The Rapid Political Changes of the Late 1980s and Early 1990s

Berglund, Krista

doi:10.1007/978-3-0348-0215-4_9

Krista Berglund²

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Abstract

Since 1988, Shafarevich’s texts and interviews have appeared frequently in various forums in his country – first the Soviet Union and then, Russia. The majority of them – to be covered here – are commentaries on the country’s topical political events. His musings on the essence of contemporary Western civilisation will be dealt with in Ch. 10. The following discussion is roughly thematic, but more importantly it is chronological, for obvious reasons. It is vital to tie Shafarevich’s comments to the exact political context of the day and to consider his emphases against the dynamism of the rapid and radical changes in the country. This is particularly relevant concerning the years 1989–1993 when the political setting changed crucially on several occasions in a matter of months. Because Shafarevich has spoken about many issues worrying him more than once, there is slight repetition in the coming discussion. This illustrates the centrality of some emphases in his thinking.

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Notes

1.
This stance is relatively uncontested, as noted, for instance, in Dunlop 1993, 4–6 and passim.
2.
Ibid., 10.
3.
Ibid., 10–11.
4.
Shroeder 1991, 376.
5.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 237.
6.
Ibid., 235–237; Shafarevich [1989]a, 240–241.
7.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 235–237.
8.
Ibid., 236; “Revoliutsiia…”.
9.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 237; 1994 [1989/1991].
10.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 237.
11.
“Revoliutsiia…”.
12.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 287.
13.
“Revoliutsiia…”.
14.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 233–234, see also, 1993f.
15.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 233–234. As was seen, Shafarevich had warned about such schematism already in Russophobia.
16.
Beyond Perestroyka, 399, 410.
17.
Ibid., 401, 405; Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 279; Sogrin 2001, 100.
18.
Beyond Perestroyka, 402–403.
19.
Ibid., 402.
20.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]e, 290–291.
21.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]b, 308.
22.
Shafarevich 1990c, 12–14.
23.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]f, 348.
24.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]e, 290.
25.
Shafarevich 1990c, 12–14, see also 1994 [1990]b; 2000b, 352–353.
26.
Elsewhere Shafarevich specified that things which were normal in the West such as control or regulation of election budgets were still entirely missing (Shafarevich 1990c). In the wake of the presidential elections he added that an election campaign lasting for a couple of weeks was ridiculously short if compared with an entire year in the United States (1994 [1991]f).
27.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]f, 350.
28.
For instance, Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 290–291, see also 1994 [1991]b, 308–309.
29.
Shafarevich 1990c; 1994 [1990]b; 1994 [1990]e 290–291.
30.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b; 1994 [1991]f. This criticism has later been echoed by scholars, by Urban, Mitrokhin and Igrunov, for instance. They noted “The principal barrier erected by the authorities concerned access to the means of mass communications. During the 1990 campaign, something approaching a blackout of campaign coverage took place.” (Urban et al. 1997, 188.) As to the 1989 elections, they stated sharply that “it would be mistaken to regard that voting as commensurate with an actual election.” (Ibid., 119.)
31.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]b, 308–310.
32.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f. This proved to be true at least in the respect that, as McFaul notes, in many regions Eltsin “appointed former CPSU first and second secretaries [i.e., the highest party officials of each level] to […] new executive offices” when making nominations after the August coup attempt (McFaul 2001, 148, see also 149).
33.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]b, 310.
34.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989/1991], 295.
35.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]b, 311.
36.
Shafarevich 1991 [1989]b; 1994 [1990]d.
37.
As early as 1988 Shafarevich had taken part in the sixth meeting of Soviet social scientists which had made a joint appeal emphasising that “interethnic tension often begins by discrediting the Russian people and ascribing Stalinist traits to them”. It had urged “the introduction of republican-level self-financing, opposition to bureaucratic approaches that do not take fully into account national and regional traditions, freedom of conscience for all nationalities, and changing the school curriculum to reflect better the national traditions of all peoples.” (Petro 1995, 105. For another similar initiative in 1988, see Dunlop 1991, 151.)
38.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 240–241, see also 1991 [1989]b.
39.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]d, 221.
40.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 241.
41.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]d, 219–222.
42.
Shafarevich 1991 [1989]b, 169. Incidentally, around this time Shafarevich also became involved in an organisation called the Social Committee for the Salvation of the River Volga (Obshchestvennyi komitet spaseniia Volgi) (Shafarevich 1991 [1990], 201, 203, for more information about the committee and Shafarevich’s involvement, see Shatokhin 2009).
43.
Shafarevich 1991 [1989]b, 168.
44.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b.
45.
Solzhenitsyn 1995 [1990].
46.
Shafarevich’s article also appeared in the other one of these, Komsomolskaia pravda with a circulation of 22 million, albeit with a critical response by a certain D. Muratov and a disclaimer that “the editors do not always share the viewpoint of authors participating in the discussion”. This was, to borrow Horvath’s words, “a testimony to the intensity of the controversy now engulfing Shafarevich” (Horvath 2005, 207). Indeed, Muratov’s very short, impressionistic and rather paternalistic comment betrayed an effort similar to many Russophobia criticisms: to demonstrate the author’s disapproval with the views of Shafarevich, the notorious author of that notorious work, more than to present intelligible arguments concerning this new text written by him.
47.
