Every revolution is incomplete. In the century after the French Revolution, at the same time that the peasants were turning into Frenchmen (or perhaps Frenchpersons), French society was riven by a split between clerical and anti-clerical groups that burst into public scandal with the Dreyfus Affair. These issues still resonate in highly charged debates over head scarves and other religious symbols in French schools. We should not expect any regime to ultimately resolve questions of memory and meaning. Each generation tends to open the box and reconfigure the questions in its own way, to meet its own needs or suit its own concerns. The standard for a society is not the way it resolves questions of memory and history, but the way it structures the framework for discussing those questions.
In one of his last works, Freud explored the issue of a society failing to confront its past, arguing that such failure constitutes an act of collective repression.^[1] Freud did not suggest that individuals or societies needed to construct a single narrative. In the Soviet case, one of the serious problems was that the government sought to define the correct line, even if it changed repeatedly over time. The key issue for Freud is the need to analyze and debate the significance of historical experience. Agreement about the “truth” of blank spots is far less important than acknowledging their existence, “filling them in” in ways that permit balanced discussion.
Official Russian and Soviet policy has nearly always had difficulty with unbridled discussion. Outside of a few months in 1917, the freedom of the Russian press and publishers was always something to be negotiated. The word “Glasnost’ ” would not have been necessary if either Alexander II or Gorbachev had wished to establish freedom of speech or freedom of the press.
Glasnost’ was always intended to be partial. In this, at least, Gorbachev succeeded. If he wanted freedom of speech, he could have said so. Glasnost’ meant something different, making the incomplete nature of Gorbachev’s revolution inherent from the outset. Gorbachev rather quickly lost control of the process, being outflanked by politicians and cultural figures willing to go much further in posing difficult questions and analyzing the Soviet past. The period from 1987 to 1990 was one of incessant pushing back of the limits. Outside of Russia, the limits vanished. But in Russia, counterreforms appeared quickly. The potential for limited or controlled change, whether dependent on Gorbachev or not, was eliminated by the same event that destroyed the Soviet Union – the August 1991 coup. The GKChP’s failed coup so weakened the mechanisms of control that everything became possible – even if it sometimes took a while for people to realize that the cage doors were open.
Memories of this period are inevitably selective and political. Those who argue that people who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it might want to remember that after Interior Ministry troops attacked demonstrators in Tbilisi on April 9, 1989, one of the criticisms directed against the police authorities was their refusal to divulge to medical personnel the composition of the gas that had been used. The folks who ordered the assault on the Dubrovka theater would probably prefer to forget this earlier episode. In Putin’s second term with a largely rubber-stamp legislature, it is difficult to believe that from May 25 to June 9, 1989, during the First Session of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, public interest was so intense that work stopped in many places. Factory production declined 20% during the period. On June 26 live coverage of Supreme Soviet legislative sessions was ended due to the negative impact on productivity.
One way for me to remember the incomplete and often chaotic character of Glasnost’ is to go back to the journal that I kept during my visits to the USSR. Being married to an anthropologist reinforced the impulse to keep a daily, or at least frequent, written record of my impressions. I began this practice during my first visit to the Soviet Union in 1974, and have continued it since. In 1974 and 1975-1976, the entries were handwritten. When I returned for a year in 1985-1986, I took along one of the first IBM “portable” computers – a box weighing some 9 kilograms with a small screen that was not so much portable as “lugable.” While it was a constant companion at night, by day we endeavored to keep its existence unnoticed. By 1987 notebook models were available, though reaction to my efforts to use one in the Lenin Library produced some episodes worthy of being recounted by Voinovich.
Drawing on excerpts from some of my journals is a way for me to recover how it felt to watch the efforts to open topics for discussion and explore historical issues that had been off the agenda. Even Gorbachev had difficulty determining just where appropriate boundaries lay. In a speech in Khabarovsk in 1986, he rejected the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s as sources for models for Soviet development. Then he went on to suggest that the 1960s and 1970s did not provide much guidance either.^[2] Some of us were completely non-plussed: it seemed that the only remaining alternatives were NEP, War Communism, or the pre-Revolutionary era.
