the past weekend, it turned up in my hands when I felt like sitting down and reading something, so I started it, not expecting to finish it, and certainlyl not expecting to read it all over a two day period. (Truth be known, it is under 300 pages, but this is not exactly the topic de jour. Or is it?)

I assume the book was named for Yeltsin because it came out at the height of his influence, and when the influence of Gorbachev was declining. But, in fact, it is almost as much about Gorbachev as Yeltsin and is, more than anything, about their rivalry and their largely conflicting vision.

Without going through great detail, here is the gist:

1. The USSR was in a strange circumstance, where clearly its influence and economic stability was waning, although there had been years of political stability.

2. Gorbachev decided to strengthen the country by breathing some popular decision making and democratic reform into its ethos. His expectation was apparently that this would strengthen the country and the Communist party. Instead, it led to the destruction of communist rule. To Morrison, this was inevitable, and his inability to see the necessary results of his reforms was Gorbachev's biggest shortcoming.

3. Gorbachev decided that democracy would be implemented at the level of the soviet socialist republics making up the USSR, recognizing that some (such as the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) might seek to leave the union altogether.

4. What he did not count on, however, was the spread of nationalism to virtually all parts of the Soviet Union, including Russia. Nor the destablizing effect that would have not only on unified rule at the top, but also on the relationship of various nationalities within each of the SSRs. Just because, for example, there was an Estonian SSR, that did not mean that there were not large numbers of Russians living there, with no knowledge of, or interest in, Estonian language and culture.

5. Russia had an anomolous position, since it was both an equal SSR, and clearly at the same time the predominant SSR. It had the largest population, and no one ever quite understood its position. It was, for example, the only SSR that was itself a federation, containing various smaller enclaves (think Chechniya, for example). The USSR was always a "Russian" society, the successor to tsardom.

6. As various of the SSR's became restless, and attempts were made to draw up contracts between them (to determine what functions would be maintained at what levels, and the extent to which each SSR was expected to contribute to the USSR budget, for example), Gorbachev did not anticipat the Boris Yeltsin would, in effect, become the leader of a Russian nationalist movement, seeking to remove power from the central government and direct it from the Russian republic.

7. As an example of this, it was decided that each republic could create its own communist party, and eventually that the concept of a one-party state should be abolished. This made sense to the Kremlin reformers as a part of perestroika and moving from top down to bottom up controls. But in only made sense outside of the Russian republic. The idea of Russia having a Communist party separate from that of the USSR as a whole was not anticipated, and could hardly be conceived. The more that Russia moved to increase its role and authority, the weaker became the central government and the smaller the influence of the overall Communist party. And when Russia's duma decided to create the position of president (the first of whom, of course, was Yeltsin), the rivalry was deepened.

8. Personalities played a part, of course, Gorbachev the intellectual and Yeltsin the populist, but this is downplayed as, in fact, both were western oriented, although Yeltsin more consistently so. Gorbachev, trying to thread the needle between the reformer he thought he was, and the conservatives and bureaucrats in the USSR heirarachy, wavered between encouraging more reform and democracy, and cracking down on too much reform and democracy. And every move to placate his conservative allies in the central government only served to strengthen Yeltsin politically.

9. In August 1991, a coup took place in Moscow, led by conservatives within Gorbachev's government looking to save the union and Communist Party control, and it appeared that Gorbachev was removed from power.

The coup failed, largely due to the incompetency of the leaders (who were not looking for a military confrontation), the role of the Moscow populace, and the presence and articulation of Yeltsin, who came to support his rival, Gorbachev, and assure the continuation of the reforms.

This is where the book ends (it was probably the first to get out to explain all of this). Morrison does not himself attempt to prognosticate. Whether he has written on the subsequent events, I do not know.

Do you?