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• 1985:Beginnings of dramatic Soviet internal reform, called "Perestroika"
• 1989:Collapse of Soviet-style governments in eastern Europe
• 1991au18:Unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev
• 1992fe07:Maastrich Treaty created European Union
• 1999mr25:Yugoslavia attacked by NATO airpower
• 2001se11:USA suffered terrorist attack
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<>1983mr:Mikhail Gorbachev, as Secretary of the Central Committee [TsK] of the Communist Party in charge of agriculture, approved breaking up large kolkhoz enterprises into small autonomous groups [87no3:KIARS (A. Nove); Boldin:175-86 Miller:53-74]

<>1983ap:Siberia, Novosibirsk | Tatiana Zaslavskaia report attacked "hypertrophy", emphasized public (civil society) initiatives & interests in connection with industrial production and exchange [DSC:35-47]
*1983au03:WPo published Zaslavskaia
*1984:report published in Survey [DSC:35-47] GO 1988je08
*--Zaslavskaia's reform writings translated and collected in A Voice of Reform [review]
*--Soviet dissent seemed to come from high places
*1983: SAC editor's personal memoir of public lectures he delivered throughout this year on Soviet dissent, "Thoughts on Dissent" [TXT]
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*--[W]
*1986se10:KIARS (Theen says written in 1982)

<>1983je:USSR experimented with autonomous teams or brigades in factories; wages in proportion to contribution.
Foremen incentive to weed out goldbricks & drunkards = 7 of 39M workers targeted. Also autonomous worker brigades
in agriculture, paid per harvest in many kolkhozes; private plots expanded

<>1983se01:Siberia, Sakhalin Isl. SW coast | Soviet interceptor jets shot down Korean Air Lines flight with loss of 269 passengers and crew after the flight had deviated from its scheduled flight path and passed through sensitive Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin territories [W]

<>1983oc25:USA President Ronald Reagan sent the growing but recently inactive military into Grenada, a small Caribbean island just north of the Venezuelan coast [ID]. Over the next decade USA foreign policy became distinctly militarized. American intervention was not automatic, e.g., in Rwanda and Burundi, but a new policy and attitude promoted USA aggression in the name of various good causes

<>1984:French extremist nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen (leader of reactionary National Front) published Les Français d’abord, which expressed the severe anti-communism at the heart of European reaction: The First Horseman of the Apocalypse: International Communism [P20:401]

<>1984fe:USSR | Chernenko became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party [TsK] upon the death of Yuri Andropov
*--Mikhail Gorbachev Secretary in charge of cadres and the real actor [Kerblay,Grb; Boldin:ch2]
*--In this year, enterprises within 7 ministries were decentralized; model for 1987:law
*1984:USSR government Planning Committee approved "Sibaral" [acronym SIB(eria)+ARAL Sea], a plan for the diversion of Siberian rivers to the Aral and Caspian sea basins, a bold environmental/engineering project

<>1984jy24:Soviet officials moved to impose censorship on pop-art or commercial-culture music (even listing the rock groups whose music cannot be played in the USSR) [PS&C:143-5]
*--Censorship of public expression was an institutional feature of Soviet life from the earliest days to the end

<>1985:Poland, Gdansk | Adam Michnik, Letters from Prison and Other Essays [excerpts, SFS:236-9]

<>1985mr10:USSR First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party [TsK] of the Soviet Union, Chernenko, died [D&F:1-11]
*--Mikhail Gorbachev replaced him [Walker:1-37]
*--Beginning of Perestroika [Transformation, Reconstruction, Reform]
*--Soviet political joke, a play on words, predicted the catastrophic conclusion of this period, the complete collapse of the USSR on the last day of 1991. For these jokesters, "Perestroika" was "Catastroika"
*--Here were the goals of Perestroika, as they eventually became clear [with hypertext LOOP on each of the six components] =
    1) Glasnost [openness, Öffentlichkeit, public scrutiny of officials, freedom of expression]
    2) Governmental reform (legislature, courts, executive)
    3) Rejuvenation of Communist Party while restricting its political/administrative monopoly
    4) Decentralization ("marketization" or "privatization") of the Soviet economy
    5) Termination of "Cold War"
    6) Restructuring the federal system of the USSR with a new Union Treaty
*--COMPARE THIS COMPREHENSIVE LIST WITH THE PARTICULAR ISSUES EMPHASIZED SIX YEARS LATER BY GORBACHEV HIMSELF,  1991fe27:1991mr01; FOUR REMARKABLE CAMPAIGN SPEECHES IN BELARUS
*1985:Russian church and state officials exchanged congratulations [PS&C:315-17]
*--Website with bibliography of primary sources on the Gorbachev and late Soviet period
*--Leon Aron, Russia's Revolution: Essays 1989-2006 [eyewitness reflections on an era of great changes]
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*--TGG:267-75
*--Archie Brown, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective
*--GORBACHEV AND THE FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION [videorecording] 1 videocassette (58 min.) This program profiles Gorbachev's life, from his rise within the Communist Party to his role in the fall of the Soviet Union. Includes Glasnost and Perestroika, the effects of reforms in eastern Europe and German reunification, and regional unrest within the Soviet Union VIDEOTAPE 03444

<>1985mr01:Gorbachev policy of glasnost formally introduced [D&F:50-2, 133-4; Melville:27-72; Boldin:ch5; Steele:1-7]
*--On everyday life [Walker:154-205]
*--On rise of civil society [Steele:1-17]
*--On search for historical identity [Walker:202-22]

<>1985ap23:USSR Central Committee plenum set whole series of events in motion =
   Nikolai Ryzhkov became chairman of the Council of Ministers (Tikhonov out)
   Viktor Chebrikov became chairman of the KGB
   Yegor Ligachev became Secretary for Ideology (moving from Secretary for Cadres, giving that to Razumovskii)
*1985je:MGW describes "hectic 100 days" [Miller:75-108]

<>1985my08:German Federal Republic President Richard von Weizsäcker addressed the problems of the Nazi past, A German Plea for Remembrance and Reconciliation [P20:427]

<>1985de:Kazakhstan felt intensification of anti-corruption campaign initiated earlier by Andropov.  Kunaev removed from post. Other Central Asian republics took up the campaign, G. Aliev in Azerbaidjan and Eduard Sheverdnadze in Georgia, both of whom rose out of Andropov KGB "patronage network" [Derluguian, "Rouge":19]

<>1986fe25:USSR Communist Party Congress #27 considered the bold plans laid out over the previous half year [Boldin:119-22 D&F:29-31 Medvedev, Time:1-37 Walker:38-101!]
*1986:1990; Five-Year Plan #12 approved
*--"Western" observers said Gorbachev was building impossible hopes [1988oc20:KIARS, Remington]
*--Andropov had earlier laid the groundwork for these changes when he forced changes in Communist Party membership and Soviet governmental leadership. He replaced 70% of ministers and 50% of provincial party first-secretaries. This Congress continued that trend when it brought in 41% new party membership, compared 981:13% renewal at the 1981 Congress and 11% replacement at the 1976 Congress [Kerblay,Grb:25-6]

<>1986mr09:MGW reported on Gorbachev speech about the "petty tutelage" officials exercised over the Soviet economy. "Allow industrial management to get on with the job." He closely linked political change with economic change = "Our socialist system can develop successfully only when the people really run their own affairs, when millions of people are involved in political life -- in workers' self-government, as Lenin saw it"
*--The speech, as delivered, had more reference to changes in Communist Party rules than found in the original draft

<>1986ap26:Chernobyl nuclear disaster focused world opinion on the dangers of nuclear power and environmental degradation in the USSR and elsewhere [CVG:157-73 D&F:32-38 Medvedev, Time:37-57 Walker:223-45]
*--More about nuclear power and environmental concerns [Eisen:273-80]
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*--Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr., Ecocide in the USSR
*--Donald Kelley on Environmental protection and conservation in Russia and USA, Jamgotch, Sectors

<>1986my:Moscow meeting of Soviet Filmakers’ Union elected Elem Klimov (1933-2003) president in a tumultuous session. Perestroika was bursting out in spontaneous mobilization of young filmmakers determined to overthrow the old guard and break free of state control [CVG:230-46 87my6:KIARS, Dunlop]
*--In the previous year, two of Klimov’s films were released to wide acclaim = AGONIIA (about the doings and death of the infamous Grigorii Rasputin) and COME AND SEE (about the transformation of a young man during World War Two). Klimov’s given name “Elem” was devised by his staunch communist-party parents. The name sounds out the two letters “L” and “M”, and those stood for Lenin and Marx. But Elem became a leading figure in creative dissent during the glasnost era (an era of open public deliberation on important issues, "transparency"). Over the next year, officials deliberated on the introduction of new national laws on glasnost [PS&C:149-55]
*--IDI I SMOTRI [COME AND SEE] was a horrifying portrait of how World War Two transformed a feckless youth into a hardened guerrilla. The film was described as “an epic of derangement”. By film’s end, the teenage hero was wrinkled and grey. Klimov once described how he and his mother and baby brother were evacuated on a raft across the Volga river during the battle of Stalingrad (his hometown). "The city was ablaze up to the top of the sky. The river was also burning. It was night, bombs were exploding, and mothers were covering their children with whatever bedding they had, and then they would lie on top of them. Had I included everything I knew and shown the whole truth, even I could not have watched it" [reported in 2003no04:Guardian obituary]
*1986:Tanguz Abuladze released his film "Pokoianie", an expose of Stalin-type ruler