It seems appropriate to begin with Chernobyl. I was living in Moscow at the time, and was able to monitor both Soviet and Western coverage. More important, Chernobyl became both an example of the limitations of Glasnost’ and an important stimulus to greater openness. It created the first Soviet TV news personality in Alexander Krutov.^[3] I started to record my impressions about a week after the accident:

“Moscow, May 10, 1986: Today was a notable day for Soviet nuclear news. The main nightly television news program Vremia confirmed (the Reagan administration would say “admitted”) that the Chernobyl reactor has been having a graphite fire. They did not add that the “lying” Western press deduced this ten days ago. But this is how one acquires information here. The press reveals momentous facts as if they were long known and of no great significance. Hey folks, by the way, its been a graphite fire all along, but now the temperature is low enough so it will probably go out by itself – eventually.
The entire episode has been fascinating – especially since I have been largely cut off from Western news for the past month. My newspaper and magazine subscriptions would still be going to Leningrad, if they were being delivered (strike in Finland has again interrupted mail delivery); the Embassy has been getting fewer newspapers, and later; and I foolishly left my short-wave radio in Leningrad.
But even with only shreds of information, I have known more than my Soviet friends about what is going on there. The science staff at the Embassy have filled me in a few times, and some of the other Americans listened to the BBC. And, of course, it has been possible to monitor how concerned the Soviet authorities are by what they have dredged up regarding nuclear “incidents” in the West. When Pravda resurrected Karen Silkwood, we knew they had a serious problem on their hands
On the other hand, my Soviet friends know much more about what is going on in Kiev. Two days after the accident, people began to have entire families from Kiev arrive to stay with them. Some have two whole “extra” families in their two-room apartments.
Soviet coverage of the incident in the first days after it occurred was alternately comic and tragic. They took a TV crew to a collective farm 40 kilometers SOUTH of Kiev (Chernobyl is about 100 km. NORTH of Kiev) and filmed work proceeding normally in the fields. The next day, they showed a village where people had been resettled. A man was interviewed and spoke calmly about four extra people having been moved into his apartment. He said everything was just fine. At least twice the TV coverage has included statements about the evacuees having been given jobs and housing in their new locations – giving the very strong impression that they are not going “home” any time soon. But no official statistics.
The hardest thing to swallow has been the swinish and extremely defensive reaction to Western coverage. Most of the news Soviet citizens have gotten about the accident has been in the form of official reactions to and refutations of Western press accounts. We seem to have performed a real service, providing them with extravagant claims that they can refute so the actual disaster almost appears reasonable. For ten days they have announced daily that the temperature inside the reactor and the level of radiation in the vicinity of the site have “significantly lowered.” Even my friends/acquaintances who belong to the Party have asked me how high it had to have been to drop “significantly” ten times and still be a problem.
On the other hand, not everyone was worried about Chernobyl. Returned to my hotel room (in the Akademicheskaia) from the library around 7:00. The room had not been touched all day. I didn’t mind very much that my bed had not been made, but I was a bit perturbed that the towels had not been changed for several days. So I asked the woman on duty for some clean ones. I waited about ten minutes for her to return. When she came back, she asked how long I had had a pillow case in place of the dish towel. I had noticed that one of the dish towels was a bit strange, but there are many stranger things in this country, so I didn’t pay much attention. It turned out that the woman had stayed at work two hours later than usual trying to find the missing pillow case. They have to account for every piece of linen, towel, etc. that passes through their hands, and she was desperate to find out why one piece was missing. They had spent several hours yesterday, and several more today searching for the lost pillow case. I gently suggested that if she had tidied up my room today (and perhaps changed the towels?) she would certainly have noticed the mistake.
But the truly astounding aspect of the situation is that at least three people evidently spent at least five hours dealing with a missing piece of material worth perhaps five rubles. And they are not finished. When I went to get some supper they were writing a full description of the incident in their book, and preparing to figure out precisely who was responsible for putting a pillow case on the towel rack. They asked me to help deduce when the offending linen appeared, so they could pinpoint the culprit, but I developed a bad memory for such details.”

Due to the strike in Finland, I was not able to send or receive mail for a number of weeks, and therefore did not write up my notes for some time. I got back to the Chernobyl issue more than a month later:

“Moscow June 22, 1986: The anti-alcohol campaign continues. So does a lot of drinking. And a lot of standing in line. The intelligentsia has pretty much given up bothering with the occasional bottle of wine or vodka – it just isn’t worth the trouble. Although a few friends who never drank before have now taken it up as a sort of political statement. The people who really want to drink spend one to three hours in a line. For emergencies (a birthday, a foreign guest, etc.) it is possible to go to a restaurant and buy a bottle of vodka for 15 rubles from a waiter. No lines, but a 100% mark-up. For the first time in my visits here, some friends have specifically asked me to get a bottle at a Beriozka when I come to visit. Previously, no one would think of asking a guest to bring something specific, much less something that required hard currency.