Shafarevich 1991b, 312. The different contexts of writing were slightly lost on Krasnov, a most insightful observer who made a summary of Solzhenitsyn’s text and accurately weighed its reception and significance (Krasnov 1991b, 43–75). He found it strange that in his text Shafarevich was “seemingly disagreeing with Solzhenitsyn” even if he was so obviously endorsing all his major proposals. (Ibid., n73.) Shmelev (1991, 210) and Horvath went way further in deliberately drawing a line between these two. After everything that has been said in the previous chapter about Shafarevich, the notorious Russophobia author, Horvath’s words may just be noted without commentaries: “[Solzhenitsyn’s piece] confounded the hopes of the emerging Communist-patriotic alliance that Solzhenitsyn would endorse the militant anti-Semitism of his former comrade Shafarevich” (Horvath 2005, 206). And: “The moderation of Solzhenitsyn’s stance confirmed Shafarevich’s position as the pre-eminent ideologist of the militant Russian nationalism” (ibid., 207).
48.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 283.
49.
In retrospect, Shafarevich was certainly not worrying in vain when raising this example. When, in the spring of 2007 the Russian-Latvian border treaty was eventually signed after dolorous efforts, any Russian-Estonian border agreement had not yet been signed. (Soon after, all hopes that it would happen in the near future disappeared when the relations between the two countries turned freezing cold over a Soviet statue in Tallinn.) The stance of the Balts was that the borders drawn by Lenin (very generously – but obviously in an intention to claim back “the gift” with full interest once the Soviets had stabilised their power and were ready to proceed on the road of the world revolution) were those which ought to be returned to, whereas the stance of the Russians was that the borders drawn by Stalin, after the Soviets had occupied the Baltic states, ought not to be changed. As to Shafarevich’s mentioning of Khrushchev’s borders, it referred to Khrushchev’s single-handed decision to give Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. On the complex issue of border disputes after the collapse of the Soviet Union, see Forsberg 1995.
50.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 283.
51.
Ibid., 284.
52.
Ibid.
53.
McFaul 2001, 153–154.
54.
Lapidus & Walker 1995; Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 409–410.
55.
For Eltsin’s policy concerning the regions, see Ruutu 2006, 144.
56.
For the negotiations, see Rutland 1997, 156. For the prolonged practice of subsidised prices for Belarus and Ukraine, see, for instance, Maksymiuk 2007; Lelyveld 2000.
57.
In retrospect to this list could be added at least pilfering and selling of arms and nuclear materials, as well as the forming of private army-like security units.
58.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 284. He reiterated these points in 1994 [1991]f, 333, a text written after August 1991, in which he warned in particular against letting the mafia be the main beneficiary of the chaotic situation.
59.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, see also 1994 [1991]d, 309; 1994 [1991]b, 318.
60.
Shafarevich 1991 [1989]a, 237.
61.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 285.
62.
The constitution of 1993 finally stated that the Russian Federation consists of 89 federal subjects: 21 republics, 48 oblasts, 7 krais, 1 autonomous oblast, 7 autonomous okrugs and 2 federal cities, i.e., Moscow and St. Petersburg.
63.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 288.
64.
Cited in Dunlop 1993, 64 and Lapidus & Walker 1994, 83. Original Tsipko 1991. Lapidus and Walker (1994, 81, 79) also speak about “a snowballing process of state-formation by ever smaller ethnic groups and regions” and the “threat […of] disintegration of Russia itself”.
65.
Lapidus & Walker 1994, 96. Most of the same facts are recapped in Shevtsova 1999, 41–43.
66.
Lapidus & Walker 1994, 96.
67.
Shevtsova 1999, 42.
68.
Several high-ranking senior officials tried to topple Gorbachev and Eltsin and turn the clock of history back to pre-1988 years. They managed to take control of TV and radio broadcasting but great numbers of people spontaneously poured into the Moscow streets to protest. The majority of the army refused to follow the putschists’ orders. Within three days the coup had failed. (For a detailed description, see Dunlop 1993, 186–284; 2003, 94–127.)
69.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f.
70.
To be exact, the piece was an article, not an interview.
71.
Eltsin had confiscated the property of the Communist Party by decree in August 1991, Pravda included. Its employees registered a new newspaper by the same name almost instantly thereafter, however. (About us.)
72.
Dunlop 1993, 280. Before this Dunlop had presented Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s, Aleksandr Prokhanov’s and Eduard Volodin’s ideas about the collapse of the Soviet Union, introducing them to the reader as “proto-fascist” ideologues. However, in contrast with this judgemental characterisation, neither Dunlop’s own encapsulations of these texts nor his quotations from them revealed particular traits of bigotry or nationalism in them but rather illustrated their authors’ relief over the demise of the communists – a sentiment shared by virtually all other citizens.
73.
This figure equates roughly with the number of Russians in the former Soviet republics in the 1989 census. The Russian minorities in the Ukraine and Kazakhstan were numerically the greatest. (Greenall 2005.)
74.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 323.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Ibid.
77.
Ibid., 330.
78.
Ibid., 328–329.
79.
Ibid., 330.
80.
Ibid., 333.
81.
This was obviously a reference to the ways in which the British had treated their colonies or the North Americans the indigenous population of the continent.
82.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 330.
83.
Ibid.
84.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 245–246.
85.
For these quests, see Shevtsova 1999, 41; Lapidus & Walker 1994, 96; Dunlop 1993, 59–64.
86.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 329.
87.
For this, see McFaul 2001, 132.
88.
For this, see Sogrin 2001, 138.