<>1986je19:Moscow Kremlin | Gorbachev met with 20 or so writers, asking their support of Perestroika, but he cautioned them against vengeful attacks on past policies and personalities. Gorbachev hoped the USSR might just leave all that behind and greet a bright new day

<>1986jy27:MGW reported that a 17-page manifesto circulated, "To the Citizens of the USSR", issued in name of a "Movement for Socialist Renewal". (That same issue interviewed nationalist "village-school" author Valentin Rasputin) [1986au03:MGW published full English text of manifesto]
*1986au:Yegor Yakovlev became editor of MNo, and it quickly became "the flagship of glasnost". At this time Sergei Zalygin became editor of Novyi mir [New world]
*--Interview with Yegor Yakovlev [CVG:197-212]
*--Glasnost freedom brought a lot of anger "out of the closet", and a lot of open discussion unwelcome to Gorbachev and associates. They tried to channel public deliberations in directions beneficial to Perestroika

<>1986au:USSR government dropped Northern Rivers Project, perhaps averting environmental disaster, and perhaps responding to a growing environmental movement among Soviet intelligentsia and citizenry [1987je10:KIARS (Darrell Hammer)]

<>1986oc:ICELAND Reykjavik Summit held on short notice. USA President Reagan and USSR President Gorbachev made a stunning agreement in the early part of their face-to-face meeting to set about abolishing all nuclear weapons over the following ten years. The devil, however, is always in the details. As the summit came to a close, the two leaders (one of them reportedly befuddled) were again at loggerheads. Nonetheless, Start I and the INF Treaty did come out of this curious summit. The beginning of the end of the Cold War was at hand
*--US Secretary of State George Shultz was only high administration official to support Reagan's shocking proposals at Reykjavik
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*--Richard Rhodes [ID] subjected this Summit to close analysis and concluded that Shultz was maneuvered to the side by other national security specialists around Reagan = “No one [except Shultz] could accept the thought of a world moving toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.” Richard Perle declared the president’s dream of a world without nuclear weapons “a disaster, a total delusion”. Perle arranged to block a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the disarmament proposal in order to prevent any sort of action in that direction. Key figures in the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with Perle. “They feared the institutionalization and acceptance of the idea as our policy”
*--In USSR and USA, the Cold War was winding down, but there would be other pretexts for inflated threats to national security to steer national policy again in the direction of fear-driven militarism

<>1986de10:Komsomolskaia Pravda published letter-to-the-editor about religion, written by world-famous poet Evgenyi Yevtushenko. The editors attached an official rebuttal [Melville:123-6]
*--Novels on religious themes published by Viktor Astaf'ev, Vasilii Bykov, Chingiz Aitmatov, etc [Melville:121-48]
*--This was a year of religious revival, opening era of glasnost in religion

<>1987:UNO World Commission on Environment and Development issued its first report, Our Common Future [excerpts = PWT2:426-34]
*--UNO was entering the global environmental movement

<>1987ja27:Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev speech to TsK Plenum. The meeting delayed three times before Gorbachev got Communist Party Politbiuro support for his declaration of political reform [Medvedev,Time:77-108 IR9]
*--Beginning of Soviet institutional democratization, scrapping the old "mechanisms" & created new "mechanisms". MGW correspondent in Moscow Martin Walker wrote, "That was the moment when Gorbachev changed the nature of Soviet politics". It now was clear that Gorbachev thought there could be "no real economic change without a political transformation" [88my22:MGW] Political institutional reform was very near the center of Gorbachev's boldest plans
*--Gorbachev intensified his reformist program that went under the name Perestroika [P20:439] Document collection = Party, State, and Citizen in the Soviet Union: A Collection of Documents (1989)
*--From the "grass roots", political action and social mobilization signaled a stirring of civil society such as Russia had not experienced since 1905. Russians were clearly "ready" for governmental reform
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*--Giulietto Chiesa with Douglas Taylor Northrop, Transition to democracy : political change in the Soviet Union, 1987-1991
*--Yury L. Abramov and Alexander N. Darchiyev, Political Parties and Movements in Russia, 1985-1992 (MVA:Synovia i docheri, 1992)
*--Peter Lentini, Political parties and movements in the Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR) (1992)

<>1987my07:Moscow meeting of Russian patriotic society Pamiat' [memory] [D&F:63-5 IR9:302]
*--In this year, Pamiat' attracted nearly 1000 to a rally in Dynamo Stadium [Hosking:10] GO 88fe26

<>1987:Russian émigré author, Vasilii Aksenov [Vassily Aksyonov] published his account of how he made his own adjustment or reconciliation to life in USA, In search of melancholy baby

<>1987je:Soviet TsK plenum took decision to embark on economic reforms, as a component of political/institutional reforms [DSC:69-82; D&F:69-73; IR9]
*--TsK appointed new Secretaries = Aleksandr Yakovlev (Ideology), V. Nikonov (Agriculture), N. Sliunkov (Industry). The Communist Party seemed ready to make some adjustments to a new era
*--Novyi mir. Nikolai Shmelev article about economic reforms and the tragic rejection of NEP sixty years earlier [TGG:77-86 Melville:196-9] 1987jy17:SoR carried reply by I. Abalkin
*--Interview with Shmelev [CVG:140-56]
*--87oc17:Sovetskaia kul'tura and other journals exercised glasnost in the discussion of economic reforms = G. Arbatov, Otto Latsis, Valerii Nosov, Vladimir Kostakov, Valerii Rutgaizer, P. Osipov, A.Z.Seleznev (esp.re.NEP) etc [Melville:189-227] Economic reform faced strong resistance. GO 87jy:Ogonek & 88my:Novyi mir
*--Interview with Georgii Arbatov [CVG:307-27]
*--As a component of a larger set of changes implied in the program Perestroika, economic reform generated a lot of public interest and support, make possible by the policy of glasnost

<>1987je:Roundtable discussion on rock music and pop-arts counterculture [TGG:154-68] Re. Yurii Shevchuk [162-6. See bibliography p.168 = E. Kanev Losoto, Aleksandr Milovskii, E. Panov, Vasilii Pustov, I. Sidorov, M. Timasheva, A. Sokolianskii]

<>1987je:Tadjikistan First Secretary revealed the Kurgan-Tiube disturbance at the trial of a popular Islamic preacher, Sheikh Abdullah Saidov, who sought to create an Islamic state along the lines of Iran [Kerblay,Grb:63-4]
*--Zalygin announced that Glavlit will censor only international and security issues in the periodic press [See Eisen:82-93 for examples of the new censorship]
*--Novyi mir published poems by émigré Joseph Brodsky | Glasnost allowed a new openness, but also a new freedom of expression, within limits.....

<>1987je02:Izvestiia ran article about the nationalist voluntary society Pamiat' and other Russian organizations of that type [Melville:250-4]
*--Russian nationalism stirred earlier in the Siberian newspaper Literaturnyi Irkutsk [Melville:250-3]

<>1987jy:au; Ogonek interviewed Abel Aganbegyan [TGG:87-94]

<>1987jy15:Pravda ran Gorbachev article which stated, "Society is made up of concrete forces: the working class, the peasants, the intellectuals, each of which has its respective interests. One cannot infuse dynamism into society or make it viable if one ignores the interests of these social groups, and if these interests do not influence our policy in return." [Kerblay,Grb:38] Th. Remington called this "socialist pluralism" [1988oc20:KIARS]

<>1987no:Gorbachev criticized the crimes of Stalin [D&F:74-5]

<>1987no:Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel delivered address in the German Reichstag, Reflections of a Survivor [P20:429]

<>1987no11:Moscow City Committee of the KPS dropped Boris Yeltsin, after a month of high controversy in which Yeltsin was accused of "adventurism". Lev Zaikov, a member of the Politbiuro, replaced him [D&F:75-9]

<>1987de:USA, Washington DC Summit | USSR/USA negotiations, with presidents Gorbachev and Reagan playing the central summit-style role in these negotiations, led to INF treaty, an agreement to dismantle a whole category of nuclear missiles. The Cold War was winding down

<>1988ja08:Gorbachev said, "A magazine, a publishing house, or a newspaper is not a personal affair; it is the affair of the Party." [Kerblay,Grb:57] At the same time, Gorbachev admitted that there were factions in the Communist Party. "Today more than ever before, it is clear that the battle of ideas, the diversity of opinion, projects, experiences, and plans in every sphere of life without exception, is the prerequisite of efficiency, vitality, and dynamism. Wherever this pluralism is excluded artificially, by directives, stagnation is the inevitable outcome." [Kerblay,Grb:99]

<>1988fe01:Pravda article on Pamiat' and the journal Glasnost', edited by Grigoriants [TGG:143-53] Yes, glasnost had its limits

<>1988fe04:USSR Supreme Court overturned the 1938:purge trial of Nikolai Bukharin. He and 19 fellow victims were "rehabilitated" [Eisen:78 | 1988fe14:MGW]

<>1988fe14:MGW reported removal of Gosplan chief and candidate-member of the Politbiuro Nikolai Talyzin, as a result of the many economic failures = 6B rubles worth of goods rejected as substandard;13% of all manufacturing enterprises effectively bankrupt

<>1988fe17:Literaturnaia gazeta article by Aleksandr Nikitin expressed growing resentment with "the Gosplan and Gossnab bureaucrats [State Planning and State Procurement agencies], who live untouchable in their comfortable apartments, concerned only with holding on to their empires." [Kerblay, Grb:106]
*--Examples of bureaucracy [Eisen:79-82] Economic reform threatened the interests of an ensconced elite