Marji and I went to a quite nice Georgian restaurant together. At first, we were seated a table with three prostitutes. After they left, three middle-aged patrons were put across from us. They ordered, and asked for two bottles of cognac. When the waiter brought them, they told him he needn’t open the second one right away. He responded that he had to open it, but then winked and said he would bring back the plastic cap later. So the requirements of socialist legality were observed, but the diners got a bottle for another occasion without two hours in line.
Hardly know where to begin regarding Chernobyl. I took the whole thing pretty calmly until a few days ago. As long as the wind blew away from Moscow, I assumed we were safe. And the Embassy brought in a team to monitor radiation, which found no indications that there was anything abnormal.
Friends are disgusted at their government’s mishandling of the disaster. Some equate it with the failure to be prepared when the Germans invaded in 1941. Lots of credence to the rumor that the locals did not inform Moscow for a day or so, and then called to say there was a minor problem. After the Swedes demanded an explanation for why their readings had gone off the scale, Moscow called back and said “now about that minor problem ...”
I was inclined to believe that version at first. However, I now tend to think it is fairly subtle disinformation – a way of smearing some local cadres to protect the leadership. It sounds too much like “If the Tsar only knew.” It is Gorbachev’s job to know.
A friend who has been appointed to one of the growth industry commissions to work on consequences of the disaster offered some other information:
- The reactor is still spewing radioactivity.
- It is not a power plant. It is a military reactor that was used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
- The melt-down has hit the water table, which means the Pripet’ and Dnepr rivers are contaminated, and the Kiev water supply is affected.
I checked this “reliable” information with Embassy science folks. They consider half of it true: it is a breeder reactor, and is still emitting radiation. And will for some time. The exaggeration about “military” reactor and contaminated water shows the sort of rumor-mongering that results from the secrecy the Soviets try to impose. If it is true, the health effects will turn out to be massive.
Same source also adds that preliminary signs of radiation sickness have appeared in 4000 of the evacuated children. Remember that they went to school for the first two days after the accident, and that on May Day everyone was out in the streets celebrating.
Other fallout from the accident included a report that all the pregnant women in Minsk were ordered to have abortions. A friend going on an Academy of Sciences trip to Tallinn attended a pre-trip briefing at which they were all told to wear a hat or some other type of head covering at all times.
Soviet media is reporting about the measures to check produce at peasant markets in Ukraine and Belorussia. As each seller arrives, an official with an electronic radiation detection device pokes the probe into the cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. Going rate for the device to be turned off while the probe is inserted has been 5-10 rubles.”

If one were keeping score, the media seem to have been well ahead of the government. But the most important lesson may be the combination of a desire by the authorities that the media demonstrate a sense of responsibility and adhere to limits, while the media found the authorities to be guilty of far more egregious irresponsibility. Both “sides” were groping toward something new without understanding or trusting the other.
In 1986 most foreign observers were still obsessed with the question of whether Gorbachev was “for real.” At about the same time I recorded these comments about Chernobyl, we attended the most interesting theatrical production of the year, “Govori” (Speak or Talk):

“It is set in the early 1950s – just before and just after the death of Stalin. In act one we see an oblast’ chairman who runs the place very much like a private satrapy. When they requisition too much grain from the peasants, one brave 2nd secretary of a raikom proposes apologizing and giving it back. The Stalinist says no, (we never make mistakes). The good guy presses for a vote, and he and a writer/ journalist friend are overwhelmingly defeated. His career is in danger. But then Stalin dies. In act two the hero has become first secretary, and is striving to change the way things are done. But the Stalinist patterns are very deeply ingrained. In one very moving scene a friend from Moscow visits and recites brave and open-minded poetry by a new young writer named Evgenyi Evtushenko. The para-llels with a transition period are almost too blatant.
When the new secretary seeks to deal with the problems, he finds that the entire system has been structured to dissuade people from working. The plan and targets are so stringent that it is actually better to produce less, rather than to seek to increase output. In area after area, the rule is, “the worse, the better.”
