Sarah H. de Kay
From the safe distance of the Chamousseau woods in central France, the Biden-Trump meeting brought to mind a watershed moment in recent Russian history — from 1991.
It was August. Soviet President Gorbachev and his wife Raisa were held prisoner at their dacha at the resort town of Foros in the Crimea as a group of far-right Communists tried to seize power in Moscow. The insurgents were aided by several Gorbachev’s closest colleagues, including his Minister of Foreign Affairs. Just two months earlier, Raisa Gorbachev had toasted the minister at a banquet, calling him one of the most loyal members of her husband’s administration.
After the coup failed, Gorbachev was released. The whole country saw footage of him descending from a plane with Raisa, one of her arms paralyzed from a stroke she suffered while in detention. They were met by that same Foreign Minister.
Five years after being appointed to lead Russia, Gorbachev continued to struggle. An institutionalist, he had initiated reforms in all aspects of Soviet life – from free speech to allowing Soviet Republics that wanted independence to secede to loosening controls on private enterprise. The newly energized and empowered public was losing patience with the gradual pace of reform, and a number of republics were skipping the process proposed by Gorbachev for negotiated separation and declaring themselves independent.
Boris Yeltsin defended Gorbachev during the attempted coup, famously speaking from atop a tank in front of Moscow’s White House, the home of the Russian parliament. He was at the time president of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and extremely popular.
When Gorbachev was released after the coup attempt, the two Presidents, Gorbachev the institutionalist, and Yeltsin, the (much taller) dashing popular hero, met in front of the television cameras. Yeltsin asked Gorbachev if he had read a document that Yeltsin had given him. Gorbachev mumbled something to the effect that he hadn’t had time, and Yeltsin replied, bluntly: “Read it.” The tone of his order was humiliating, and the rest is history. Four months later, Yeltsin broke up the USSR in a vodka-soaked gathering with the presidents of Ukraine and Belorussia, Gorbachev resigned from his post, and…
Crony capitalism began. Yeltsin, who had already met with U.S. President George H. W. Bush on a private trip to the U.S., enlisted a team of American economic advisors to forge a new system. On their advice he privatized state-owned industries, theoretically dividing the wealth among all citizens but in fact handing over all the resources of Russia to six people who would later be christened oligarchs.
Privatized factories, shipyards, film studios were closed by their new owners and treated as real estate. Crime flourished, both organized and disorganized. Racketeering, shootings, and a black market selling shoddy and often lethal food and goods became hallmarks of the Russian economy. Inflation soared. Money handed to the future oligarchs flowed overseas in daily planeloads of cash which was spent buying villas and sports teams in the U.S. and Europe.
Citizens accustomed to living payday to payday, and in cash to boot, suddenly were not getting their salaries for months on end. The relatively few people who had put money aside lost their life savings overnight as banks opened and closed with dizzying alacrity. Movie stars hired themselves out as house cleaners and construction workers; university professors stood, abashed, on the streets of central Moscow, selling pots, pans, and books, to pay for food.
Just two years after the failed but bloodless coup, the Russian parliament tried to remove Yelstin from power. He sent tanks back to the White House but this time they fired into the building, forcing legislators out of the building. Yeltsin prevailed. Hundreds of people died on both sides of the conflict.
During Yeltsin’s time in office, corruption continued to hollow out Russia’s economy. In 1998, Russia defaulted on its debt. Finally, on December 31, 1999, eight years after seizing power, Yeltsin used his traditional New Year’s Eve speech to announce that he was handing over the reins to Putin, making him acting president until the 2000 election, so that he could stabilize what was left of the country.
As Mark Twain wrote:“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” The rhyme scheme is becoming insistent, disturbing, and loud. Even here in France, as an expatriate American, I can hear it.
Sarah H. de Kay is an art curator, editor, translator and occasional writer based in rural France.