<>1988fe18:MNe article by Anatolii Butenko described Lenin's death and the transition to bureaucratic Stalinism [Eisen:243-5]
*--On this same day, Gorbachev speech warned about unrestrained and panicked search for historical truth = "The quest for truth is no grounds for hasty judgments, which can only lead to superficial conclusions." [Kerblay,Grb:85]

<>1988fe26:Pamiat' society leader Dmitrii Vasil'ev interviewed [Eisen:34-37]

<>1988mr:Moscow | M. Antonov criticized Aganbegyan [TGG:95-101]
*--In this year, Aganbegian published Economic Challenge [DSC:82-95]

<>1988mr13:Sovetskaia Rossiia article by Nina Andreeva, "I Cannot Go Against My Principles", a letter to the editor gave voice to those who opposed Perestroika [TGG:277-90; Eisen:23-31; DCE:29-2; DSC:121-128; IR9:302; 88oc20:KIARS] It was widely felt that Ligachev inspired expressions of opposition like this [D&F:1022-4] Andreeva's letter inspired a lot of letters to the editor [DCE:22-5]
*1988mr27:Moskovkie novosti published critique of Andreeva [Eisen:31]
*1988ap05:Pravda critique of Andreeva [TGG:291-302; IR9:302] GO 89ap28
*--Glasnost inspired debate even within the  Communist Party

<>1988mr22:Izvestiia article on national independence movements [TGG:177-86]

<>1988ap06:Komsomolskaia Pravda article about the struggle to protect the environment  in Nizhnyi Tagil [TGG:135-42]

<>1988ap14:USSR entered into a 4-power agreement to withdraw from Afghanistan on a 9-month schedule [D&F:101-2, 156-7 | Steele:163-74]
*--Borovik thoughts on that matter [TGG:238-47]
*--USSR honored its commitment and kept to its schedule for Afghanistan withdrawal, further contributing to the close of the Cold War

<>1988ap14:Pravda article by Aleksandr Yakovlev on the Stalinist purge trials exposed weaknesses of Soviet law [Melville:151] Opened era of glasnost in law [Melville:149-87] cf.87ja04

<>1988my09:Political group, Demokraticheskii soiuz [Democratic Union; DeS] met to organize a second party to participate in Soviet elections. The group dispersed, however, before the organization was complete
*--DeS Platform [Eisen:134-5]
*--Gorbachev had been forced in 87je to postpone his proposal to make multiple-candidate elections of Communist Party members. Now independent political reform actions were taken by the public, anxious to create altogether independent political parties. Then came the big 88je20 institutional projects

<>1988my18:Russian journal Glasnost' suppressed by official censorship [D&F:106-8]

<>1988my:Moscow summit, "featuring the unusual sight of a Soviet general secretary and an American president strolling amiably through Red Square, greeting tourists and bouncing babies in front of Lenin's tomb, while the respective military aides -- each carrying the codes needed to launch  nuclear missiles at each other's territory -- stood discreetly in the background" [Gaddis (1990:2nd ed.):336] Cold War seemed increasingly senseless

<>1988je04:Zaslavskaia interview [TGG:313-20] Another [CVG:115-39]

<>1988je17:Andrei Sakharov explained the need for Perestroika, but acknowledged the obstacles put up by the bureaucratic class inside the Communist Party [TGG:321-]

<>1988je20:Politbiuro approved Gorbachev's combative, bold plan for a new constitution of the USSR and significant institutional reforms = Creation of a People's Congress [Narodnyi kongress (NCng) with 2250 deputies (1500 district deputies elected for 5yr-terms on a national basis, plus 750 deputies appointed by the Communist Party, workers unions, creative unions, etc.); NCng would elect 400-450 members of a new Supreme Soviet [Verkhovnyi sovet (VSOV)]. NCng would meet for designated terms, while VSOV would be a permanent legislative body. Elections would be secret and involve multiple parties and candidates. One year was set to put this fundamental governmental reform into place. The Communist Party began to resist more openly =

<>1988je28:jy01; Soviet Communist Party held its 19th Conference [KPS.Cnf#19], the first since 1941 [D&F:118-29!; Miller:109-113 Medvedev,Time:181-253! IR9] Greatest reformers were not elected as members, e.g., T. Zaslavskaia, Nikolai Shmelev, Gavril Popov, Mikhail Shatrov, A. Gullman. Proposals to limit the power of the Communist Party met resistance within the Party and from the provinces [D&F:109-10, 114, 6] Gorbachev wanted clearer distinction between Communist Party and the Soviet Government. He wanted elected officials in the Soviet at the central and peripheral posts, to hold more control of budget [88my22:MGW, Walker 8x11]. Yeltsin spoke against the reluctant fellow Communists, and he was rebuked [YAG:166-86]. Despite obvious reactionary sentiments among Communist Party members, Congress accepted Gorbachev's critique of the military budget and largely approved his report on institutional reform

<>1988su:USA historian Alfred Erich Senn witnessed growing anti-Soviet dissent movement and reported in Lithuania Awakening [P20:450]

<>1988jy05:Soviet resolution on glasnost, a central component of Gorbachev's perestroika [PS&C:156-9]

<>1988au31:Russian Judge V.D. Zor'kin and others discussed rule of law [Eisen:238-43]

<>1988se30:"September Revolution", a surprising defeat of Communist Party conservatives [D&F:137-40]. An unscheduled meeting of the TsK reorganized the Secretariat and trimmed the Central Committee bureaucracy in half. TsK departments reduced from 20 to 6, with new Directors
*--Gromyko was retired. Gorbachev replaced him. Others left the Politbiuro (Gromyko, Solomentsev, Demichev, and Dolgikh). Vadim Medvedev replaced Ligachev (who became Secretary for Agriculture)
*--General Vladimir Kriuchkov replaced Viktor Chebrikov as head of the KGB. Agitprop would be run by Aleksandr Yakovlev [CVG:33+] Anatolii Lukianov appointed
*--These were mixed victories for Gorbachev in his struggle to reform the Communist Party [TGG:271 sketchy account] GO 89ap25

<>1988oc01:Gorbachev became president of the Supreme Soviet and announced that the new constitution would be democratic
*1988oc03:WPo graphic on the institutional structure of new legislative body, the People's Congress [NCng]

<>1988no14:KIARS, Andrei Sakharov expressed fear of fraud and deception in the People's Congress [NCng]

<>1988no23:Pravda interviewed B. Nazarov (head of the human rights department of VsS Juridical Institute) [Eisen:205-210, with more on human rights]

<>1988no27:MNe#46 reported that the government disallowed 644 rallies or public demonstrations between 1988ja and 1988no

<>1988de07:New York City meeting of UNO, Gorbachev speech announced unilateral cuts of 500,000 from the Soviet army and broad pull-back of troops in Europe [TGG:329-52]
*--Gorbachev was challenging the USA, but he equally challenged the Soviet "military-industrial complex" which had become so dependent on Cold War procurement privilege, wealth and power [Medvedev,Time:164-78; Walker:124-38; Lapidus,New:193-222]
*--The unanticipated spin-off was the rapid and uncoordinated disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and rising challenges to the rule of Communist Parties along the western borders of the USSR, and possibly in China as well [ID]
*--Within three years, this process swept over the USSR and washed it away [ID]
*--Another unanticipated spin off, caused in part by the absence of a Soviet balance of power factor, was an acceleration of USA deployment of its now less restrained military strength [EG]. The USA military-industrial complex was just as reluctant as its Soviet counterpart to demobilize in recognition of the Cold War's end
*--Still, it must be said that the Cold War (seen simply as a confrontation of the USSR with other world powers) was over, pending Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan [ID], and also pending hesitant acknowledgment of the Cold War's end in Moscow [ID], but also in Washington and London [ID]
*--The end of the Cold War was the one clearest achievement of Gorbachev's Perestroika

<>1988de17: Aleksandr Yakovlev on Perestroika and democracy [Eisen:131-3]

<>1988de31:Komsomolskaia Pravda interviewed Boris Yeltsin [Eisen:411-16]. He proposed cuts in space programs and the military. "In short, I am in favor of tilting the economy sharply in the direction of people" [145]. This was less than an affirmation of capitalism or laissez-faire. He concluded by giving this advice to readers = "Get rid of the innate fear of fighting for your convictions. Do not lose faith in restructuring [Perestroika], despite all the difficulties we encounter in putting it into practice. Without that faith, without a staunch, daily struggle for social justice, we could one again find ourselves hostages to bureaucracy" [415-6]
*1989fe19:Sovetskaia Estoniia published Yeltsin restatement of proposal to cut space and military budgets [Eisen:421-2]

<>1989:German Federation government official and political leader (founder of the German Green Party) Joschka Fischer described his party’s environmental and social ideals, The Alteration of Industrial Society [P20:386]
*--Environmental politics on the rise, expressing themselves with more vigor than at any time since Harrison Brown's pioneering work

<>1989ja:Russian economist Aleksei Arbatov criticized the Soviet military-industrial complex [TPP:221-32] Yurii Liubimov replied [233-40]

<>1989ja07:Russian President Boris Yeltsin interviewed [Eisen:416-20] More on Yeltsin [D&F:157?]

