democrat, Anatoly Sobchak. The Federation’s new
parliament appeared to be fairly evenly split
between conservatives and radicals. Boris Yeltsin,
the obvious leader of the radicals, now campaigned
for the presidency of parliament, which would
make him practically leader of the republic. He
made his aim clear: to gain independence for the
Russian Federation without leaving the Soviet
Union. The powers to be delegated to the
Union would become a matter for negotiation.
Gorbachev supported a conservative candidate,
but Yeltsin won the vote by a comfortable major-
ity. He now emerged as a powerful national leader.
There were deep policy differences between
Yeltsin and Gorbachev, not least on the best way to
handle the nationality conflicts. Yeltsin believed
that the republics could be associated only in a vol-
untary union, preserving independence but hand-
ing some joint responsibilities to the Soviet Union.
If any wished to leave the Soviet Union altogether,
as the Baltic republics did, no obstacles should be
placed in their way. He accordingly arranged for
the Russian Federation to sign separate agreements
with the Baltic republics. This went too far for
Gorbachev, who saw a purely voluntary association
as a recipe for disintegration and chaos. On the
issue of democratisation, Yeltsin was totally disen-
chanted with the Communist Party and did not
wish to see it enjoy any special position in the
Soviet Union. For Gorbachev it remained the
backbone of unity and the only possible adminis-
trative tool of reform. There was also the ques-
tion of how to modernise the Soviet economy.
Gorbachev hankered after some socialist halfway-
house. Yeltsin saw no alternative but a rapid trans-
formation to a market economy at whatever cost in
terms of immediate hardship to the Russian
people.
The only hope for the Soviet Union in 1990
seemed to be for the old rivals Yeltsin and
Gorbachev to work together, and both expressed
their willingness to try. At the meeting of the
Twenty-Eighth Congress of the Communist Party
in July 1990, Gorbachev delivered an address out-
lining his vision of a truly free society founded on
a respect for human rights. He went further than
ever before in defining democratisation as involv-
ing free elections and a multi-party system. He
defended perestroikaand denied that it was respon-
sible for the lamentable condition of the Soviet
economy – yet he had little but words to offer as
remedies. He was strong on freedom, on political
and party reform, weak and cautious on how best
to tackle the crisis in the economy. He was bitterly
attacked by Ligachev and the majority of the
conservatives. Yeltsin, with an eye, as always, for
the dramatic opening, chose the Congress to
announce his resignation from the Communist
Party. The party was split and demoralised, and
most of the Soviet peoples were losing confidence
in Gorbachev and his reforms, which seemed only
to be increasing the queues, the shortages and the
exorbitant black-market profits. Corruption now
flourished in low places too. People had got used
to freedom and began taking it for granted.
At this late hour Gorbachev’s prime minister
Nikolai Ryzhkov produced a cautious proposal for
economic reform which postponed any serious
move to a market economy and to realistic, unsub-
sidised prices. But were things about to change?
While Ryzhkov tinkered with the economy,
Gorbachev in January 1990 turned to a young
academic economist, Stanislav Shatalin, as an addi-
tional adviser. By the summer Gorbachev and
Yeltsin were cooperating, and they set Shatalin to
work at the head of a team of like-minded econ-
omists to produce a programme that would
rapidly introduce a market economy. By the end
of August the ‘500 Days’ plan was ready and
Gorbachev and Yeltsin agreed to back it.
As summer turned to autumn Gorbachev began
to have second thoughts. He saw that all control
was slipping from his hands, with the majority of
the party in opposition, the republics daily issuing
new independence claims and disregarding Kremlin
directives. Conditions had become so bad that
Gorbachev’s public credit was all but exhausted. If
he now adopted the shock therapy of the Shatalin
plan, which would entail huge price increases and
considerable unemployment, he feared that the
Soviet Union would slide into anarchy. So he with-
drew his backing from Shatalin’s radical prescrip-
tion. To save the crumbling edifice of the Soviet
Union, he discussed with Yeltsin and other repub-
lican leaders a new treaty which would preserve
the Union while making many concessions to the
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THE SOVIET UNION, CRISIS AND REFORM 805