Climax is a raikom conference. Speakers stand at a podium reading dull prepared speeches. (Audience reaction to this parody of Party meetings was very enthusiastic. In fact, audience reaction in general was fascinating.) Finally, the hero can take it no more. He walks up to a woman mumbling dull slogans and statistics, and asks her why her speech is so uninspired. She replies that she didn’t have time to write a report, so she is reading last year’s. (Audience roars and applauds.) Then our hero talks about the problems at one of the collective farms, walks forward on the stage, and, looking at the audience, asks if anyone from that farm is present. A few brave spectators our night yelled back, “yes.” Then he walks to the podium, takes the paper away from the woman, and says, “govori!” Curtain. Two-thirds of the audience loved it. The person next to me, a young man in sunglasses, was ecstatic. The other third seemed either confused or offended.
Rumors abound that Gorbachev went to see the play – the theater is a five-minute walk from the Kremlin. No reports on his review.”

Those of us who thought there was a learning curve after Chernobyl had our own learning curve after 1991 and 1993. These events have not fared well either in popular mythology or in historical recounting. In both cases, an initial narrative of heroic defense of democracy has been chipped away by assertions that Yeltsin was no democrat and that there were few supporters of democracy.
Space does not permit a full discussion of both of these events, so I will limit myself to the one for which I have better documentation, the August 1991 coup. I was in the USSR (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Yakutsk) for about six weeks in the summer of 1991. When I departed on July 3, I wrote the following:

“I have to confess that I came back from this trip even more confused than before. The contradictions just keep getting sharper. I was more impressed than ever at the extent of changes, the new possibilities opening, the number of talented people trying to do new things, and the potential for a real shift. On the other hand, I was also depressed at the inability of reformers to break the power of the troglodytes. Gorbachev still has the same gang of thugs who were brought in between October 1990 and February 1991 – Yanaev, Pavlov, Pugo, and of course Luk’ianov. Galina Starovoitova and her assistant Liudmila told me that the explanation for the March 1991 crisis – when there were troops and tanks in the streets – was that Luk’ianov told Gorbachev that the crowds were trying to seize the Kremlin.
At every turn there is both potential and obstruction. When I asked high-level officials about this, they usually replied that things would be settled when the new Union Treaty is signed. But in the discussions about this crucial document, they have repeatedly put off resolution of the most important issues. If 80% of the questions have been resolved, the 20% remaining include virtually all of the key topics – who has the tax power, whose laws take precedence, and other little issues of that ilk. In other words, they have not answered the most basic questions.”

One of the most disturbing myths about August 1991 is the claim that few people supported Yeltsin and the resistance. It might be understandable that in the aftermath of economic dislocations, the shelling of the White House under Yeltsin’s orders in October 1993, and general dissatisfaction with the course of change in Russia, people’s memories have blurred. But this does not explain the treatment of the subject by Western scholars. Jerry Hough tells us: “Everyone agrees that there was no significant resistance outside Moscow and that the storming of the White House would have been a relatively easy military operation.”^[4] With no supporting evidence, Hough’s “everyone agrees” should set off the same sort of warning signals we were used to whenever Pravda began a paragraph with, “kak izvestno.” Michael McFaul states, “Resistance organizations, however, did not form nationwide. On the contrary, only democratic activists in Moscow and St. Petersburg publicly mobilized against the Emergency Committee. In other cities, democratic activists followed their local leaders in adopting a wait-and-see approach.”^[5] Like Hough, McFaul offers no evidence for this claim. His sole reference is to an article by James Gibson, which McFaul describes as discussing “varying levels of popular resistance to the coup.”^[6] Yet Gibson states quite clearly that while “activism was indeed greater in Moscow and Leningrad… political activity clearly was not confined to Moscow and Leningrad, even if the proportions of respondents engaging in political protest were smaller elsewhere.”^[7] Gibson’s main theoretical point is “that attitudinal commitments to the preservation of democracy in Russia motivated people to take action against the August coup.”^[8] The most thorough student of the politics of protest, Mark Beissinger, is more nuanced:

“Strikes in protest of the coup broke out in many places, but outside Moscow and Leningrad demonstrations involving more than fifty thousand were rare (occurring only in Kishinev and Sverdlovsk) – in part because many preferred to wait and see whether the regime would enforce its ban on demonstrations, in part because outside of Moscow the State Emergency Committee did so little to warrant major street action.”^[9]

Beissinger sets a rather high bar by making 50,000 the measure for significant protest. To get that many people onto the streets without causing chaos requires more than a single day’s planning.