<>1989fe:USSR ended Afghanistan War, the origins of which had deep historical, imperialist roots. Soviets left a nation gripped in a desperate civil war
*--Fundamentalist Islamic guerilla fighters, the Mujahideen, armed by USA with sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry, vied for power with other groups. Out of this process the Taliban arose as rulers of Afghanistan, and the story moved into a tragic new chapter
*--Traditions of European imperialism were modified to meet needs of Cold War Competition

<>1989fe05:MNe interviewed Andrei Sakharov [Eisen:325-46, etc]

<>1989fe08:Soviet economist L. Abalkin interviewed [Eisen:146-54]

<>1989fe19:Yeltsin interview [Eisen:420-25]

<>1989fe20:Kiev street scene = Gorbachev meets and greets the people [Eisen:191-4]

<>1989mr09:Izvestviia debate on Perestroika intensified [Eisen:281-8]

<>1989mr21:Izvestiia article by Albert Plutnik stated, "The military super-department has for too long lived a life that is isolated, so to speak, from society". Plutnik praised USA glasnost on matters of military expenditure, but he noted the growth of "Black" military procurement programs in America (much expanded in the Reagan years). "Black" programs -- ostensibly for security reasons  -- did not allow any outside scrutiny or even knowledge of how spent, no accounting oversight even. He went on, keeping his focus on the Soviet military-industrial complex. Secret Soviet ministries, e.g., Ministry of Medium Machine Building and Ministry of General Machine Building, stood at the top of "vast complexes" all shielded from public scrutiny. The WW2 slogan was "all for the front" but the end of WW2 brought no de-militarization. Instead, there has been a general militarization of political life. The military no longer represents the people. We need to make the civilian economy a new front line in time of peace, and the new slogan must be "all for the civilian economy". How many generals are there? he asked. Do we really need them? [Eisen:265-71] Economic reform was closely related to other needed reforms, especially the drag and distortion of the national economy caused by the Cold-War military-industrial complex

<>1989mr26:Soviet elections sent delegates to the new People's Congress (NCng) [D&F:166-9; Hosking:68-75; Miller:114-26] GO my25 for first meeting

<>1989ap:Boris Yeltsin (w/John Morrison) completed text of his autobiography, Against the Grain. Emboldened by EEUR events, Yeltsin was willing now to disavow "obsolte [sic] nineteenth-century ideology" (204). Compare this with bold 88je:speech at Cng19 = "Yes, we are proud of socialism and proud of what has been achieved, but we must not rest on our laurels" (180). Compare also with statements on his favorite topic of social justice: "I now turn to matters of social justice. In broad outline, of course, we have dealt with these questions on socialist principles." (182). A final paragraph then follows, in which Yeltsin's own lack of resolution in his own mind shows through again. Is he a blunt & resolute opponent of the Communist Party, or is he, like Gorbachev, opposed only to its failings. Is he not also in favor of its renewal, along with the renewal of the Soviet Union? "The latest news is that rumors are going around Moscow that a coup is being planned for the next plenum [of the TsK], with the aim of dismissing Gorbachev from his post of General Secretary of the TsK of the CPSU, but leaving him as Chairman of the Congress of People's Deputies. I do not believe these rumors, but even if it actually happens, I shall fight for Gorbachev at the plenum. Yes, I shall fight for him--my perpetual opponent, the lover of half measures and half-steps. These, his preferred tactics, will also eventually be his downfall, unless of course he himself realizes his chief failing in time. But for the present, at least until the next [party] congress, at which new leaders may perhaps emerge, he is the only man who can stop the ultimate collapse of the party. Our right-wingers, unfortunately, don't understand that. They believe that by the old mechanical method of voting by a show of hands they will succeed in turning back the clock of history. The fact that these rumors circulate is, of course, symptomatic. Our huge country is balanced on a razor's edge, and nobody knows what will happen to it tomorrow. It is slightly easier for the readers of this book than for me. They will already know what is happening tomorrow, will know where I am and what has become of me. They will already know what has happened to the Soviet Union. And to all of us." (204) [DSC:171-193, excerpts]
*--Struggle within the Communist Party intensified

<>1989ap01:Pravda criticized Yeltsin [Eisen:425-31]

<>1989ap25:Further purges of anti-reform Communist Party members [D&F:172-5] Still speeches delivered against glasnost [Eisen:248-50]
*--NYT reported on Gorbachev's desire to purge the Communist Party, top to bottom [D&F:192-3]
*--On struggle within the Communist Party [Steele:83-114]

<>1989my25:je09; Moscow the site of the first meeting of the People's Congress (NCng). The sessions were televised [IR9]. Among delegates, dissenters were notably absent [D&F:181-88]
*--On NCng [Boldin:219-38; Steele:251-66]
*--NCng described by Guilietto Chiesa, [DSC:157-171 cites Chiesa,Transition] See also Zaslavskaia,Second:217-18 and Eisen:154-69;174-6
*--On March coalition [D&F:172-5]
*--On "feuding" [D&F:179-80]
*--Andrei Sakharov interview [TPP:336-45]
*--As a cornerstone of a sound governmental reform, USSR got a feisty and contentious democratic, representative assembly. Many "Western" capitals were as alarmed as Soviet conservatives to see the democratic vitality expressed in this new parliament
*--USA withheld "most-favored-nation" import-export status from Russia, a vital and lucrative privilege which government bestows on certain nations, often linking it to the recipient nation's adoption of certain "Western" political, social and economic values. Russia desperately needed a financial boost, but it was not thought to be quite there yet. China was =

<>1989je03:je04; Beijing | Chinese People's Republic authorities sent tanks and infantry with automatic weapons against demonstrators gathered on Tiananmen Square  [W] [W] [W] [W] [W]
*--Chinese democratic dissident Han Minzhu spoke out against the managerial elitism of the reigning Chinese Communist Party [SWH:464-7]
*1988:The Palestine Liberation Organization issued a proclamation [SWH:470-3]
*1989:South Africa | The Organization of African Unity issued its Harare Declaration against the racist South African regime [SWH:467-70]
*1989:1991; Three years of wide-spread global dissent and resistance to big-power oppression, concentrated in -- but not limited to -- "the Soviet bloc". SAC entries over this period provide interesting comparisons and contrasts in the actions of leading nation-states and those under their authority =

<>1989je04:Polish labor union Solidarność [Solidarity] (nine years after it was formed) victorious in parliamentary elections
*--With Polish wage-laborers taking the lead, Warsaw Pact and Mutual Economic Union [SEV] disintegration accelerated

<>1989jy11:+; Siberian miners went on strike [D&F:190-1 | TPP:151-62]
*--Leningrad Izhora factory workers heard Gorbachev speech [TPP:293-312]

<>1989au:Stanislav Kondrashov criticized the Soviet military-industrial complex [TPP:241-50]
*--Yurii Liubimov expressed official view [TPP:233-40]

<>1989au19:Poland | Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarność member, became Premier
*1989au24:Mazowiecki addressed parliament [SFS:240-2]

<>1989se09:German Democratic Republic Ministry for State Security [Stasi] took alarm at growing number fleeing East Germany and issued Stasi Report on Motives for Emigration [P20:447]
*--Warsaw Pact nations were feeling the sharp backlash of Gorbachev's perestroika

<>1989se19:20; TsK plenum witnessed Gorbachev's successful political struggle to gain control of central organs of the Communist Party. Five recalcitrant members were dismissed [D&F:200-1, 216]
*--The Communist Party however was splintered and weakened rather than mobilized for new political life as required by Perestroika [TPP:69-76]

<>1989oc:Bulgaria, Sofia | Voluntary political movement, Ekoglasnost zelena alternativa [Eco-glasnost Green Alternative] sponsored an international conference on the environment
*--This movement contributed to the collapse of the Bulgarian Communist Party and state
*--Crystal Park demonstration led by Dimitrina Petrova, among others
*--Disorder among Warsaw Pact nations intensified

<>1989no:Novyi mir article by Boris Pinsker and Larisa Piiasheva measured success of economic reforms after 2 years [TPP:163-75]

<>1989no09:German Democratic Republic ordered opening of Berlin Wall [SFS:255-9]
*--USSR reaction [D&F:205-8 | On USSR & E.Europe in general, see Steele:174-88]
*--English journalist Timothy Garton Ash witnessed fall of the Berlin Wall [P20:453] Garton Ash bibliography

<>1989no09:Bulgarian Interior Minister Petar Mladenov used the power of the Bulgarian Politbiuro, with USSR support, to remove Todor Zhivkov from power (held since 1954) and to initiate a Bulgarian Perestroika

<>1989no17:Czech protests boiled over and became a national demonstration against Soviet-style power
*1989no19:Czech opposition movement "Civic Forum" united opposition groups
*1989de28:Parliament greeted return of Czech leader Alexander Dubcek as chairman, more than 20 years after his effort to introduce "Socialism with a human face" [ID]
*--Next day, Czech playwright Václav Havel was elected president of a new Czech Republic, now separate from the Slovak Republic. Havel was a founder of "Civic Forum" and author of Farce, Reformability, and the Future of the World [P20:443]
*1990ja01:Prague | Václav Havel delivered New Year's Day speech [SFS:260-4]
*--USA international journalist Thomas Omestad witnessed and reported on "The Velvet Revolution" [P20:458]
*--Yet further Warsaw Pact disorder

<>1989de:Malta Summit | USA President Bush and USSR President Gorbachev ended the Cold War?