89.
For this, see Shevtsova 1999, 46. For an unsparing analysis of all these developments, see also Reddaway & Glinski 2001, passim.
90.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 331.
91.
McFaul 2001, 133.
92.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 331. As to Shafarevich’s mentioning of the “anti-fascist committee”, the later poignant words by Reddaway and Glinskii may be noted: “fascism has never been influential in Russian politics. Members of Yeltsin’s regime much exaggerated its contemporary influence to enflame elite passions and frighten the Russian and Western publics, and – not least – to justify the funding requests of a new coterie of professional ‘fascism fighters’.” (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 313.) And: “Since 1988, abundant financial and human resources from Russia and abroad have been pumped into the creation of numerous self-styled antifascist centers and fronts, as well as research and intelligence facilities to investigate the activities of any politician or group that the new leaders decided to frame as fascists. In the early 1990s, research topics involving the ‘fight against fascism’ and related issues became a good career move for Kremlin-loyal academics and would-be politicians in the same way that the ‘struggle against Zionism’ was fashionable over the preceding two decades.” (Ibid., 364–365.)
93.
Ibid., 324.
94.
For a summary of these devastating facts, see R. Ericson 1994, 37.
95.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f, 324–325.
96.
Ibid., 333. In the Gulf war the Soviet Union took a neutral line but it was a significant signal of the end of the cold war that it did nothing to defend its former ally Iraq, either, except for some attempts to arbitrate. In spite of this official non-alignment policy, occasional pro-Western politicians approved of the US-led bombings of Iraq. In another contemporaneous text Shafarevich assumed that Saddam Hussein could not have resorted to the suicidal attempt to annex Kuwait except in the hope that the Soviets would come to his rescue. He had apparently not understood that the Soviet Union could no longer pretend to challenge the US. While this situation was of course a blessing in the sense that the Soviet ventures had been mostly meaninglessly aggressive, it also meant that there was no longer a power in the world capable of constraining any of the similar pretensions of the US. Thus, to Shafarevich’s mind the only reasonable option for Russia for the time being was to stick firmly to the policy of refraining from mixing into the matters of others and to keep others from mixing into those of its own. (Shafarevich 1991c.)
97.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]b, 315.
98.
Billington 2004, 70.
99.
Devlin 1999, xvii.
100.
However, the threat of the return to communism was a mirage much more than a reality. As a rule, Eltsin’s popularity was highest whenever he could refer to this threat in a credible way. Consequently the fear of the return to communism was arguably always the major explanation for his popularity. (See also Aksiutin et al. 1996, 651 and Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 310.)
101.
Sogrin 2001, 105–106, 1–11. Reddaway and Glinskii characterise Eltsin’s major speech on the subject “[entirely permeated by] an almost religious faith in the universal efficacy of Western market equilibrium models and their instantaneous applicability on Russian soil.” (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 233). They point out that “shock therapy […] was far from being an isolated set of purely economic measures”, meaning by this that it made up something of an entire ideology (ibid., 241).
102.
Sogrin 2001, 107.
103.
Church 1991.
104.
Sogrin 2001, 108, 112.
105.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 249, see also passim.
106.
Sogrin 2001, 112, 117, 123 (citation); Shevtsova 1999, 44.
107.
Sogrin 2001, 121–122.
108.
Ibid., 112–113. See also Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 292–303.
109.
This real-time enthusiasm is documented in Reddaway & Glinski 2001, passim.
110.
Ibid., 234–235.
111.
Ibid., 234–244.
112.
Ibid., 273–280, 303–305, passim.
113.
Ibid., 241, 239–240.
114.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]e, 380.
115.
Shafarevich 1992d, 5. Sogrin’s quotation of the call of Lev Ponomarev, a noted human rights activist and one of the frontmen of the Democratic Russia movement, at the end of 1991 illustrates Shafarevich’s point: “[We ought] to sell land, privatise industry and trade at a revolutionary tempo, to act like Eltsin had acted during the putsch. Yes, a number of his decrees in that critical situation have an anti-constitutional character. But I would call this genial. They absolutely responded to the political needs. That is, we ought to be pragmatists.” (Sogrin 2001, 107.)
116.
Shafarevich 1992d, 5.
117.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]h, 335.
118.
See, for instance, characterisations by Dunlop, Gessen and Ianov in Ch. 1. This was certainly true concerning the NAS scandal as well. At its height Semen Reznik informed the readers of the eminent Scientist that “With his public activities Shafarevich has put himself beyond the borders of civilized society”, referring, among other things, to his participation in the “Russian National Sobor (‘Gathering’) [i.e., the RuNS] and in the Russian Salvation Front [i.e., National Salvation Front]” to be soon discussed. In Reznik’s rendering “the main goal of these organizations is to ‘save’ Russia from democratic reforms”. (Reznik 1993.) In comparison with the excessively gloomy analyses of this sort by Reznik and some of the “big names” of Russian studies cited elsewhere in this chapter, that of the US-based scholar Andrei Znamenskii [Znamenski] was much fairer: “Taking into account the painful transition of the present day Russia to the market society, we should recognize that much of what [Shafarevich] writes about the unbearable economic situation in the country is true.” (Znamenski 1996, 43.)
119.
Sakwa 1996, 83.
120.
Dunlop 1993, 185.
121.
Billington 1992, 149. See also Muraveva 1991.