The “conventional wisdom” that only a small number of property-grabbing Yeltsinites in the two capitals resisted the putsch suffers from two drawbacks. First, it ignores a significant body of evidence that people did protest. These protests were not always well-organized, and may not have resulted directly from the blandishments of “democratic activists.” But should we really expect to have found a well-organized protest movement within the first 36 hours? The coup was over before many “activists” managed to return from their dachas (this was, after all, mid-August, and even Gorbachev was on vacation).^[10] Second, a focus on public demonstrations of opposition may ignore other, equally important reasons for the coup’s failure. In addition to direct confrontation, there was an enormous amount of indirect resistance to and subversion of the GKChP, and this was at least as important in determining the outcome.^[11] But it is also much more susceptible to memory erosion.
Public demonstrations were only part of the story. During a visit to Moscow in November 1991, several friends claimed that people had stayed out on the streets after curfew as a way to protest during the August coup. There is not really any way to verify this “memory.” But it is quite plausible: there were many instances of resistance to the coup that took indirect forms. Izvestiia published two different editions on August 20. The first (No. 197) printed the resolutions of the GKChP; the second (No. 198) condemned the coup, sided with Yelstin, and devoted much of its space to accounts of resistance to the coup across the USSR.^[12] Several accounts at the time reported that someone in Kriuchkov’s office alerted Yeltsin’s staff to his impending arrest, allowing him to leave his dacha and get to the White House before police arrived. Without the subversion, there would have been no direct confrontation.
One personal story may have influenced my own perception of this period. A young man, Sergei, worked for me as a driver during my visits to Moscow over the previous two years. When I arrived in Moscow in September 1991, a few weeks after the coup, he informed me that on August 19 he had taken his store of hard currency (money he was saving to open his own business) and bought a Kalashnikov for $1,500. He claimed that had the coup been more successful, he would have used the weapon to defend his right to private economic activity. At the end of August he sold the gun for 25,000 rubles (about the same value as the purchase price, but not in hard currency). Lacking detailed survey research, we have no way of knowing how many Sergeis there were in Moscow or elsewhere. But it is striking that this was the reaction of someone who only hoped some day to have his own business, not someone who already was operating one.
The timing of protest is as important as its mere existence. A variation on the “little support for Yeltsin” argument is that many people, and particularly many political figures, opposed the coup only after it was clear that it would fail. The difference between August 20th, when things were far from clear, and the 21st, when the coup crumbled, is crucial. But so is the time differential across the USSR. Events in the Far East, six hours “ahead” of Moscow, were not always a response to the drama in the Capital.
In a world where media presence is a crucial element in determining what is news, the concentration of Western press representatives reinforced an impression that everything of real importance transpired in the capital, or at most in the two capitals. But August 1991 was not just about Moscow.^[13] Coal miners in Vorkuta and the Kuzbass quickly heeded Yeltsin’s call for a strike, and closed their mines on the morning of August 20. Demonstrations took place in many cities on the 20th. By the 21st, the list expanded. Omsk and Yakutsk opened information centers on August 20. In Tomsk the regional government declared its support for Yeltsin on the 20th. On August 21, there was a rally by 5-6,000 people. In Vladivostok some 2000 residents rallied on August 20. The Voronezh local government declared support for Yeltsin on August 20, and called for a general strike against the GKChP. Local TV was clearly pro-Yeltsin. On August 21, local papers came out pro-Yeltsin, published RSFSR materials, and ignored communications and demands from the GKChP. In Nizhnii Novgorod on August 20, one paper published Yelstin’s decree, a second was censored and published a blank page, but put the Decree on its public information board. Several rallies were held in support of a strike against the GKChP, including at GAZ (Gorkii Automobile Factory). On August 21 hundreds of people picketed a session of the local Soviet to protest against the GKChP.
Ekaterinburg, Yeltsin’s home town, experienced essentially continuous rallies beginning on August 20. On August 21 there were rallies at more than 400 enterprises. A large meeting attracted over 100,000. In Tiumen, more than 1000 people signed a petition against the GKChP. In Tula opponents of the putsch organized a protest march. In Murmansk the merchant marine declared a strike on August 20, announcing they would deliver only essential goods. There were rallies described as “large” in Novosibirsk and Barnaul.
