REDRAWING THE MAP OF EUROPE 435unity of the leadership. Meanwhile, Yeltsin continued his political
comeback. After winning election from Sverdlovsk to the Congress of
People’s Deputies of Russia, he proceeded to be made Chairman of its
Supreme Soviet despite Gorbachëv’s efforts to deter the deputies from
voting for him. Yeltsin was showing an ability to attract support from
a wide range of people discontented with the Politburo. He saw his
chance to use Russia, easily the biggest Soviet republic, as a base
from which to undermine Gorbachëv. This would become manifest on
12 June, when the Russian Congress passed a declaration of sover-
eignty. Nobody could predict what would happen next, but obviously
there was a possibility that Russia would soon start to follow its own
internal policies and even to represent itself in international relations.
Gorbachëv had reason for concern.
In Soviet republic after republic, national assertiveness was on the
rise. The usual organized form was the ‘popular front’. The common
feature of the fronts was distrust of the Moscow political leadership.
They brought together diverse trends of opinion and usually even
attracted local communist party members. They first flourished in
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and soon they were emerging in nearly
every republic outside Russia. Gorbachëv’s reforms had enabled their
creation. Now he had to contend with their challenge to his authority.
Baker and Shevardnadze talked again in March while attending
the celebrations in Namibia for the country’s independence. Shevard-
nadze affirmed that Soviet leaders agreed that it would be dangerous if
the Germans adopted a neutral status in world politics: ‘That would be
a big problem.’ He admitted: ‘We don’t know the answer to the prob-
lem. You and I will have to discuss this more and our Presidents will
have to discuss this as well.’ The Kremlin, Shevardnadze indicated,
approved of American forces staying on in Germany after the USSR’s
military withdrawal. But although he had confidence in Kohl, he
expressed a concern that a future government – perhaps one of the
political far right – might close down the American military bases.^55
Shevardnadze ended on a downbeat note: ‘Yes, we will manage the
economy, as difficult as it is – but the nationalities are another matter.’^56
Baker gained a glimpse into the Soviet political crisis and reckoned
that Gorbachëv and the reformers had yet to draw ‘their bottom
lines’.^57 When Shevardnadze spoke to Genscher in South Africa a
couple of days later, he emphasized the Soviet objections to any
scheme for the eastward expansion of NATO. The revolutions of the
previous year had ended decades of strategic stability, and there was