516 { China’s Quest
opponents, who dominated long-established Soviet institutions of power. The
new Congress of People’s Deputies, unlike the old Soviets, was constituted by
competitive and therefore lively elections. Yeltsin used the new Congress as
a power base and as a mechanism to further amend the constitution in dem-
ocratic directions. Barely two weeks after Yeltsin became its chairman, the
Congress of People’s Deputies issued a declaration of sovereignty. In effect,
the largest and most important republic of the USSR, the Russian Republic,
was seceding from the USSR. The next month, July, Yeltsin resigned from
the CPSU in a dramatic speech at the 28th Congress of that party. Yeltsin
took with him out of the CPSU a considerable body of Russian party mem-
bers who began concentrating on consolidating control over the structures
of power within the Russian Republic. Early in 1991, the institutions of the
Russian Republic were reformed and a new presidency established, to be
elected by direct popular vote. When the election for that office was held in
June 1991, Yeltsin won 57 percent of the vote in a six-way race. The candidate
supported by Gorbachev won only 16 percent of the vote. Opinion in Russia
was swinging rapidly and strongly in favor of independence and thorough-
going democratic reform.
By August 1991, CPSU hardliners saw the writing on the wall and attempted
a coup d’état against both Yeltsin and Gorbachev. The coup attempt failed after
only three days, thanks in part to the heroic actions of Yeltsin, who rushed to
the Russian parliament and rallied its defense. As had happened in Romania,
units of the military refused to obey Communist hardliners. The failure of
the coup discredited both the hard-line communists and Gorbachev, and
swung opinion further in favor of radical reform to prevent a return to old-
style communist repression. Yeltsin’s group proceeded to take over institu-
tions of power in Russia ministry by ministry. In November, Yeltsin decreed
a ban on all Communist Party activities in Russia, and on December 25, 1991,
Gorbachev resigned all posts and the USSR ceased to function. After seventy-
four years of “building socialism,” the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
disappeared into the dustbin of history.
The CCP was keenly interested in Soviet developments. The collapse of
communist rule, and perhaps of the communist-led state, the USSR, would
erode the CCP’s own legitimacy. The USSR was the oldest proletarian state,
which, in the typical Marxist-Leninist formulation, had the most “experi-
ence in the construction of socialism.” The CCP had numerous times excul-
pated itself from its failures by citing a “lack of experience in constructing
socialism.” Now, the party with the most “experience” was going under.
China’s own political system, and even still (circa 1991) to a considerable
extent its economic system, was derived from the Soviet model. If that
model, with its considerable “experience,” had not worked in the USSR, and
if it had proved itself incapable of reform, why should one think it could