The night of August 20-21 was decisive in Moscow, and probably determined the fate of the USSR. Despite the deaths of three demonstrators, there was no widespread violence and the troops failed to attack. By the morning of August 21 Moscow time, rumors reported the leaders of the putsch being in jail or having fled to Central Asia (they were actually en route to see Gorbachev to seek a way out of their dilemma). But when Echo Moskvy went off the air around 1:00 a.m. on the 21st, the most fraught moment in Moscow, it was already morning in the Far East. In Novokuznetsk 3000 people showed up at a demonstration on August 21. A Magadan rally on August 21 attracted more than 5000. In Vladivostok there was a rally by more than 5000 people. Paratroopers arrived that night, but 3000 rallied for Yeltsin the next day (August 22).
On August 22 there were large rallies in Ivano-Frankovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk and Aldan.^[14] In the week following the coup, many leaders who had supported the GKChP were targets of protests. In many of the non-Russian republics of the RSFSR, including Chechen-Ingush, Buriatia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Mordova, crowds demanded the removal of leaderships that had failed to support Yeltsin.^[15] Some 30,000 people signed a petition in Kazan’s Central Square demanding that Mintimer Shaimiev resign for supporting the putsch.^[16] Large meetings were held by two groups: one organized by the Republic leadership called “Sovereignty” demanding that Tatarstan sign the Union Treaty as independent entity; the other by democ-rats demanding resignation of the Republic’s Communist government.^[17]
Not only the number but also the character of the opposition to the coup is a subject of serious dispute. The flimsy barricades rapidly constructed by coup opponents could not possibly have deterred tanks. Hence, the opposition must not have been serious. This argument misses the moral and carnivalistic elements in the resistance to the coup. While most of the rallies were attended by fewer than 5000 people, a much larger number simply refused to support the GKChP. Resistance and subversion were among the most important weapons employed by those who opposed a restoration of Communist power. It is, of course, possible to argue that these people were simply hedging their bets in an effort to make sure that they were not on the losing side. Even if this was the case, the effect was the same –absence of support for the putsch. In contrast to writing on 1991, some of the best analysis of 1989 draws on this approach.^[18]
During a visit to Tallinn in June 1991 I was shown the granite boulders that had been carted to key intersections during the January 1991 assaults in Riga and Vilnius. These large rocks appeared to have been chosen as much on aesthetic as practical grounds. They would have been at most a minor inconvenience for armored vehicles (and detouring around them would probably have caused much greater property damage than using the streets). These “barricades” were now arranged in sculptural ways that seemed to have more to do with evoking memory than with their possible use in a future attack. But they had an enormous emotional significance. The barricades were a statement of resistance, a symbol of willingness to confront the unequal power configuration, and a clear indication that victory for the coup would require bloodshed. It was psychological warfare. One American at the White House who asked people how they knew how to construct the makeshift barricades was told that they drew on the example of defenders of the Lithuanian parliament in January 1991: “Vilnius taught us.”^[19]
When the forces supporting a coup lack a sense of their own legitimacy, symbolic resistance can be enough. Valeriia Novodvorskaia, who was in Lefortovo prison during the August coup, reported that her prison guards disapproved of the coup and of Kriuchkov in particular.^[20] Many of those on the streets of Moscow who talked with soldiers riding in the tanks got the impression that they would not shoot. As one soldier told a TV interviewer, “I’m human too.”^[21] Some defenders of the White House carried signs saying “Glory to the RSFSR tank drivers.” Even a carnival can include psychological warfare.
Why does the currently prevailing view of August 1991 emphasize the weakness rather than the strength of the opposition to the GKChP? Perhaps because so many people are dissatisfied with the results of the subsequent decade. Kathleen Smith notes that by 1996 conservatives had gained greater confidence in interpreting August 1991 as a tragedy due to destruction of USSR. (I have always been struck by their failure to consider that if the end of the USSR was a tragedy, the coup plotters were the ones primarily responsible for this outcome.) Smith cites polls by Moskovskii Kom-somolets indicating that in 1993, 78% of Muscovites said they supported Yeltsin in his confrontation with the legislature, but in (retrospective) polls in 1996, only 39% claimed to have supported him.^[22] We do not have comparable survey data for 1991. Smith cites data indicating that in 1999 only 9% viewed 1991 as a victory for democracy, while most thought of it as one more struggle among competing elites. This represents a major shift from the survey data from 1992-93 reported by Gibson.
