458 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
everyone knew Shcherbitski as one of Brezhnev’s veteran protégés.
Shevardnadze stood his ground. Medvedev tried to calm things down
by proposing to start a debate on a new Union treaty. He expressed
concern that Russia might become a sovereign republic – and Gor-
bachëv agreed.^27 But Ryzhkov objected to Medvedev’s wish to devolve
powers to the republics: ‘I have the feeling that you’re ready to break
everything up. That’s why you can’t be allowed into the Baltic region.’
Chebrikov added: ‘Among the people there’s a negative attitude to the
Baltic.’^28 The Politburo was a long way from reaching a consensus. But
Gorbachëv’s draft was the only one under consideration and, in the
absence of an alternative, the decision was made to submit it to
the Central Committee plenum in September.^29
Gorbachëv had always believed in the benefits of Soviet federal-
ism. He reminded everyone at the plenum that Latvia took ninety-six
per cent of its fuel from other parts of the USSR. It produced only a
half of its electricity and a fifth of its chemical materials. The Baltic
region was unexceptional in its reliance on the other Soviet republics.
At the same time he praised Lithuania for its computers, TVs and
sound-recording equipment.^30
On 9 November 1989, hours before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he
reported to the Politburo on his recent meetings with Estonian and
Latvian representatives. There had been no meeting of minds. They
only wanted to talk about the mechanism for leaving the Soviet
Union.^31 The Politburo was perplexed about how to handle the situ-
ation. Vorotnikov discouraged those who were in favour of an
economic blockade. Any such action, he reasoned, would stir up hos-
tility to the whole federal order.^32 But what was the Soviet leadership
going to do? The revolutions in Eastern Europe were an additional
complication. Talking with his aides on 18 November, Shevardnadze
said that any ‘destabilization’ in East Germany would ‘act as a catalyst
for separatist tendencies in the Baltic region’ and even in Ukraine.^33 He
feared that people would say: ‘Uncle Joe created a system and you have
brought it to ruin.’^34 At the Malta summit on 3 December Bush
expressed his concern lest Gorbachëv might lean towards tightening
the screws on the Baltic republics. He repeated that the diasporas in
America were raising the alarm about this possibility. Gorbachëv
replied that he was expanding freedom in the USSR; he depicted sep-
aratism in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as a threat to perestroika. He
asked Bush to take some account of the millions of ethnic Russians