122.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 586. Shenfield also calls Baburin a moderate (Shenfield 2000, 44). Baburin, a former dean of the law faculty at Omsk, represented the “Russia” faction in the Congress of People’s Deputies. Before the August putsch it gained fame for its open letter to the Communist Party urging it to reform itself. At the end of 1991 he lost narrowly to Eltsin’s favourite Ruslan Khasbulatov in the elections for the speaker of the Supreme Soviet and “functioned continuously as a leader of various factions and groups of deputies, and became deputy speaker of the Duma in January 1996.” (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 586. See also Baburin 1997, 451–452.)
123.
Baburin 1997 [1991], 76. For general information about the ROS, see Pashentsev 1998, 141–150; Verkhovskii; Pribylovskii & Mikhailovskaia 1999, 34; Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi soiuz; Barygin 1999, 134–135; Lebedev 2003a, 640.
124.
Laqueur 1994a, 261, this was also the encapsulation in Kraevskaia 1991. However, Laqueur mistakenly refers to the ROS as the Russian Liberation Union, apparently assuming it to be an abbreviation for the rather stark coinage Russkii osvobozhditelnyi soiuz (Laqueur 1994a, 261). Sakwa reproduces its name incorrectly as Russkii (correctly: Rossiiskii) obshchenarodnii soiuz (Sakwa 1996, 83). Since organisations with similar names were to mushroom in the coming years, some confusion is pardonable. Nevertheless, these lapses show how hard a time scholars had in finding even elementary reliable information about these organisations – a fact which can be remembered when considering the sweepingly judgemental crystallisations of their agendas often found in their studies. Indeed, alone these mistaken versions of the ROS’s name fail to transmit that its name had as few sectarian hints to it as possible with rossiiskii pointing to multi-national Russia in contrast to russkii referring to ethnic Russians, and with obshchenarodnyi only strengthening this message.
125.
Aksiuchits had been baptised by Father Dimitri Dudko when he was a graduate student in 1979. Involved in various Christian initiatives and since 1988 in Christian political organisations, he had founded Russia’s Christian Democratic Movement (Rossiiskoe khristianskoe demokraticheskoe dvizhenie).
126.
The political biography and choices of Pavlov – a Siberian biologist and Congress deputy of 1989 elected to the Supreme Soviet – coincided with Baburin’s. He was a moderate patriotic democrat and anti–communist.
127.
For documents of the Congress, see Obozrevatel, 2–3 Feb. 1992.
128.
Razh 1992. See also the earlier mentioning of the scandal in Ch. 8 in the discussion about Pamiat.
129.
Steele 1994, 332.
130.
I.e., Shafarevich 1994 [1991]f.
131.
Razh 1992.
132.
Shafarevich 1992e. He would make a similar call later that year, saying that it was senseless to raise questions which divided opposition-minded people when it was time to see beyond them and to unite (Shafarevich 1992a).
133.
Razh 1992.
134.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]a, 398. For the spontaneous nature of the event, see Razh 1992.
135.
Barygin 1999, 125, 129; Lebedev 2003b, 641 and 2003c, 834; Aksiutin et al. 1996, 676–677.
136.
For a description of their power game that had evolved into a system of dual power, see Sogrin 2001, 106–107.
137.
Gordon Hahn recounts in his meticulous study that a videotape provided by the authorities showed the communist hardliner Anpilov inciting the demonstrators “to storm the police cordons”. He also cites reports according to which there were more injured OMON troops than demonstrators – as well as reports attesting to the contrary prepared by the communists. (Hahn 1994, 306, 325.)
138.
Aksiutin et al. 1996, 676; Hahn 1994, 306, 325.
139.
Aksiutin et al. 1996, 676. See also Shafarevich’s direct commentary about 23 February. He interpreted its events, including the media’s defamatory treatment of the day, as the rulers’ encouragement of the people to be ashamed of their country and to thus betray their conscience by scorning the veterans (Shafarevich 1994 [1992]b).
140.
For Shafarevich’s criticism of the way this occasion was covered on TV, see Shafarevich 1994 [1992]g, 376.
141.
Lebedev 2003b, 670; Aksiutin et al. 1996, 676–677; Hahn 1994, 309–310; Verkhovskii & Pribylovskii 1996, 60–63.
142.
For some reference, in a poll, albeit conducted in 1998, in which Russians were asked to choose one of the alternatives to characterise what “the Day of Russia’s Independence” meant to them, the percentage of people with unequivocally indifferent or negative attitudes was the highest (i.e., 87 per cent, of whom 21 per cent chose “Doesn’t mean anything”, 9 per cent chose “An anniversary of a great tragedy for our country”, 38 per cent “I don’t know what day is that” and 19 per cent “An additional day off”. Those choosing “A big feast day” made up only 9 per cent and “Hard to say” 4 per cent). (Doktorov et al. 2002, 53 which also includes other interesting statistics concerning reactions to privatisation. For instance, in 1998 the great majority, 63 per cent, chose the option that privatisation was done “by breaking the laws” [while only 6 per cent chose “according to the laws], and 61 or 64 [two samples] per cent chose the option according to which it had caused “more harm than good”. Ibid., 86.)
143.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]d, 364.
144.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]e, 379–380. On this occasion he had also singled out as factors leading to the present catastrophe “the criminal economy that has gone out of control” and the former party functionaries’ efforts to invent allegedly legitimate means to transform their former privileges into their private property.
145.