Politics alone does not explain the prevailing image of August 1991. Another reason for the flawed accounts involves the treatment of history during Perestroika. The fashion for examining blank spots was neither unilinear nor all-pervasive. Smith noted that exploration of the Stalinist past “peaked” before 1991, and declined thereafter.^[23]
In the West, historians did a somewhat better job coping with the Gorbachev era than political scientists.^[24] Some specialists on the 19th century were more open to the possibilities for change than scholars whose main focus had been the career biographies of regional Party leaders. This was the diametrical opposite of the pattern in the USSR, where most of the established historians had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the era of Glasnost’. In the early years of Glasnost’, virtually all the interesting historical writing in the Soviet Union appeared in newspapers and novels. The first books to be published exhibiting the “new” history were a translation of Steve Cohen’s biography of Bukharin and some of the works by Roy Medvedev. Soviet historians found it difficult to adapt, at most participating in “round table” discussions outlining an agenda of what needed to be done.^[25] Some of the most interesting and important new work did not appear until 1993.^[26]
As Rubie Watson notes, much of the story of Glasnost’, and of 1989 in particular, was about “recovering” the past.^[27] One is tempted to joke that in the 21st century far more effort is being devoted to re-covering the past. Rather than filling in the blank spots, leaders are endeavoring to establish their own narratives as the dominant interpretations of events, both recent and more distant.
Restoring some perspective to accounts of 1991 and 1993 would be an important step toward a more general examination of complex issues in Russia’s history, and would help to reverse a disturbing trend away from open debate. The Putin government is devoting much energy to restoring limits. Putin himself appears to hope that this can be largely voluntary – that Russians will recognize what is “right” and will choose to behave “responsibly.” During Putin’s first term, press minister Lesin often sounded like Gorbachev in his calls for journalists to voluntarily recognize the need to write “responsibly.” But defining responsibility is not easy. It most often seems to be an instance of “I know it when I see it.”^[28]
The contradiction showed up clearly in one of the most important policy reforms of Putin’s second term, the conversion of social benefits to cash payments. This reform is desperately needed. Studies indicate that about half of the funds allocated for social programs never reach the intended recipients. In the case of housing subsidies, 80% of the benefits go to the most affluent 20% of the population, in other words, to people who do not need them. Well-organized rackets derive enormous profits from corruption in the prescription drug system.
The clearly necessary benefits reform touches just about every family in the country. It is also unimaginably complex, involving changes to some 200 existing laws. The Russian government and its policy consultants are so intimidated by the intricacy and sensitivity of the legislation that they hurried it through the Duma quickly, in the summer, when many people are on vacation and less inclined to pay attention to politics. (The government also took advantage of high oil prices, and of Putin’s recent re-election. In two years, his lame duck status might make it more difficult to sway reluctant legislators. The government took no chances, cutting off the referendum option and resorting to a plethora of dirty tricks to distract if not eliminate Communist opponents.)
As so often in complex policy changes, the problems are too intricate and too important to be left to the “specialists.” One of the most damaging legacies from Soviet times is the belief that five experts sitting around a table are capable of solving complex problems. This is hardly unique to Soviet Union – technocracy enjoyed its fullest exposition in the U.S. and Germany, and technocratic policy approaches appear with depressing regularity. But the USSR elevated positivism to the level of an administrative religion. Colleagues involved in the reforms told me directly that in Russian conditions it would not be possible to permit extensive public debate – it would kill the legislation. But the costs of precluding public debate are high, both in terms of legitimacy and in practical elements of the legislation. For example, the first draft of the new legislation provided for payments to invalid children under age 18, and payments to adults certified as invalids, but it failed to provide coverage for children who turned 18 and lost their status as child invalids. This can be fixed, and probably will be fixed in the second or third reading. But how many more oversights and omissions are there that will be discovered only after the legislation is approved? The point is that public discussion and debate would make it possible to increase understanding of the intent and to identify genuine problems with the draft laws.^[29]
In any society, the fashion for particular episodes or figures from the past is as telling an indicator as the “spin” imparted to them. Gorbachev’s reforms drew historians’ attention to the “reform era” of Alexander II. Vladimir Putin’s regime has stimulated a cottage industry of books about Petr Stolypin. This is rather curious. Just what is it about Stolypin that is so “relevant”? His agra-rian reforms, which sought to help “strong and sober” peasants escape the continuing embrace of village communes? Perhaps his program to encourage migration to Siberia? His repression of those involved in the 1905 Revolution, when the hangman’s noose came to be called “Stolypin’s necktie”? His role as a strong Prime Minister serving a Tsar generally considered to be lacking in strength of character? Surely not his death at the hands of an assassin? One suspects that what most resonates about Stolypin is the speech he delivered to the Duma when he took office, proclaiming that “we need a great Russia.” Like Putin, he did not consider it necessary to define greatness.
