Simon - Gorbachev: his life and times

TO JANE

and for our grandchildren:

Milo, Jacob, and Nora

AUTHORS NOTE

T HREE ISSUESRELATING TO POLITICAL LABELS, records of meetings of the ruling Communist party Politburo, and transliteration of Russian languagedeserve special attention.

It became common practice during Gorbachevs years in power for Soviet observers (and Westerners, too) to label his opponents as left-wing and right-wing. Hard-liners in the Communist party, the military, the security police, and elsewhere who resisted Gorbachevs reforms were dubbed right-wingers. Democrats, especially radical democrats who pushed Gorbachev to make haste in creating a market economy, were known as left-wingers. But given the way such markers are generally used outside the USSRwith Communists usually described as leftwing, and true believers in a market economy known as right-wingto use these labels in this book would be misleading. As a result, I have generally referred to those who resisted reforms as hard-liners or conservatives (even though the latter term can also be confusing), and to those who criticized Gorbachev for going too slowly as radicals or, when their stance was more moderate, liberals.

Beginning in 1966, official working transcripts ( rabochie zapisi ) were made of Politburo meetings, initially on the basis of notes taken by the head of the Communist party Central Committees general department, and later by professional stenographers. When Gorbachev was party general secretary, his aides Anatoly Chernyaev, Georgy Shakhnazarov, and Vadim Medvedev, the first two of whom attended Politburo meetings

Both sets of Politburo records are cited in this book. Unless otherwise noted, it can be assumed that those cited from the READD-RADD collection at the National Security Archive are official transcripts, whereas those read at the Gorbachev Fond Archive (GFA) are notes taken by Chernyaev, Shakhnazarov, or Medvedev, who are named in this books endnotes when their notes are attributed to them in the documents. The sources of other records I cite from other books, including the (so far) twenty-six volumes of Gorbachevs collected works, Sobranie sochinenii , and other collections of documents published in Russia and the West, are identified in those books.

There are several systems of transliteration of the Russian language. Throughout the text of this book, I have used transliteration that will be most familiar or most accessible to the non-Russian reader and most likely to capture the sound of Russian. However, when I cite specific Russian-language material in the notes and bibliography, I employ the Library of Congress transliteration system, which is often used in library catalogs. So, for example, although Anatoly Chernyaev, one of Gorbachevs longtime, close aides, appears as such in the text, when I refer to his Russian-language publications, I spell his name, Anatolii Cherniaev.

During the period covered in the bulk of this book, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. In that time, Russian versions of Ukrainian personal and place-names were used in official, and often in unofficial, discourse. For that reason, and to avoid confusing the reader, I use the Russian versionsexcept for material published after Ukraine became an independent state.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

ABALKIN, LEONID Economist, deputy chairman of USSR Council of Ministers, 19901991.

ABULADZE, TENGIZ Georgian film director of Repentance .

ADAMOVICH, ALES Byelorussian writer and critic who served as USSR Supreme Soviet deputy after 1989.

AFANASYEV, VIKTOR Editor in chief of Pravda , 19761989.

AFANASYEV, YURI Peoples deputy of the USSR, cochair of the Interregional Deputies Group, 19891991.

AITMATOV, CHINGIZ Soviet and Kyrgyz author.

AKHMATOVA, ANNA Famed Russian poet (18891966).

AKHROMEYEV, SERGEI Marshal of the Soviet Union; chief of General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces, 19841988; military adviser to Gorbachev, 19881991.

ALEKSANDROV-AGENTOV, ANDREI Foreign policy adviser to Communist party general secretaries from Brezhnev to Gorbachev, 19661986.

ALIEV, GEIDAR First secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist party, 19691982; first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, 19821987; Politburo member, 19821987.

ALLISON, GRAHAM Professor at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

ANDREOTTI, GIULIO Italian foreign minister, 19831989; prime minister, 19891992.

ANDREYEVA, NINA Chemistry teacher and rank-and-file Communist party member who wrote article in Sovetskaya Rossiia in 1988, accusing Gorbachev of going too far with his reforms.

ANDROPOV, YURI General secretary of the CC CPSU, November 1982February 1984; chairman of the KGB, May 1967May 1982.

ARBATOV, GEORGY Founder and head of Academy of Sciences Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies, 19671995; member of the Central Committee; deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet, 19851991; close adviser to Andropov and Gorbachev.

BAKATIN, VADIM Minister of the interior, 19881990; member of the Presidential Council, 19901991; chairman of the KGB, SeptemberNovember 1991.

BAKER, JAMES, III George H. W. Bushs secretary of state, 19891992; Reagans White House chief of staff, 19811985; secretary of the treasury, 19851988.

BAKLANOV, GRIGORY Russian writer.

BAKLANOV, OLEG Participant in the August 1991 coup; Central Committee secretary in charge of military-industrial matters, 19881991; minister of general machine building, 19831988.

BEKOVA, ZOYA Gorbachev classmate at Moscow State University.

BIKKENIN, NAIL Central Committee functionary.

BILAK, VASIL Slovak Communist leader.

BILLINGTON, JAMES U.S. librarian of Congress, 19872015.

BLACKWILL, ROBERT Special assistant to President George H. W. Bush for national security affairs, 19891991.

BOGOLYUBOV, KLAVDY Head of Central Committees general department, 19821985.

BOGOMOLOV, OLEG Economist, adviser to Andropov and Gorbachev; director of the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System.

BOLDIN, VALERY Participant in the August 1991 coup; Gorbachev adviser, 19821991; head of Central Committee general department, 19871991; member of Presidential Council, 19901991; presidential chief of staff, 19901991.

BONDAREV, YURI Russian writer.

BONNER, ELENA Wife of Andrei Sakharov.

BOVIN, ALEKSANDR Foreign policy consultant to Communist party general secretaries.

BRAITHWAITE, RODRIC British ambassador to Soviet Union, 19881991.

BRAZAUSKAS, ALGIRDAS First secretary of the Lithuanian Communist party, 19881989; chairman of the Presidium of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, 1990.

BREZHNEV, LEONID CPSU general secretary, October 1964November 1982.

BROVIKOV, VLADIMIR Chairman of Byelorussian Council of Ministers, 19831986; ambassador to Poland, 19861990.

BRUTENTS, KAREN First deputy head of Central Committee international department, 19861991; deputy director of international department, 19761986.

BRZEZINSKI, ZBIGNIEW National security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, 19771981.