<>1989de17:USA invasion of Panama. The Cold War was over, but international chicanery did not, as a result, come to an end
\\
*--Eytan Gilboa on the invasion of Panama [TXT]

<>1990fe04:USSR-wide street demonstrations for democracy
*--Moscow had 100K rallying on the streets [D&F:232-3]

<>1990fe05:Soviet TsK meeting heard Gorbachev proposal to abandon Communist Party monopoly on power
*1990fe07:Done [D&F:233-5]
*1990fe:Molodaia gvardiia article by Communist Party conservative Nina Andreeva, "The Striving for Truth Has Not Yet Been Suppressed" [TPP:111-120] Again, glasnost allowed everyone some chance to express themselves

<>1990mr:USSR-wide elections of provincial parliaments. Popular Front victories [Hosking:86-91]

<>1990mr02:Russian-nationalistic, "conservative" anti-reform manifesto signed by 74, then soon 300 [TPP:54-64]

<>1990mr11:Soviet President Gorbachev urged passage of new law requiring democratic election of Supreme Soviet members and officers, and it passed [D&F:244, 249-50]

<>1990mr11:Lithuania declared itself an independent nation [Afdr,2:241-78]
*--President Vitautas Landsbergis interviewed [TPP:34-40 | D&F:217, 220-1, 241-3, 247-8, 252-5, 260-2, 263-4 | IR9:304]
*--Independence suffered from weak civil society [TPP:41-7]
*--Baltic republics neighboring on Lithuania followed suit
*--Prospects for new Union Treaty darkened

<>1990mr15:Supreme Soviet elected Gorbachev President of the USSR [D&F:251-2; Boldin:248-56 IR9]
*--Making himself vulnerable to charges of personal power mongering, Gorbachev moved ahead to enhance his executive authority, independent of the sluggish Communist Party, and in the name of more broadly representational government. Political institutional reform oscillated through a complex range of centralized, decentralized and recentralized options. But the larger structure of the USSR was crumbling

<>1990mr31:Russian pundit Aleksandr Shchel'kin described how the Soviet system pulverized the public [TPP:11-7]

<>1990ap22:Izvestiia interviewed Stanislov Shatalin on the need for significant economic reform [TPP:203-10]

<>1990my16:je22; The Russian Federation's People's Congress declared Russia and independent republic, breaking from the USSR [D&F:264-6 IR9] Ryzhkov economic reform was out
*1990my29:Yeltsin elected chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet [D&F:267-70]. Yeltsin suggested that Russian institutions combine with Gorbachev and the Soviet Supreme Soviet [Hosking:91-5; IR9:305] Yeltsin's off-the-wall proposal was soon followed by a desperate governmental proposal from Gorbachev
*--What chances for a new Union Treaty if Russia has broken away?

<>1990my27:USA Professor Maurice Friedberg began account of his visit to Poland in the aftermath of marketization and "Westernization" [P20:481]
*--Along with the remarkable "progressive" changes in Europe (e.g., review previous year), once again "rightist" or "reactionary politics" emerged, a new variation on an older nation-statism with distinct police/military characteristics
\\
*--Luciano Cheles, et al., eds., The far right in western and eastern Europe (1995)

<>1990my31:Izvestiia featured Aleksandr Yakovlev's appraisal of Perestroika accomplishments [TPP:320-5]

<>1990je08:Yeltsin declared Russian law took precedence over USSR law [D&F:274-6]

<>1990je12:USSR People's Congress [NCng] decided to re-write the Soviet Constitution. A Constitutional Commission formed. At the same time, a Supreme Soviet Constitutional Commission formed, with O. Rumiantsev the secretary and composer

<>1990je16:Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Aleksei II, Patriarch wrote political/religious tract, "Faith without Action is Dead" [TPP:48-53]

<>1990je18:Pravda article indicated that Yegor Ligachev supported the newly formed peasant union and opposed private ownership of agricultural land. He doubted the economic effectiveness of market reforms [TPP:326-31]

<>1990je20:je23; Moscow | Congress #1 of the Russian Communist Party heard Yegor Ligachev address [TPP:332-5]

<>1990je27:+; Soviet Communist Party Congress#28 witnessed "hard-liner" attack on Perestroika [D&F:280-1, 285-7] [EG: Vladimir Kriuchkov (KGB) and Viktor Alksnis (applauded when he claimed the Baltic states [Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania] were being "lost")] [Boldin:238-47; Steele:115-31; Brumberg,RAP:56; IR9:304]
*--Ligachev forced out of leadership
*--90jy:Aleksei Kiva and R.Safarov expressed their views [TPP:77-88]
*--90jy12:Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party [D&F:288-91]

<>1990jy06:NATO declared the Cold War over, but engaged in vigorous planning for NATO expansion [D&F:281-3]
*--Igor Malashenko explained why it might be better for the USSR to pull back strategically from Warsaw Pact posts in eastern Europe [TPP:251-61]
*--The 35-year-old Warsaw Pact was at an end, while the 41-year-old NATO seemed to swell in pride and self-confidence

<>1990jy11:Houston G-7 meeting discussed economic aid to the USSR [D&F:284]
*--Sergei Novikov on "Western" money, G-7, European investment in the Soviet economy [TPP:197-202]

<>1990au02:Iraq invaded and held Kuwait

<>1990se04:Soviet economist Stanislav Shatalin, "Man, Freedom, and the Market (Outline of the Program for Changing over to the Market)"
[DSC:206-216] Shatalin &Yavlinskii composed their "Five-Hundred Day Plan"
*1990se11:Gorbachev endorsed 500dp [D&F:299-301] but finally "flatly rejected it" [Brumberg, RAP:54]
*--Perestroika seemed finished. Gorbachev zigzagged. He endorsed "radical" economic reform, then rejected it. Five years of economic reform was at and end as a component of Perestroika

<>1990se12:Soviet-German treaty ended WW2 on the European front finally [D&F:301-3]
*--90se23:MGW. Nikolai Portugalov (Gorbachev's adviser on German affairs) announced that USSR supported Germany as 6th permanent member of the UNO Security Council

<>1990se23:MGW, Frankel on Iraq invasion of Kuwait emphasized how everyone had rushed to arm Saddam Hussein = "The bleak irony is that much of the technology and expertise that created [Iraq's huge arms industry] was bought by Iraq in the West, sometimes by deception but often with the silent acquiescence of Western governments. Sales continued even after Saddam's regime was accused of using chemical weapons against Iran & Iraq's own Kurdish citizens. . Everyone, it seems, took a slice of the Iraqi arms pie. The Soviet Union, France, China, and Chile sold Baghdad much of its off-the-shelf weaponry. West Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland & Brazil all sold the components, machines and tools -- much of the material with civilian as well as military application -- that are the building blocks of the modern Iraqi war machine". But that didn't keep Saddam's erstwhile military-industrial supporters from bringing the hammer down on him, once that suited them

<>1990se24:Supreme Soviet granted Gorbachev power to manage the Soviet economy by decree [D&F:304-7]

<>1990no07:Gorbachev announced new plan for government by decree. He and the fifteen leaders of the Soviet republics would rule. There would be no Prime Minister. A Federal Council (Fdr.sov) would be made up of the heads of the 15 republics, now acting in a purely advisory capacity. This body, plus Gorbachev, would become the chief executive institution, and Gorbachev would have the final word, plus control over police, KGB military and "a network of Presidential Representatives" [!] distributed throughout the republics to enforce executive orders from the center. Gorbachev called this "a fundamental reorganization of executive power in the center....". Also emergency food supplies. Yeltsin opposed [D&F:314-19]
*--This was no longer Perestroika but desperate maneuvering in an effort to prevent political disintegration. Governmental reform, as a central component of Perestroika the past five years, was over. Only the effort to construct a new Union Treaty moved ahead, for the time being

<>1990no13:Gorbachev faced 1100 disgruntled military officers and defense officials [Brumberg,RAP:56. For some speeches, see 1990:CDP#42, #47:7-14]
*--Anatolyi Butenko defended the Soviet Cold War pullback [TPP:262-70]

<>1990no24:Pravda published draft of the new Union Treaty [D&F:321-5 Hazard, Beyond]

<>1990de17:Gorbachev announced a tightening of central governmental controls. This seemed to all to be a concession to Party conservative opponents of Perestroika. The following day, another kind of opponent, Boris Yeltsin, then the chairman of the Russian republic's parliament, attacked Gorbachev's initiative as a "restoration of the Kremlin dictate" [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1990de20:Soviet government experienced big shakeup = Bessmertnykh in MID; Boris Pugo (KGB Major Gen) and Boris Gromov (Colonel Gen army) in MVD
*--Sakharov died
*--Was Gorbachev turning toward his erstwhile conservative opponents? GO 91mr24
*--Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, one of Gorbachev's closest allies, resigned in protest. "Dictatorship is coming. … No one knows what kind of dictatorship this will be and who will come — what kind of dictator, " Shevardnadze warned in remarks to parliament [D&F:3f27-30; 2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1990de22:Yugoslavia | Croatian republican constitution introduced [SFS2:285-6]
*--Documents relating to origins of Yugoslav crisis [SFS2:273-88]

<>1991ja02:Lithuania, Vilnius | Communist Party headquarters and Latvian printing facilities and major editorial offices seized by Soviet Interior Ministry troops. In the following days, paratroopers also occupied a major Lithuanian printing plant. Lithuania was the most secessionist-minded of the Baltic republics. In November 1989 its Communist Party declared independence from Moscow and, in March 1990, the republic declared its own independence. The declaration was suspended in June after Gorbachev imposed an embargo, including cutting off supplies of oil and gas [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991ja11:Lithuania, Vilnius | Military attack on TV center [D&F:336-45!]
*--Baltic independence movement in these weeks [Steele:189-213]

<>1991ja13:Lithuania, Vilnius | Soviet paratroopers stormed a television tower, despite protests by a few hundred people. The troops opened fire, killing 15 and wounding about 100 people. The tragedy was dubbed "Bloody Sunday" [in memory of Russian events 86 years earlier] [2001au14:MNe:15]
*--When glasnost spread to the periphery and gave voice to separatists, many officials as well as journalists were ready to restrict it. An earlier free-wheeling journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov now supported suppression of national-independence media. He joined troops in Vilnius as journalist with automatic weapon in hand
*--Glasnost was entering a phase of clear conflict with power