Vladimir Putin has embraced all of Russian and Soviet history, refusing to judge any of it.^[30] In some instances, this may be a wise course. Leaving Lenin’s body where it is until most of the aging communists who care passionately about the issue are gone could be viewed as a reasonable solution to a thorny problem. But in many cases the refusal to make judgments entails explicit acceptance of behavior that deserves to be condemned. In all cases, the failure to engage in frank, open-ended discussion of the issues represents the most serious problem.
Small signals matter. One of Putin’s first acts as President was to restore the bust of Yurii Andropov to its place in the FSB headquarters. In early 2003 he instructed officials to alter the memorial to WWII hero cities, replacing the name Volgograd with Stalingrad. Claims that this represents a correction to the historical record must be weighed against the costs incurred by sending such signals. It produces an atmosphere in which the police authorities in St. Petersburg feel free to describe hate crimes as mere hooliganism.^[31] Having resolutely condemned a mailbox bombing “hate crime” during his first term, the President’s silence on these issues is also a signal. Without moral leadership, the entire government becomes not merely technocratic and soulless, but, as Freud suggested, morally dysfunctional.
Smith notes that “study of the mobilization of collective memories by an elite can provide insight into an important aspect of the process of forming a national identity – the proffering of potentially acceptable beliefs about what it means to be a member of a certain nation.”^[32] I share this view, and a concern with ways an elite defines an “acceptable past”
Gorbachev initially undertook changes as a way to increase political and military power, and to restore the international competitiveness of the socialist system. He wanted to make sure the Soviet Union could continue to be a world power. He was never able to resolve the inherent contradiction in this effort: the things the USSR was required to do to compete in the increasingly complex global knowledge economy were inevitably things that undermined its ability to be the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin faces the same conundrum: he wants to get things back under control, and then gradually permit freedom and initiative in ways that serve the “general” interest. The goal may be laudable, and he is doing a pretty good job of convincing his own entourage and even some foreigners that this is a reasonable approach that accords with Russian traditions. Unfortunately, it is also a dead end. Across a range of issues, the effect is to stifle the very initiative and development that is so desperately needed.
While a case may be made that processes of disintegration had been allowed to go too far, once these genies were out of their bottles, stuffing them back in by force does more than merely restore a semblance of control. It decisively undermines the creative processes that bring about real development. Regional leaders, who were beginning to understand that failure to improve their local economies could produce electoral defeat, now have learned that if they satisfy Moscow’s demand for loyalty they are free to loot their fiefdoms. Big business has learned that maximizing profit is a less desirable strategy than satisfying the wishes of political leaders. Entrepreneurs have learned that bribes to local officials represent a less risky strategy than building independent businesses. Russia’s neighbors are finding that fealty to Moscow is more important than their economic development. Educators have been shown that the new “general line” takes precedence over critical thinking. Students are being told that choosing a narrow specialty and making it their career is more important than using their knowledge to maximize their potential. In realm after realm, creativity and spontaneity are being sacrificed to control.
The control is not absolute, and there are lots of ways to work around the obstacles. Persistent entrepreneurs can function and prosper. Some regions are doing better economically. Destroying Russia’s most efficient oil company may put some assets in the hands of other firms. But the overall result is to impede the economic development and creative potential on which Russia’s future prosperity and therefore international competitiveness depend. Janet Vaillant noted the irony in the Russian government recalling the one history text that successfully implements the techniques called for in the strategy for “modernizing” Russian education.^[33] The Russian education system may excel at imparting factual knowledge, but it has done less well in the realms of conceptual skills. Russian students are taught what to think, not how to think. In the absence of a Party line, this produces a Dostoyevskian search for someone to save them from the burden of choice.
Freud did not argue that a nation necessarily needed to agree about its past. The key issue was the need to confront it, perhaps even argue vehemently about it. The problems arise when the past is repressed: when elites/leaders signal that topics are better left untouched. Attempts to define an acceptable past represent at best a temporary fix. As each generation reexamines basic questions about identity, issues of history must be reconsidered. Freud’s warning helps us to understand that relying on a historical tradition of limiting the discourse cannot be a solution.