In connection with the NAS scandal the anxious community of mathematicians was informed of this article (appearing simultaneously in English in the Moscow News) in The Scientist (Spector 1992c) and The Washington Post (Shepp & Veklerov 1992). On both occasions it was mentioned as a piece of evidence of Shafarevich’s current political activities. The latter article said, “At a nationalist rally in Moscow in June, Mr. Shafarevich was among those who incited the audience with antisemitic and antidemocratic speeches”. For the record, Shafarevich said nothing that concerned the Jews even remotely or nothing that could be characterised as “antidemocratic” by any reasonable standards.
146.
Bychkova 1992. For a similar account in the Russian mainstream press, see Mnatsakanian 1992.
147.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]c, 362.
148.
Indeed, as was seen, (pro-reformist, i.e., the liberal) mainstream press tended to cover these events of the opposition by way of signalling that all decent people were right to look at them as morally and intellectually base and to be terrified by them. Shafarevich had also discussed the contemporary press’s ways of functioning in an earlier piece, Shafarevich 1994 [1990]a, and in 1994 [1991]a, which was dedicated to Russophobia’s reception.
149.
As was seen, ever since Russophobia surfaced several of Shafarevich’s critics have relied on an approach of this dubious kind in their efforts to authenticate Shafarevich’s complete lack of seriousness. See, for instance, Baklanov’s and Paramonov’s dishonourable attempts in Ch. 1 to prove Shafarevich to be physically repulsive or mentally unstable.
150.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]c, 361, see also 1994 [1992]e, 381.
151.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 310.
152.
Ibid., 337, see also 349, 515–516.
153.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]c, 361.
154.
Ibid., 362.
155.
McFaul 2001, 177.
156.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]c, 362, see also 1994 [1992]e, 381.
157.
Horvath 2005, 213.
158.
In Horvath’s rendering: “Amidst the former apparachniks, generals and secret policement who predominated in the opposition ranks, Shafarevich was unique as a visionary and prophet, as a counterweight to balance the democratic icon, Sakharov. […] Some patriotic ideologues clearly regarded Shafarevich as a kind of secret weapon that terrified the Yeltsin regime.” (Ibid.)
159.
I.e., Shafarevich 1994 [1992]i.
160.
Shafarevich’s frequent appearances on TV did not go unnoticed by Shafarevich’s critics in patriotic circles. Glushkova notes sourly that “For some reason, television did not turn its back on Shafarevich during all these years. The big evening at Ostankino as well as periodical appearances before democratic TV hosts were the truthful (and the most accurate) signs of great loyalty towards the author of Russophobia from the side of … the Russophobes.” (Glushkova 1993, 132.) Glushkova’s comment may be juxtaposed with a piece by the Radio Free Europe news service entitled “Disturbing trend in television programming” (i.e., RFE/RL, No. 55, 19 March 1991) which said that on 15 March, i.e., two days before the gathering of the Manezh duma, “Central Television broadcast an unscheduled 105–minute-long interview with Igor Shafarevich, a noted mathematician, whose book, Russophobia, is widely reported to be anti-Semitic.” Incidentally, the author of this piece was Iuliia Vishnevskaia [Julia Wishnevsky], one of the contributors to the tamizdat anthology Democratic Alternatives now working in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Kazintsev, in turn, defended Shafarevich and commented on Glushkova’s accusations by saying: “One would think that it’s wonderful that the patriotic movement has in [Shafarevich’s] person a mouthpiece whose statements even its opponents have to listen to.” (Kazintsev 1993, 161.)
161.
Horvath 2005, 214.
162.
Vronskaia 2005.
163.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]a, 398.
164.
Shafarevich 1992d, 6, see also 1994 [1990]b, 285, 288–289.
165.
Shafarevich 1992d, 6.
166.
Shafarevich 1994 [1989]b, 239–240.
167.
Shafarevich 2002a.
168.
Laqueur 1994a, 265.
169.
Liberal mainstream press also took advantage of this conjunction, taunting Shafarevich for having sold his convictions at home for privileges abroad, see Literaturnaia gazeta, 5 Aug. 1992. There were similar hints in Rakhaeva 1992.
170.
Shafarevich 1992b.
171.
Ibid. On another occasion he said: “The gazette is just simply rather crude.” (Cited in Rakhaeva 1992.)
172.
Shafarevich 1996c. On the other hand, he has said, in 1994 [1991]b, 318, that he would not have joined it any earlier due to the journal’s strong national-bolshevist orientation – similar to that of Molodaia gvardiia at the end of the 1960s. Indeed, in 1989, too, some were angered because Shafarevich was known for his firm anti-communism, see Kuniaev 2001. More on Nash sovremennik, see Cosgrove 2004.
173.
Shafarevich 2002a.
174.
In spite of this, Shafarevich and Sterligov ended up on a collision course when, after Shafarevich’s criticism of the KGB, Sterligov scolded him for failing “to understand that, having joined efforts with the enemies of Russia in a struggle with the organs of state security, you made a contribution to the country’s destruction”. (Cited in Dunlop 1994, 29.) It was also characteristic of Shafarevich’s basic concerns that on an earlier occasion he had criticised Sterligov for needlessly inciting division among the opposition, see PostFactum, 6 Nov. 1992.
175.
Apparently not more than a dozen issues came out before it died down in 1998. For exact bibliographical information, see Rossiiskie natsional-patrioticheskie.
176.
Shafarevich 2002a, see also 2000 [1997]b, 14–15.
177.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]i.
178.
Birman 1992.