<>1991ja16:ja17; Latvia, Riga | Soviet paratroopers stormed Interior Ministry. Five people were shot dead. In Moscow, thousands of demonstrators protested the violence, but Gorbachev was unrepentant
*--The man behind the command to shoot was Interior Minister Boris Pugo, a future member of the State Committee for an Emergency Situation that would overthrow Gorbachev in August [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991ja16:Moscow Supreme Soviet, “Ob organizatsii i merakh po obespecheniiu provedeniia
referenduma SSSR po voprosu o sokhranenii Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskih
Respublik” [about this, Afdr,2:395]
*--Soviet authorities sought to halt rapid disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in anticipation of a new Union Treaty

<>1991ja17:USA, British and other allied forced began the bombardment of Iraq in preparation for an invasion of Kuwait, occupied recently by Iraq. Gulf War was under way
*--Many Russians protested [TPP:271-80]

<>1991fe03:MGW. Gulf War in Iraq forced postponement of USA-USSR Summit
*--Gorbachev signed decree giving KGB & MID right to break into premises & seize property. He also strengthened police power on city streets in an effort to bring an end to rowdy demonstrations
*--Latvian protests for national independence grew in size and intensity
*--Shades of European imperialist past

<>1991fe06:After the bloodshed in Latvia and Lithuania, six republics — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia and Moldavia, now called Moldova — said they would not participate in Gorbachev's referendum on preserving the Soviet Union. The referendum was immensely significant for Gorbachev as a public legitimization of his attempts to preserve the union and forge a new Union Treaty. The increasingly popular Yeltsin supported the dissenters' position [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991fe17:MGW listed the "Influential hard-liners" =
*--Yegor Ligachev (former Politbiuro member) wrote in the newspaper Kuranty, "the events of 1989 in eastern Europe were a defeat for socialism..., a victory of imperialism and a benefit for NATO"
*--Sergei Akhromeev (Marshall, top Politbiuro military adviser) featured in the newspaper SoR
*--Viktor Alksnis (Colonel, head of Soiuz group in NCng) argued that "new thinking", etc., have
"seriously undermined the prestige and security of the Soviet Union". Preferred a Soviet-style Monroe Doctrine, "our own isolationism" rather than Gorbachev's concept of "our common European home". Disliked USSR joining coalition against Iraq
*--Nikolai Petrushenko (Colonel) argued that "The West" was trying to hasten the collapse of USSR by providing secret financial support to independence groups in the Baltics and to anti-Communist Party political organizations, e.g., Inter-governmental group of radicals in NCng

<>1991fe27:Belarus, Minsk | Gorbachev campaign speech at the beginning of a critical election tour, on the eve of nation-wide referendum on the new Union Treaty. Was Gorbachev ready for democracy? Did he know how to handle himself on the campaign trail? [TXT]

<>1991fe28:Gorbachev campaign speech said economic changes were essential for the future of the USSR, and that the military-industrial complex holds the USSR back. He warned that the rush for national-minority independence could be dangerous [TXT]

<>1991mr01:Gorbachev campaign speech dealt with dangers of extreme movement toward national independence. He stated outright that the past eighteen months have been a struggle for power. He touched also on the new Union Treaty and the threat posed by the Soviet military-industrial complex [voenno-promyshlennyi kompleks], left over from the Cold War [TXT]

<>1991mr02:Mogilev | Gorbachev campaign speech dealt with Chernobyl accident, which gave opening for a more general pairing of economic and political goals of Perestroika and the new Union Treaty [TXT]

<>1991mr09:Pravda and Izvestiia published draft of new Union Treaty [Dogovor o soiuze suverennykh respublik (proekt)]  [Afdr,2:230-8; appendix contains many formal responses from USSR republics]
*--Yeltsin assaulted the new Union Treaty [D&F:346]
*--On nationalities in a federated republic [Steele:147-63]

<>1991mr17:Gorbachev’s referendum on preserving the Soviet Union took place in the nine republics willing to participate [six republics -- Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova -- opted out]. The question was: "Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?" The emphasis here was on the need for union, but under a new Union Treaty more suitable to the contemporary needs of the several republics that made up the USSR. More than 80 % of eligible voters cast their ballots and 76.4 % supported the union [not all sources put the vote this high]
*--Some republics added their own questions. In Russia, for example, 70% of voters supported Yeltsin's idea of an elected president for the Russian Republic. Seventy percent of Russians voted yes on this matter, while 53 % voted yes throughout the USSR [D&F:348-50; Hosking:105-6]
*--None of the 15 Soviet Republics ran ahead of Russia in the race toward disintegration of the USSR. Yeltsin so irritated Communist conservatives that, in late March, his opponents in the Russian parliament began gathering signatures to oust him from his post as chairman [2001au14:MNe:15]
*--Yeltsin did not speak out widely on the new Union Treaty, but he seemed to provoke national independence at the top level, at the USSR level, for example, in the Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Georgia. At the same time, as Russian President, he suppressed independence hopes in his republic, for example, in Tatar and Osetian territories [Brumberg, RAP:60]

<>1991mr16:mr23; Yeltsin campaigning [TPP:313-19]

<>1991mr24:mr31; MNo reports by Liudmilla Saraskina, "Comforted by Lies", stated that some were losing faith in Gorbachev, but others (e.g., Anatolii Sobchak, Yegor Yakovlev, and Stanislav Shatalin) interpreted the previous three months as only a tactical shift. Shatalin scoffed at the thought "that Gorbachev has suddenly turned into a rightist, or that he had always been a rightist in disguise, is absurd -- as absurd as the tendency, prevalent in the West, to lump all army officers into one huge monolithic right-wing camp. I know the army, and I can assure you this is simply not so. And I know the KGB, too--even there, plenty of people want to turn the KGB into a normal and decent organization, and who support democratic reforms in general" [Brumberg, RAP:55] Despite his forthright protest, Shatalin's one year at the center of the economic reform stage was at its end

<>1991mr28:Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov ordered a three-week ban on public gatherings in Moscow, trying to prevent a rally in support of Yeltsin. The rally took place in spite of the ban, with some 100,000 Yeltsin supporters showing up on Manezh Square. Also in March, plagued by economic and political problems, a group of top Soviet leaders began drafting a special plan to introduce a nationwide state of emergency in the event of further deterioration of government control [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991ap23:Gorbachev, who reportedly supported the initial emergency plan, saw that the six recalcitrant republics in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Transcaucasia (Georgia and Armenia) and Moldavia were still restless. Gorbachev shifted back toward the democrats. He held a meeting at his dacha in Novo-Ogarevo [pronounced OgarYOva], attended by leaders of the nine more moderate republics. They sought agreement on a draft of the Union Treaty that would maintain a sovereign Soviet Union, while enhancing the political and economic independence of its signatories. The treaty was dubbed "Nine Plus One" [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991ap24:Novo-Ogareva Agreement (9+1) [new Union Treaty] signed [D&F:358-60; DSC:235-43; Miller:183-200]
*--Signed by Gorbachev (USSR), Yeltsin (Russia), Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaidjan, Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. These republics represented 98.6% of the territory of the USSR and 92.7% of the population
*--Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova were absent
*--The new Union Treaty replaced the 1922de:Treaty (1924ja13:Approved) [SSR.trt] [DSC:231-35; Brumberg,RAP:53]

<>1991je:Slovenia, Ljubljana | The Central and Eastern European Privatisation Network [CEEPN] is (or was for a while in the 1990s) an international intergovernmental organization specializing in the processes of privatizing "State-owned" [i.e., publicly owned] economic economic enterprises [search "Privatisation"]. Several such organizations are at work in Africa and other politically weak regions of the globe

<>1991je12:Yeltsin, a supporter of strong republics and a relatively weak central authority, was elected president of the Russian republic with 57 percent of the vote [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991je17:Prime Minister Pavlov announced that Gorbachev's health was failing and the president needed more rest. He demanded that part of Gorbachev's powers, especially in the economic sphere, be transferred to him. Two more future coup plotters, KGB head Vladimir Kriuchkov and Defense Minister Dmitrii Yazov, attacked Gorbachev for neglecting the dangers posed by the capitalist "West". Kriuchkov spoke of a "Western" conspiracy to destroy the Soviet Union from within by introducing liberal reforms and filling the Kremlin with "sleeper agents" planted in the 1970s. [Most Russians recognized rabble-rousing demagoguery] The parliament rejected Pavlov's initiative by a crushing 262 to 24 vote [2001au14:MNe:15] 
*1991je25:In a closed meeting of VSOV, Yazov, Kriuchkov and Boris Pugo spoke in favor of stripping Gorbachev of the presidency and transferring the office to Valentin Pavlov, a weak central cog. Gorbachev fought back, causing gasps of amazement in assembly when he named two leaders of Soiuz, Yurii Blokhin and Alksnis, as enemies of "social accord and constructive co-operation"
*1991jy03:Gorbachev accused "hard-liners" of destroying the Communist Party from within [D&F:369]
*--Immediate issue = what sort of economic plan to take to Brussels meeting of G-7. Gorbachev hoped to blend the plans of Pavlov, Yavlinskii, Yeltsin and others [Boldin:256-78; 91je30:MGW]

