In both China and the former Soviet Union only
half of the double transition, to a market eco-
nomy andto democracy, has been attempted – a
different half in each country.
Gorbachev’s strength and weakness lay in his
political instincts, the fertility of a mind that
appeared to conjure up compromises out of
apparently unbridgeable contradictions. He spoke
of democracy, but it was a democracy that was
meant to coexist with the role of the Communist
Party and its enormous bureaucracy, newspapers,
sanatoria, resorts and manifold privileges. He
conceded that the republics could leave the
Union if they wished, but sent in tanks and guns
to intimidate the Baltic republics when they
wanted independence without delay. The limited
sovereignty he was prepared to grant was far less
than the republics were going to take if they did
not get their way. Unfulfilled promises lost him
the support of the Soviet peoples as the economy
spiralled into decline. Compromises here resulted
in the worst of two worlds. As he himself put it,
at the end ‘the old system fell apart even before
the new system began to work’ – but to what
‘new system’ was he referring? No new economic
structures were established as the old central-
planning apparatus disintegrated with the rise of
nationalism in the republics. And yet Gorbachev’s
precarious tightrope act might have lasted a good
deal longer if the reactionary conservative leader-
ship had not attempted to topple him in August
- Nobody seemed big enough to step into
his shoes until Yeltsin emerged as the man of the
hour, the saviour of Russia. The coup had so
diminished the Communist Party’s stature and
that of Gorbachev that the former was swept away
and Gorbachev himself was brought to the point
where he was the president of a Union that had
ceased to exist.
The Russian economy continued its cata-
strophic decline in 1992. Privatisations allowed
powerful oligarchs to secure the nation’s valuable
assets including oil and gas at a fraction of their
worth. The Russian people, despite showing
extraordinary patience and fortitude, were becom-
ing ever more disillusioned with their rulers who
were unable to deliver a basic standard of living.
The beneficial results of Gaidar’s reforms failed
to make themselves felt in ways the Russian people
could see. Gradually the reforms requiring strict
financial controls were relaxed. Roubles were
printed to pay the wages of workers in inefficient
state industries. Without the control of a Central
Bank, the republics printed more roubles until
the whole country, flooded with paper money,
plunged into hyperinflation by the end of the year.
At the heart of Russia’s crisis lay not only an
economic but also a political problem. Who was
in charge of what? Ministries and the Central Bank
vied for control. Russia’s executive with Yeltsin
at its head was subject to parliament, Russia’s
Congress of People’s Deputies. The Congress was
still packed with the communist deputies elected
in the spring of 1990 (when it was still the
Supreme Soviet) before the failed coup of August- Yeltsin and the communist majority in the
Congress who disapproved of his reforms were at
loggerheads. Yeltsin showed some readiness to
compromise by dropping Gaidar in December
1992 while assuring the international financial
world that the path of reform would not be aban-
doned. The conflict between the opposition in the
Soviet parliament and the president threatened to
paralyse economic reform. On 21 September 1993
Yeltsin simply dismissed parliament and called for
new elections in December. A defiant opposition
condemned the decree, denounced it as uncon-
stitutional and set up a rival government with
Alexander Rutskoi as the new prime minister.
Yeltsin reacted by ordering the army to surround
the White House, but still attempted to leave the
way open for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Instead, the 100-odd hardcore deputies who
remained deposed Yeltsin and declared Rutskoi
president. Rutskoi and the parliamentary speaker
Khasbulatov badly miscalculated in believing that
they could swing the army and people behind
them. They attempted a coup and sent out a call
to supporters to seize Moscow’s television station.
On 4 October Yeltsin also responded with force
- ordering the tanks to fire on the White House.
The spectacle was played out on the world’s tele-
vision screens. It was all over in twenty-four hours
and the deputies, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov sur-
rendered. The cost was some 140 dead and many