No.
When the Soviet Union’s structures have fully disintegrated, when the matter of Gorbachev is resolved, then it will be necessary to meet with Mr. Bush. We respect Gorbachev, and we want him to shape his own destiny. We decided not to act too hastily. We want this to happen in the course of December, or by the middle of January.
No. He is a top-class politician. And for him that appointment would be, or so it seems to me, offensive. Still, I’d like to say again that he can state his preferences, and we can consider whatever preferences he expresses if he voices them. As for us, it would be tactless to make any suggestions to him, wouldn’t it?
I think he began to go wrong in 1987. I said so at the time, and that is why he began driving me out. I told him that his perestroika tactic was a mistake. If we had followed the course that we are following today, we would have overcome the economic crisis–the catastrophic situation of our people–a long time ago. He wanted to combine things that cannot be combined–to marry a hedgehog and a grass snake–communism and a market economy, public-property ownership and private-property ownership, the multiparty system and the Communist Party with its monopoly on power. But these things are incompatible. He wanted to retain some of the old things while introducing new reforms. In his latest mistake he wanted our country to be a single state. That is impossible, that is unrealistic. But he decided to stick to his illusions and bide his time.
If anyone did that, it was the new democratic forces to which I belong. I don’t want to think about my destiny; I want our people to live better. I want their lives to improve before my own eyes, that is the most important thing.
I disagree. All our jurists, not the ones who report directly to Gorbachev, have provided documentary proof that it was a constitutional step. Therefore the Soviet Union has ceased to exist.
They treated me in accordance with my status; I was part of the opposition. To someone [in] opposition they usually give no more than 25 minutes. So I don’t have a grudge against Mr. Bush. As a smart politician, he acted correctly.
They aren’t trying to reinforce Gorbachev’s position. I talked with President Bush twice after Brest, and we discussed only one issue: everything must proceed here without any violence … I hope we’ll succeed in this. If the people demand something, the president must go to the people, tell them that this predicament is temporary, that this is the last chance we are going to have [for reform] and we cannot afford to miss it. The people have to be told that in six or seven months, stabilization will occur, to be followed with improvements … The reforms have already started. I have already signed a decree that free-market prices will be introduced as of Jan. 2.
If I didn’t have faith, I would never have started this. I do not even want to consider a lethal outcome.
Our people are proud. We must do the most important things ourselves, remedy the situation, make it healthier. That is what we are telling the people: we have given you freedom of enterprise. You can determine your own wages. We are setting prices free. We are forming a free market and liberalizing foreign trade. Now it is up to you to show us what you are worth. We have removed all the wage restrictions, so you can earn 10 times as much as you are earning today. Under the former system, no matter how much or how hard you worked, there was always a wage ceiling. The people had no incentive to work.
The Communist command system has collapsed. The people’s spirit of initiative has been unshackled. The people have sensed greater freedom, and that spirit is gradually taking shape. Add to this their contacts with Western businessmen, add to this the new schools of management in this country. We are gradually reviving the entrepreneurial spirit that was strangled in 1917. Don’t forget that in the 19th century, Russian industrialists were famous for their products all over the world.
Last year we had many such problems. In some instances, those responsible were corrupt Soviet trade organizations. We have disbanded them. The new Russian organizations replacing them have not yet had enough time to become corrupted. So this year deliveries should be better. We are also improving the distribution system. We want aid to bypass Moscow, where it has been going astray, and instead go directly to the area intended. As to the participation of the military, we have no problem. On my last visit to the United States I discussed this with U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Yesterday we had consultations with our Defense Minister Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, and he has no objections. “Go ahead,” he said. His ministry has established a special transportation squadron for food deliveries. The United States, France, Germany should do the same. Incidentally, I visited Germany recently, and we agreed that the Wehrmacht would be delivering aid here.
Yes, we are talking about Russia.
We have not yet taken over. We are taking over. By the Dec. 21 meeting in Alma-Ata, about 10 republics will have signed the commonwealth agreement. We will then sign a special treaty on a defense union and on the establishment of a unified command over the strategic [nuclear] armed forces. At that point we will have taken over control from Gorbachev.
He will report to the Commonwealth Council of Heads of State. As for the nuclear button, we’ll talk about that next time.
I evaded this issue intentionally, but the republics are not going to have control of nuclear weapons. Nuclear arms will be centrally controlled.
Next question.
As I have said, there will be a unified command of the strategic forces. The strategic forces consist of units of the Air Force, the Navy, strategic nuclear missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, intelligence and air defense. They will be unified for all commonwealth members.
There are also ground forces, or the Army. Under the unified-command structure, states signing the commonwealth treaty are also to subordinate ground forces to the main command. However, Ukraine wants to have its own army … only ground forces. Ukraine will be giving the rest away, to report to the unified command.
[Here Yeltsin picks up a pencil and draws an elaborate diagram of boxes. The top box represents the unified command. Below is a row of boxes denoting nuclear and conventional forces from various republics under that command. Off to the side is a separate box for a Ukrainian force with conventional ground troops.]
Next question.
After the Brest agreement, I had a meeting with all the generals here in Moscow. We have come to a mutual understanding. Russia has doubled the wages of the military, not only in Russia, but throughout the Army, and all of this will be financed out of Russia’s budget. As a result of that, the mood in the Army is changing. At least among the generals one cannot see what I might describe as subversive activities. Also Shaposhnikov and the upper tiers of the Defense Ministry are reliable. At long last we have intellectuals, not military hawks, among the top military, and here we have no fear.
It really miffs me if the leadership of the former Soviet Union [i.e., Gorbachev] mentions such things as a military coup, civil war or hunger riots, thereby inciting the population and spreading fear. Today we must work calmly and confidently for guaranteed reforms, gradually dismantling the union structures and moving everything to the Russian government. There will be no coordinating organs. That’s what makes the new commonwealth different. It won’t have a center. If there is coordination, it will be between the heads of state of commonwealth members. They will have some kind of a working group to resolve certain questions, and that’s it.
I usually sleep no more than four or five hours a night, and wake up about five or six times. The first thing I think about is how do we make the transition from the old union to the new commonwealth of states. Also, who is thinking of doing something against that? Who can sabotage and how?
The fragments of the old party structure, meaning the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, are capable of that. Also, some of the former central authorities. Eighty union ministries were disbanded, leaving tens of thousands of people offended. But I think that Gorbachev wants this transition to proceed peacefully.
Yes. One cannot work otherwise, if one has no confidence.
I have always believed that if you go somewhere, for example walking around a workshop at a factory, and you see a group of workers, men and women with a happy expression in their eyes, you just say hello and keep walking. But if you see angry eyes you should stop and come over to them. This would mean there is some kind of a problem there that perhaps I can resolve. The situation near the White House [the Russian Parliament building] on Aug. 19 was similar. We had to go to those tank commanders. They had been told to do one thing, and I had to convince them to change their minds. I had to ask them, “Are you going against democracy? Are you here to assassinate Yeltsin?” My order to the tank commanders was to get out of Moscow and return to base. And they started to pull out. Of course I did not have 100 percent confidence. They could have thrown me under the Caterpillar tracks.
At 6 p.m. on Aug. 19, an assault on the White House by the special Alpha force of the KGB was scheduled to start. Those 257 men are better trained than the American Green Berets. That group would have put everything under their control. It would have killed us all. But they refused to attack. That was my worst moment.
There was also an earlier time when the standing orders were to have me killed. But the situation kept changing. I made unexpected movements and left places where I was staying at unscheduled times. The putschists were not prepared for that. They made a big mistake when they didn’t shoot me in the morning.