179.
Ibid., 406, see also 1991 [1990], 200.
180.
In fact, most of those whom it was typical to sweepingly label as “communists” with whom Shafarevich appeared publicly were communists only with considerable reservations. Sterligov, for instance, certainly was a former KGB general, but his dislike for contemporaneous conscientious communists was even more uncompromising than Shafarevich’s. As to Ziuganov, who headed the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, he was very far removed from the Marxist–Leninists of the old school, being sympathetic both to Russian patriotism and Orthodox Christianity and having often co-operated closely with moderate patriotic democrats. According to Reddaway’s and Glinskii’s characterisation “Zyuganov’s leadership of the CPRF was […] closest in its spirit not to Western communists, but to Western conservatism or, more precisely, to its fundamentalist religious wing, which takes traditionalist and moralistic positions against what it views as the excessive influence of commercial and materialistic values on politics and society.” (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 314.)
181.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]i, 406–407.
182.
Ibid., 407–408, see also 2000 [1994]a; 2001d.
183.
Shafarevich 1994 [1990]b, 286.
184.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]i, 408.
185.
When considering Shafarevich’s biography, it seems likely that he did not so much refer to any specific 10-year period of his own life – after all, he had been struggling intellectually with Marx and Lenin already in his teens – than to such facts that it took a whole decade after Khrushchev’s secret speech before he and his fellow dissidents started to “get organised” on any notable scale and to formulate their political opinions in Samizdat.
186.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]1, 409.
187.
Ibid. On several other occasions Shafarevich noted that Zhirinovskii had been the first to grasp how well a patriot’s image and rhetoric can sell, and that when others had learnt the same ploy, depriving him of this monopoly, his popularity had sunk rapidly (for instance, 1997b; 1998f).
188.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]i, 409.
189.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]a, 403.
190.
Ibid.
191.
Shafarevich 1992b.
192.
Antonov 1992. Antonov was scandalised by Shafarevich’s anti-communism as late as 1999, demanding that he be declared an “enemy of the Russian people”. He illustrated Shafarevich’s dangerousness by characterising him as “the major ideologue” of the non-communist Russian patriotic movement “which usually takes his articles as its programmatic documents”. (Antonov 1999, cited also in Ch. 1. For extremely sour commentaries on Shafarevich, see also Antonov 1998.) Sergei Kara-Murza was another active writer of the opposition camp irked by Shafarevich’s anti-communism (see Kara-Murza 2000, 540–544; 2002a, 167–174; 2002b, 575–580).
193.
Shafarevich 1994 [1992]a, 402–403.
194.
Glushkova 1993, see, in particular, 124–125, 133, 134. Kazintsev mentions an earlier piece by Glushkova in the 6^th issue of Russkii sobor repeating the same accusations which Kazintsev rejects entirely (Kazintsev 1993, 161–163).
195.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 340.
196.
Barygin 1999, 137–138.
197.
McFaul 2001, 126, 135–136, 147.
198.
Ibid., 143.
199.
Sogrin 2001, 112.
200.
Ibid., 114–115. For a discussion about the reasons why no new constitution had yet been ratified, see McFaul 2001, 153–154.
201.
Sogrin 2001, 114.
202.
Shevtsova 1999, 51, 53.
203.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 340.
204.
Sogrin 2001, 114; Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 337.
205.
“Obrashchenie k grazhdanam…”.
206.
On the same day Shafarevich spoke in a press conference criticising the voucher system’s flimsy legal basis (Nasledie, 1 Oct. 1992).
207.
“Politicheskaia deklaratsiia…”.
208.
“Obrashchenie k grazhdanam…”.
209.
This was, in any case, Shafarevich’s incentive for being engaged in the Front, see Linkov 1992a; Shafarevich 2002a.
210.
The Civic Union was a moderate alliance of former Soviet politicians opposed to Eltsin’s line. It had been formed in the summer of 1992 and was led by Arkadii Volskii. (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 338.)
211.
Or more exactly, October.
212.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 345.
213.
For some basic facts about its catastrophic state as a result of the shock therapy, see Sogrin 2001, 113; Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 244, 247–252.
214.
On Eltsin’s lack of interest in reorganising the military, see McFaul 2001, 135.
215.
“Obrashchenie k grazhdanam…”.
216.
Ibid.
217.
Razh 1993; Steele 1994, 325, which characterised Shafarevich as “a Christian mathematician who had been a dissident colleague of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn in the 1970s but later adopted an openly anti-Semitic form of Slavophilia.” Shafarevich’s text appeared in the 10^th issue of Put (the organ of the Russian Christian Democratic Movement) in 1992.
218.
Dunlop 1993, 299.
219.
“Proekt. Ustav Fronta…”. Against the background of the grave allegations by observers like Semen Reznik, it probably ought to be again stated that no documents of the Front (any more than those by the RuNS) said anything about the Jews. Indeed in April, Reznik, from the ivory tower of a “Washington, D.C.-based Russian émigré writer and historian”, was to inform a large and attentive audience of US natural scientists that “The main goal of these organizations [i.e., the RuNS and the Front] is to ‘save’ Russia from democratic reforms, which, they claim, are introduced by Jews, liberal intellectuals, and ‘russophobes’.” (Reznik 1993.)
220.
Dunlop 1993, 299.
221.
Cited in Garifullina 1992. See also Linkov 1992b. Shafarevich, Rasputin, Belov. Some other Front members protested also in writing, see “Dorogie sootechestvenniki!”.