<>1991jy11:Soviet Congress of People's Deputies approved the general framework of the new Union Treaty. Throughout the month, Gorbachev was busy preparing for the first G-7 meeting to which a Soviet leader was invited. At the same time he worked on the details of the new Union Treaty. Russian leader Yeltsin and Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk called for the agreement to give republics more independence [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991jy24:new Union Treaty [D&F:376-7]
*--Power crisis mounted. Ministers within the VSOV were arrayed against the Soviet President [Steele:265-6]
*--VSOV created a Constitutional Court to struggle against organized crime [342-58] Yurii Boldyrev had positive view [353-8]

<>1991jy25:Last Soviet TsK Plenum approved new Communist Party Charter, backed by Gorbachev. The Principle of Marxism-Leninism as state ideology, etc., dropped in favor of becoming "a party of social progress and democratic reforms, a party of social justice and human values, a part of economic, political, and spiritual freedom" [D&F:377-9; DSC:243-53] For six years, Gorbachev nurtured the fine hope that the Communist Party could renew itself and become the vanguard of Perestroika. Quite the opposite thing happened

<>1991au:USSR Siberia | A small group of scientists and environmental lawyers from Oregon traveled to southern Siberia to share ideas about conserving resources through scientific research and grassroots environmental work. They made a video tape to show some of the interactions of the exchange and describe some of the environmental concerns in the area around Baikal Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the world=
*--Logging Siberia [videorecording]. Producer/director, Sharon Genasci [Portland, Or.] : Rainbow Film & Video Productions, c1992 [UO Library VIDEOTAPE 01684]
*--Up-to-date information on Russian environmental issues can be found in the web-journal Russian Environmental Digest: To subscribe, write to majordomo@teia.org with "subscribe redfiles" in message body; unsubscribe to majordomo@teia.org with "unsubscribe redfiles" in body. The Russian Environmental Digest is distributed free-of-charge and is for personal use only. Elena Vassilieva of the Trans-boundary Environmental Information Agency (TEIA) welcomes your comments at editor@teia.org

<>1991au04:Gorbachev set a signing date of Aug. 20 for the first two signatories to the new Union Treaty, Russia and Kazakhstan. He then left for a vacation at his luxurious dacha in the Crimean Black Sea resort town of Foros. The details of the Union Treaty were kept secret. However, about five days before the planned signing date, its text was leaked to the press, causing outrage among hard-liners who saw the Treaty as the definitive end to the Soviet Union and especially to their immense powers at the levers of the massive central government’s military-industrial establishment [2001au14:MNe:15] The new Union Treaty was, with the transformation of legislative institutions and electoral processes, a central component of Perestroika

<>1991au11:MGW| Vasilii Seliunin said the economic situation in Russia was "the sort of financial situation that causes military overthrows in South America". Russia must slash its military budget. Yavlinskii commented that to let Pavlov run the ministries was like allowing a medic to run a hospital where all the patients have died. Yazov was making appearances at discussions of the new Union Treaty in order to protect the interests of the military managerial elite. Yurii Ryzhov (VSOV delegate) said 80% of all machine building in Russia was part of the military-industrial complex

<>1991au17:KGB head Kriuchkov convened a secret meeting in Moscow of those who would soon form the State Committee for an Emergency Situation [2001au14:MNe:15]

<>1991au18:Representatives of the State Committee for an Emergency Situation, or GKChP, went to Gorbachev’s vacation spa in Foros in an attempt to persuade him to abandon the new Union Treaty and agree to impose a state of emergency. Gorbachev refused and the next day the coup plotters implement their plan [2001au14:MNe:15] The nearly one-year effort to institute a new Union Treaty had failed
*--The unsuccessful coup came to be called "The Fools' Coup"  [W]
*--BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith reported on the Moscow Coup [P20:462]

<>1991de08:Minsk Agreement. "Belovezhskoe soglashenie" [D&F:467-70 IR9] Yeltsin (Russia), Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraine), Vladislav Shushkevich (Belarus) re. liquidation of the USSR. In its place The Confederation of Independent States [CIS] created
*--91de13:Five Asian republics joined CIS [D&F:471-2] 25 million Russians now lived outside the borders of the Russian nation
*--91de21:Alma-Ata Accords approved by Russia with VSOV confirmation. CIS was now Russia +10 republics
[D&F:473-6] On concept of "Near abroad" [Lapidus, New:143-91] GO 93ja23

<>1991de31:USSR dissolved into fifteen independent or semi-independent republics, seventy years after its official creation. The republics correspond to the fifteen republics within the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR, Soiuz sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik (CCCP)] =

Russia
Ukraine
Belarus
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Georgia
Armenia
Azerbaidjan
Kazakhstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Kirghizstan
Tadjikistan

*--Mikhail Gorbachev went into private life after a half decade of dramatic but failed reform effort called Perestroika. His Union Treaty, under formulation for almost two years, was a shambles. The first steps toward creation of vital, independent legislative and judicial institutions might have fed into the Yeltsin Constitution that followed two years later, though there is reason to think Yeltsin nipped those major governmental changes in the bud. Accomplishments over the previous six years of glasnost survived, at least for a while....
*--Some emphasized that the last great European imperialist power, the USSR -- as inheritor of Russian imperial territories -- had at last fallen, though imperialist-style problems persisted

<>1992fe07:Belgium, Maastricht Treaty signed by 12 European Foreign Affairs Ministers, creating the European Union [EU]
*--Official EU [W]
*--Western European Union [W] was a military treaty organization which languished, then recently revived as an EU alternative to NATO
*1930:1997; Website of documents on European integration
*--EU eastern expansion [W]
*--Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies [W]
*--The Week in Europe (news) [W]
*--The European Union [EU] was on the verge of creating a constitutional structure
\\
*--[W] [W]
*--Chronology of the EU [W]

<>1992au:USA Idaho | Federal agencies, including the FBI, opened fire on the homestead of recluse, Randy Weaver and his family, with deadly results. Weaver's wife and son, plus a Federal Agent, lost their lives
*--The episode has been taken up as a major cause by many organizations. Search the WWW on the phrase "Ruby Ridge", to discover many, often flamboyant and "extremist", sites, e.g., [W], also =
[W with USA Department of Justice investigation report]
[W with vulgar introduction to 1995je30:WSJ article by James Bovard on the investigation report]
[W with angry chronology of events]

<>1992se06:North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] [TXT]

<>1992 Fall: Russian army moved into Chechnya against rebel separatists
\\
*--Johanna Nichols, "Who are the Chechen?"

<>1992de:USA, through the UNO, invaded Somalia (eastern Africa), a historical first for the UNO, a pre-emptive or preventative "humanitarian" invasion of a sovereign nation. The invasion was not coordinated with any Somalia authorities, but global TV cameramen were carefully positioned prior to the dramatic night-time amphibious landing. Before a year had gone by, hostility to the USA-led occupation grew among local "war-lords". Many were well armed as a result of earlier militarization of the country, funded and supplied by the both USA and USSR as part of the Cold War.
*1993su:Armed hostilities led to the death of 18 USA soldiers, one body dragged through the streets and filmed for more global TV viewing. There were events, and there were media events. By the fall, USA was forced to pull out

<>1993:USA | Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations? The Debate. Here H joined the "new world order" discussion: "People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a Westerner" [24; compare this list with "Dozen Categories"]. H considers "Western civilization" to be the only "universal civilization". "Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures" [40]. H does not explore the extent to which his list of "Western ideas" would please Italian contemporaries who live just outside Naples, to say nothing of those Italians there in the time of Mussolini. The concept of "The West" was becoming more than ordinarily narrow
*--Two women of the so-called Third World -- Ifi Amadiume of Nigeria and Madhu Kishwar of India -- offered their views on the relationship of their worlds with "The West" [SWH:439-46]
*--The European imperialist legacy was still alive
*--Russia, friend or foe? [videorecording, 29m]. Host, Admiral John Shanahan / produced by Center for Defense Information ; segment producer, Stephen Sapienza ; principal analyst and scriptwriter, David Johnson. Washington, D.C. : Center for Defense Information, c1995. "Russia is a nation with an emerging democracy, 20,000 nuclear weapons, a large military, and a shattered economy. Is this a recipe for disaster or an opportunity for the U.S. to forge a new relationship with our former adversary?"--Video label [VIDEOTAPE 03153]
*--Era of "triumphalism" or "New World Order" also was era of Freedom of Information Act. For example, a website, "The National Security Archives" began to publish remarkable tales about the actual conduct of US policy in the time of the Cold War
*--A sound predictive essay by two seasoned writers = Thane Gustafson and Daniel Yergin, Russia 2010 -- And What It Means for the World

<>1993:Austrian Freedom Party leader and government official Jörg Haider published his right-wing political creed, Die Freiheit, die ich meine [Freedom as I See It] in which he addressed the issue of Multi-Culturalism and Love of One's Country [P20:404]
*--The powerful 20th-century innovation, statist radicalism, right-wing and left-wing, proved an enduring legacy, despite the widely condemned excesses of the earlier part of the century and the remarkable contemporary progress against it in eastern Europe

<>1993fe26:NYC World Trade Center the target of a terrorist bomb attack. Six died and one tower suffered significant damage, but the attack failed
\\
[W]

<>1993ap19:USA Attorney General ordered military attack on "Branch Davidian compound" in Waco TX

