494 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
assure Congress that any potential debtor was creditworthy – and he
could not say this about the USSR. Gorbachëv stated that $10–15 bil-
lion could make all the difference to the Soviet economy without
making a dent in the American budget and without much risk of a
default. Bush demurred out of fear of criticism in America if he offered
anything more than an advance of $1.5 billion for food imports. Baker
supported Bush in taking this stand; he added that information had
reached Washington that Yeltsin’s Russian administration had plans to
dissolve the USSR’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Baker whispered
informally to Gorbachëv’s interpreter Pavel Palazhchenko, asking
him to tell Gorbachëv to get a decision accepted on the food imports
offer before the Americans changed their mind. Gorbachëv wanted
more from the West and gave instructions for an overture to be made
to Prime Minister John Major as that year’s coordinator of the G7
countries.^71
Yeltsin played along with the idea of sustaining the Union while
obstructing Gorbachëv on a daily basis. He assured everyone that he
wanted stability in relations with America. Russian Prime Minister
Ivan Silaev appointed an arms deal team on the model of the old ‘Big
Five’, as Vitali Kataev had helpfully suggested.^72 Yeltsin held his politi-
cal fire until he heard the results of the Ukrainian referendum on
independence on 1 December. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour
of secession. Yeltsin seized his chance. Meeting with Ukraine’s Presi-
dent Leonid Kravchuk and Belorussia’s Stanislav Shushkevich at
Belovezhskaya Pushcha a few days later, he resolved to bring the USSR
to an end. He declined to consult the Russian electorate: his personal
decision was final.
Gorbachëv accepted the inevitable. On 25 December he appeared
on Soviet television and announced that he would step down from
office at the stroke of midnight ushering in the New Year. The October
Revolution of 1917 was tossed aside. Marxism-Leninism was discred-
ited for ever in the country of its birth. Each of the fifteen Soviet
republics became an independent state. The political and economic
disintegration of one superpower – as well as the outcome of the per-
sonal duel between Gorbachëv and Yeltsin – diverted attention from
the enormous achievements of the year. The Cold War’s ragged ends
were tidied away. A sequence of treaties had rendered a nuclear holo-
caust no longer a serious immediate likelihood even though both sides
retained more than enough ballistic missiles to destroy each other.
Gorbachëv bit by bit had conceded ground that his predecessors had