222.
Partinform, 3 Feb. 1993; Lebedev 2003c, 834.
223.
“Proekt. Ustav Fronta…”.
224.
Steele 1994, 333.
225.
Linkov 1992a.
226.
Dunlop characterises it as “‘red-brown’ (i.e., neo-Communist and neo-fascist)” when recounting that “we find [Shafarevich] active as [its] co-founder” (Dunlop 1994, 29) and, on another occasion, as “proto-fascist” (1993, 301), whereby he cites Laqueur’s earlier words (in Foreign Affairs, Winter 1992/1993, 116) to illustrate its spirit: “the ideas of the [Russian] extreme right are not only mad but evil. By creating foes where none exist they deflect the energies of the nation from where they are most needed – coping with the real dangers, the immense work of reconstruction.” In Sakwa’s rendering the Front was “ultra-nationalistic” (Sakwa 1993, 142) but he also aptly characterised it to be “reminiscent of similar bodies established in the Baltic republics at the height of the ‘winter offensive’ against democracy [i.e., by the highest leadership in the Soviet Union] in 1990–91”. (Sakwa 1996, 83.) In contrast, McFaul contents himself to characterising it as a “nationalist coalition” in his even-handed, painstaking and accurate study, McFaul 2001, 177.
227.
McFaul 2001, 186; Shevtsova 1999, 59, 69.
228.
McFaul 2001, 184.
229.
Sogrin 2001, 119.
230.
McFaul 2001, 186.
231.
Shafarevich 1992f.
232.
Partinform, 3 Feb. 1993.
233.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 387–388.
234.
Shevtsova 1999, 69.
235.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 395.
236.
Shafarevich 1993b.
237.
His encapsulation is pre-eminent: “Under a front-page photograph, captioned ‘Knight of Truth,’ Sovetskaya Rossiya praised Shafarevich for ‘doing a lot to make us understand that under conditions of national-state catastrophe there is no place for ideological and political disagreements.’ Nash sovremennik described Shafarevich’s works as ‘landmarks in the national and social self-consciousness of Russia’ and claimed that he had ‘with complete precision predicted the events that became realities at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.’ The most extensive panegyric appeared in Literaturnaya Rossiya[.]” (Horvath 2005, 219. Horvath refers to “Rytsariu Istiny”; “K 70-letiiu…”; Belov 1993. See also “Shafarevich – russkoe soprotivlenie” and Literaturnaia Rossiia of 4 June with the 70-year-old Shafarevich on its cover.) The exuberant tributes made Glushkova note sarcastically that praise of this stature is usually reserved for the deceased (Glushkova 1993, for a similar, very sour commentary see Antonov 1998).
238.
The choice of Pravda was hardly random. Since it was the major organ of the “red flag opposition” and as such furthest from Shafarevich, his choice was a statement for the unity of the opposition.
239.
For Rutskoi’s speech, see Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 402. Later Shafarevich has said that Rutskoi effectively ruined all the credibility he had had with his irresponsible behaviour in October of the same year when the defenders of the Parliament were clashing with the army in the heart of Moscow. Rutskoi had kept appearing in public carrying a gun – something Shafarevich found entirely appalling – and as if just to reinforce the irrational and irresponsible impression, repeating that he will not use it (Shafarevich 2008a).
240.
Shafarevich had emphasised these things already in “V kakom sostoianii…”.
241.
Literally “people of another origin”. Prior to 1917 this was the official and thus, basically neutral coinage denoting the peoples dwelling in the Russian Empire other than the “indigenous” Eastern Slavs – the Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians – such as the Buriats, Jews and Finns. In the 1990s the concept was of course only anachronistic and thus carried propagandistic if not purely racist connotations.
242.
Shafarevich 1993d.
243.
“V kakom sostoianii…”.
244.
Shafarevich 1993d.
245.
For a good detailed account of the events, see McFaul 2001, 191–198.
246.
Lebedev 2003c, 834.
247.
Shafarevich 2008a. On the same occasion he called his own participation in the National Salvation Front a mistake because ultimately the Front had not really managed to do anything to relieve the citizens’ difficult situation during those tumultous and in many ways tragic times.
248.
Shafarevich 2000 [1998]d; 1998b; 1993e.
249.
Shafarevich 2008a.
250.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 429.
251.
Ibid., 431.
252.
PostFactum, 20, 22 and 23 Oct. 1993; Interfaks, 22 and 25 Oct. 1993. Astafev characterised the Constitutional Democrats as “a party of a strong state and enlightened patriotism” (RIA Novosti, 1 Nov. 1993).
253.
Verkhovskii; Pribylovskii & Mikhailovskaia 1998.
254.
PostFactum, 30 Oct. 1993.
255.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 433, see also 430–434 for the shortcomings of the elections.
256.
Shafarevich 1996a.
257.
“Strana na raspute…”.
258.
See, for instance, Shafarevich 1999c; 1997b; 1997c; 1998b; 1999b; 2000b; 2000c; 2000d; 2001d; 2003b; 2003c; 2004h; 2004f; 2004j; 2004k.
259.
Shafarevich 2000 [1999]b. For an earlier summary of its ideas, see “Revoliutsii dliatsia…”, and a later piece with some of the same ideas, 2010b.
260.
Shafarevich 2000 [1997]b; 1997b. For more about his claim about the communists’ inability to be a real opposition force, see “Useknovenie glavy”; Shafarevich 1998d.