<>1993oc01:USA TV stations carried commercial ad selling to Americans video cassettes of Russian children’s literature in cartoon form. Donald O’Connor was “host” of the infomercial and also supplied the voice-over for the extravagant Russian folk-tale character, Baba Yaga. O’Connor’s pitch to American customers, American families, made four points =
(1) USA is tired of violence and unhealthy role models in USA electronic media. O'Connor made specific negative reference to the dominance in USA children’s media of cartoons with anti-educational values
(2) In the USSR, Stalinist Socialist Realism crushed creativity and suppressed religion in the adult media, so all that creative energy went into children’s media, relatively free of censorship
(3) Thus, the grand Russian tradition of fantasy literature was kept alive in the Soviet period [but, by implication, has been destroyed by commercial pop-art culture in the USA]
(4) So now American families, tired of the junk funneled through the networks to children, can tap into a marvelous survival of quality Soviet children's entertainment, available at $9.99 [or so]  Just dial this number..... [etc.]
*--Nearly two centuries of pop-arts had come down to this

<>1993oc03:oc04; Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered military attack on Parliament after he issued an executive decree dissolving all Russian elected legislatures, including the Moscow City Council
*--Website devoted to the two-day "civil war"

Russian Whitehouse after Yeltsin attack
[Websource broken]

*--Boris Kagarlitsky was an elected deputy to the City Council and kept a day-to-day account of events leading up to this drastic attack, Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy Got Derailed. He was then a member of the executive committee of the Russian Party of Labor, a socialist political party that opposed both the Communist and Yeltsin camps. Kagarlitsky is the author of several articles in Socialist Review (1991ap and je) and New Statesman (1989no10, 1991se06, 1993ap02, 1993de03). See also Nation (1889je05, 1993de06) and New Left Review (1993mr & ap). His most famous work is The Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State, from 1917 to the Present (1988) about the role of the "intelligentsia" in Russian political culture

<>1993de12:Russia, Moscow | New Constitution ratified
\\
*--[W]

<>1994wi:Near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Taliban [Talib=student] movement arose against outrageous behavior of various Mujahideen warlords, recently armed by USA. The Taliban leader was Mullah Mohammad Omar, an ethnic Pashtun teacher in a village madrasa, part of a more than one-century-long anti-imperialist tradition of self-organization and resistance among oppressed southern Asian Muslims
*1995:Taliban took Herat in western Afghanistan
*1996:Taliban took traditional administrative center ("capital") Kabul, thus completing their control over all but the northern frontiers of Afghanistan where "the northern alliance" held out, led by Ahmed Shah Masoud and other ethnic Uzbeks and Tadjiks. [Masoud was assassinated in 2001 on the eve of the 9/11 attacks on the USA]
*--Taliban introduced extraordinary "Muslim fundamentalist" policies. With artillery they destroyed ancient statues of Buddha carved in high stone cliffs
*--Taliban received support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan under Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto wanted to resist the power of the CIA supported security forces in her Pakistan [the ISI] and bring order to Afghanistan. Among other things, she sought to increase the chances of the big petroleum pipeline dream =
*--In these years USA and translational oil companies sought to win favor with the Taliban in order to promote possibility their pipelines might eventually run from the Caspian Sea region into Asia via fundamentalist Afghanistan and Pakistan
  \\
*--Pankaj Mishra, "The Making of Afghanistan", 2001no15:NYR:18-21

<>1994ja11:Russian Federal Assembly met [IR9] Two houses =
*--Federal Council [FSOV] [speaker=Ivan Petrovich Rybkin (Agricultural Party)]
*--Duma [speaker=Vladimir Shumeiko]

<>1994se05:se13; International Conference on Population and Development deliberated on global environmental issues, with emphasis on population explosion [Excerpts from Conference report, with various "national" [nation-state] reactions = SWH:446-60]

<>1994se19:1995mr31; Haiti invaded and occupied by USA-led force
*--USA State Department Analysis of the whole operation, including lessons on "peace-keeping"
*1990s USA military budget equaled the combined total of the next 10 largest military budgets in the world
*1992:2000; Over an 8-year period, the USA military budget grew from $260B/year to 300B/year, by 2004, the military and homeland security budgets equaled $407B/year
*--All signs were that the traces of more than two centuries of European imperialism could still be sensed in the era of New World Order

<>1994no19:English Prime Minister Tony Blair (Labour Party [left liberal]) tried to explain the relationship of his political party to actual wage-labor organizations (unions) [P20:397]

<>1995:USA reporter David Rieff published Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West which was a harsh criticism of Serbian (Yugoslav) and "Western" political leaders [P20:474]

<>1995ja01:Switzerland, Geneva | World Trade Organization [WTO] established. Membership = 134 countries (as of 10 February 1999). Budget: 122 million Swiss francs for 1999. Secretariat staff: 500. Head: Renato Ruggiero (director general)
\\
*--[W]

A telling graphic from the 1998 WTO website

 

<>1995ap19:USA OK.City in front of the Murrah Federal Building | Timothy McVeigh parked a rented Ryder truck with explosives. At 9:02 am Central Daylight Time (14:02 UTC), a massive explosion sheared away the entire north side of the building, killing 168 people
*--Tomothy McVeigh later composed a letter in which he sought to explain why he carried out this terrorist attack [W] McVeigh cited, as background to his terrorist attack, the following = Waco (McVeigh's attack was on the 2nd anniversary of that event), Chinese use of tanks against its own citizens, USA air attacks on Serbia (which occurred after McVeigh's attack), USA invasion of Iraq, FBI use of violence at Ruby Ridge
\\
[W]

<>1995oc17:GKI (GOSKOMIMMUSHESTVO - the state committee for the management of state property) PUBLISHED IN ROSSISKAIA GAZETA THE RULES FOR IMPLEMENTING ITS SHARE MORTGAGE OR "LOANS FOR SHARES" PROGRAM. OF 29 MAJOR COMPANIES INCLUDED IN THE PROGRAM, THE ANNOUNCEMENT COVERED 16 FIRMS. FOREIGN INVESTORS (INCLUDING RUSSIAN FIRMS WITH MORE THAN 25 PERCENT FOREIGN OWNERSHIP) WERE EXCLUDED FROM PARTICIPATING IN BIDDING FOR EIGHT OF THESE COMPANIES. WITHOUT FOREIGN PARTICIPATION TO ADD TO DEMAND, THE MORTGAGE AUCTION OF THESE SHARES PACKETS WILL LIKELY YIELD LOWER PRICES. SURGUTNEFTEGAZ'S STARTING PRICE AT THE AUCTION IS AS LITTLE AS ONE-TENTH OF SOME ESTIMATES OF THE COMPANY'S VALUE. THE COMBINED STARTING PRICE FOR STAKES IN 16 COMPANIES IS LESS THAN $500 MILLION. [This as reported in Bisnis. Much more on this website]
*2003no28:Chistian Science Monitor | Report on how "oligarch Vladimir Potanin acquired the world's biggest nickel producer, Norilsk, in a 1995 auction organized on behalf of the state by his own bank, Oneksimbank [W]. He won with a bid just $170 million - which was $140 million short of the government's minimum asking price. Several higher competing bids were mysteriously 'disqualified'. Similarly, Khodorkovskii's Menatep Bank ran the auction that handed him control of Yukos - and the former Soviet Union's third-largest oil reserves - for just $308 million. The market value of Yukos eventually jumped to more than $30 billion." ||  Boris Berezovskii "acquired major stakes in automobile, oil, airline, and media companies during those years, says the illicit means were necessary to quickly establish a class of capitalists capable of staving off a communist comeback in Russia, which was widely feared. 'Privatization was very positive for Russia in the sense that property became diversified', he says. 'It did not just belong to the state, but to a lot of owners who competed with each other. For sure, it was a revolution, and every revolution happens with a lot of mistakes. We had a lot of mistakes, but the final result is better.' "
*--Debate on "loans for shares", including some of the leading figures = Yegor Gaidar, Anatolii Chubais, Joseph Stiglitz (World Bank) | Grigorii Yavlinskii's contribution might be the most interesting. He appears to confuse Karl Popper with Karl Polanyi. Is there any possibility that he had both in mind = Popper for his relentless critique of all threats to open society (from government to business to theoretical or ideological or theological zealots) and Polanyi for his specific critique of how capitalism can descend upon a community and tear it to pieces.
*--Website describes Russian privatization

An English Socialist Party website described the origins of Mikail Khodorkovskii
and the great world petroleum giant YUKOS =

From bureaucrat to billionaire

AT THE end of the 1980s [Mikhail] Khodorkovskii was a Komsomol (Communist Youth) leader who used his position to accumulate starting capital. He then established one of the earliest of the pyramid schemes by which the new rich fraudulently conned the mass of the population to risk their earnings and savings in funds which promised high returns but never delivered. He was then in an ideal position to benefit from the notorious "loans for shares" privatisation pushed by the World Bank [founded in 1946] under which the best industries were speedily privatised by selling them at dumping prices sometimes ten times below their real value. Khodordovskii became the lucky owner of the Yukos oil company, now the fourth largest in the world with a personal fortune approaching $8 billion.

<>1995:Bosnia the site of USA led military attack

<>1995de17:Russian elections to Duma

Leading Candidates

Name	Party
Abdulatipov,Ramazan G	00
Aksiuchits, Viktor V	26
Aleksei II, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church	00
Aliev,Geidar A	00
Alksnis	00
Anpilov,Viktor I	36
Astaf'ev,Mikhail G	00
Baburin, Sergei N	30
Baturin, Yurii M	00
Borovoi, Konstantin N	39
Burbulis, Gennadii E	00
Chernomyrdin, Viktor S	17
Chubais, Anatolii B	00
Dudaev,Dzhokhar M	00
Fedorov,Boris G	20
Fedorov,Sviatoslav N	35
Fedulova, Alevtina V	01
Filatov,Sergei A	00
Gaidar, Egor T	23
Gorbachev,Mikhail S	00
Govorukhin, Stanislav S