without raising similar claims in the Union’s other
republics. He would go no further than holding
out a promise of a measure of economic auton-
omy, but this did not satisfy the nationalists.
Nationalism was not confined to the Baltics. In
the Caucasus the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
continued unabated, with Moscow’s mediation or
threats of force settling nothing. Gorbachev’s insti-
tutional changes also alarmed the people of
Georgia, who feared that they would strengthen
the centre at the expense of the republics. In
November 1988 there had been demonstrations in
Tblisi, the capital of Georgia. The inefficiency of
the assistance rushed to the victims of a huge earth-
quake in Armenia in December 1988 again
reflected badly on the Kremlin’s powers in general
and on Gorbachev in particular. Much worse fol-
lowed. In April 1989 there was another peaceful
demonstration in Tblisi. Gorbachev was out of
the country. The Georgian communist leader
appealed to the Kremlin for support and the hard-
liners led by Ligachev ordered troop reinforce-
ments. Gorbachev returned, expecting a peaceful
outcome. Instead the troops went into action,
firing on the crowd and using gas to disperse them.
The Tblisi ‘massacre’ left twenty dead and hun-
dreds more injured. The brutality tarnished
Gorbachev’s image on the eve of the first meeting
of the Congress of People’s Deputies in May 1989.
The elections, conducted over several weeks,
had been chaotic. The party had done its best to
influence the outcome, but a sizeable group of
radicals was returned. Public pressure now
counted for something, especially in the large
cities. The attempt to exclude Andrei Sakharov,
the most famous of the human-rights dissidents,
backfired on the Academy of Sciences and he was
elected. But the most spectacular victory was that
of Boris Yeltsin in the Moscow constituency,
where he defeated the party apparatchikby a
landslide. With 5 million Moscow votes cast for
him, Yeltsin could now claim some democratic
credibility, in contrast to Gorbachev, who had
never submitted himself to any popular election.
The first session of the Congress of People’s
Deputies began on 25 May 1989. The lack of
respect shown for key leaders of the old regime
and the reluctance of large numbers of deputies
to conform to rules were a tribute to the atmos-
phere of freedom and the absence of fear that
Gorbachev had done so much to bring about.
Gorbachev himself had a tough time controlling
the proceedings, which were televised in the spirit
of glasnost. Remarkably Andrei Sakharov gave his
support to the proposition that Gorbachev be
elected president of the Supreme Soviet, the
smaller working parliament that was to be chosen
from among the deputies. He admired the man
but had reservations about the pace of reform.
The majority of the deputies were silent con-
formists, but active radicals and militant conser-
vatives, plus some individual eccentrics, ensured
a lively forum with many speeches on many sub-
jects, and Gorbachev and his ministers heard many
of their policies challenged. When it came to elect-
ing the Supreme Soviet, the majority voted in
party conservatives, mainly nonentities. Yeltsin
and other radicals were left out. The people of
Moscow mounted a large demonstration against
the exclusion of their hero. The democratic spirit
had been truly awakened and could no longer be
smothered by old-style KGB and police repres-
sion. Even the conservatives now understood this
and amended the laws accordingly.
Could the peoples of the Soviet Union be
granted fewer political freedoms than their allies
and neighbours in the people’s republics? Eco-
nomic crisis at home was hastening Soviet disen-
gagement from what had once been satellites,
in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czecho-
slovakia and the German Democratic Republic.
From the spring of 1989 to the end of the year
communist rulers, no longer protected by the Red
Army, were being overthrown one after the other
by popular revolutionary movements. These asser-
tions of independence could not fail to make an
impact in the Soviet republics. Why should com-
munism survive in the Soviet Union when it was
being rejected by people everywhere else? Even
China could not entirely isolate itself from this
world revolutionary movement. In the Soviet
Union improving economic conditions might have
reconciled the people a little longer to the reform
of communism that Gorbachev was striving to
bring about. But material conditions were con-
stantly getting worse. A massive strike by miners in
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