261.
Shafarevich 1995a; 2000 [1998]c; 1996d, 235–236. For Shafarevich’s trip, see also Partinform, 29 May 1995; RIA Novosti, 29 May 1995.
262.
Shafarevich 1996a; Levkin 1996. For his commentaries on the difficulties of Russians in Latvia, see also Shafarevich 1996d, 233–234.
263.
ITAR-TASS, 26 Feb. 1993. For Shafarevich’s texts and for information about his activities concerning the Black Sea fleet, Sevastopol and Russia’s relations with the Ukraine, see also Shafarevich 1993c; 1994 [1992]h; 1994a; 1996d, 234; Partinform, 23 June 1993 and 18 June 1997; PostFactum, 13 July and 29 Dec. 1993; Interfaks, 2 and 11 Feb. 1999; Slavianskii mir, 18–22 Jan. 1999.
264.
Shafarevich 1997c.
265.
“My s toboi, Belarus”; Ekho Moskvy, 12 Jan. 1997.
266.
For Shafarevich’s various comments about Serbia and for information about his activities in defence of the Serbs and his opposition to NATO’s bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in connection with the war in Kosovo, see Shafarevich 1996b; 1997b; 1998c; Efir-Digest, 19 Feb. 1993; Interfaks, 11 and 13 Nov. 1995; Diplomaticheskaia panorama, 13 Nov. 1995; Federal News Service, 19 Nov. 1996; Partinform, 3 March and 14 June 1995; RIA Novosti, 13 Nov. 1995; Slavianskii mir, No. 33 (Oct.); Shafarevich 2003l.
267.
Shafarevich 2000 [1998]a; 2000 [1998]b; 2000 [1999]a; 2001e; 2004f; 2004i. See also Partinform, 5 March 1997.
268.
Shafarevich 1996d.
269.
Shafarevich 1994e.
270.
Shafarevich 1995b.
271.
One of the many proponents of this idea is the prolific nationalist writer Oleg Platonov.
272.
As Shafarevich still specified in Shafarevich 2001c, 75–76, the only reason why he raised this question was that because it tempted many contemporaries with its simplicity, he felt that it was important to explicitly refute it. In a somewhat astonishing way Horvath was later to recount that Shafarevich, “the prophet of the emerging ‘red-brown’ alliance of communist conservatives and ultra-nationalists […] would [eventually] trace perestroika to the intrigues of the CIA.” (Horvath 2005, 185.) Then, in Shafarevich 2000 [1999]c, Shafarevich raised the question about the existence or influence of Masons in Russia, a move which was approximately the worst thinkable on his part when considering his terrible reputation, as a “Judeo-Masonic sect theorist” among so many other things. In this rather impressionistic account he estimated the role of the Masons to have been virtually inexistent during other periods in Russian history but assumed them to have played a certain role around the time of the February Revolution, nevertheless. When taking into consideration the fact that in the French Revolution, which Shafarevich had reflected on very thoroughly and far from trivially (see, most notably Shafarevich 2004a), the Masons had had their own role and that Cochin had seen their lodges as one of the several “intellectual circles” in which the ideas of an elitist revolutionary avant-garde were developing before it (as well as the fact that asking a question is not the same thing as answering it affirmatively – and can also be done in the intention of dispelling myths, the CIA question being a case in point), Shafarevich’s choice does not seem as murky or as pathetic as it perhaps would otherwise. In Shafarevich 2009c, 164 he then comments in a very apt way on his having raised the question about the Masons in the February Revolution, not without some irony about the kind of political correctness which strictly prohibits raising this question as “a question which clearly goes too far”. It can also be noted that in Shafarevich 2000 [1994]b he had forcefully rebuffed all sorts of conspiratorial ideas, stressing that human life is greater than any exact plans even if it certainly follows some laws and regularities, and did this in 1998b as well. Against this background it sounds somewhat hollow when Reddaway and Glinskii introduce Shafarevich to their readers as an exemplar of a Russian sect theorist (Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 106).
273.
Shafarevich 1999a, see also 1999b. In both of these texts Shafarevich lamented the recent rise of Stalin’s popularity in society, and stressed that even if during Stalin’s rule people had had relative social security when it came to things like free medicine and education, it would be entirely fallacious to draw from this that Stalin had been thinking of the people’s interests.
274.
See, for example, Shafarevich 2004g.
275.
Shafarevich 1997a. See also Fefelov 1997. It may be noted that Father Aleksandr Men had also called Scorsese’s film tasteless “rubbish”, assuming it to have been made “for commercial purposes” (Otets Aleksandr Men, 154).
276.
Shafarevich 2001f, many of the same ideas are expressed in 2004k.
277.
Shafarevich 2003e, a slightly edited version of the same text is 2003j. Shafarevich’s point that Iran was sorely in need of moral support from outside can perhaps be also considered in the light of the fact that two years later, in 2005, the moderate President Khatami would lose the elections to the hard-handed populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had obviously been able to justify the need for a sharper line with the Western hatred for the country.
278.
Shafarevich 2004a, 10–11.
279.
Ibid., 12.
280.
Shafarevich 1994 [1991]a.
281.
Reddaway & Glinski 2001, 306.

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Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Krista Berglund

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Berglund, K. (2012). The Rapid Political Changes of the Late 1980s and Early 1990s. In: The Vexing Case of Igor Shafarevich, a Russian Political Thinker. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-0215-4_9

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