Gorbachev’s Peaceful Revolution from Above

Gorbachev did not anticipate how far he would have to go to lead the communist party and his country out of the “era of stagnation” he inherited from Brezhnev. But as he started to implement policies, the obstacles became clearer and he responded with radicalization. This led to democratization of political authority relationships through increasingly free elections. Ultimately, the system collapsed as social polarization intensified and Boris Yeltsin outflanked Gorbachev to discredit the latter’s effort to create a “democratic socialism.”

Epilogue

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the first post-socialist government under Boris Yeltsin supported programs to promote contraception and sexual education. As Russia transitioned to a market economy, foreign contraceptive devices as well as high-quality household appliances became available to those who could afford them. Post-socialist liberal politicians and family planning advocates attempted to reform the USSR’s long-time reliance on abortion for fertility control. They pushed for disseminating sex education and distributing modern contraception. However, this changed when Vladimir Putin became president. Putin identified shrinking population as a national crisis, and worked with the Orthodox Church, to introduce measures to promote motherhood and restrict abortion. Although Putin’s pronatalist policy sometimes stresses the importance of responsible fatherhood, many parallels can be drawn to Soviet pronatalism.

«I am convinced that we will not get into the Civil War...». Boris Yeltsin’s meeting with deputies of the Leningrad City Council, March 22, 1991

The publication is dedicated to staying Boris Yeltsin in Leningrad, March 22, 1991, and his meeting with the deputies of the Leningrad City Council XXI convocation. A transcript of Boris Yeltsin’s speech to the Leningrad parliamentarians in the Mariinsky Palace is being introduced into scientific circulation. The publication of the document was carried out according to the modern rules of archeography. The authors of most of the questions asked to Yeltsin have been identified, and reference information on their persons has been provided. The content of the meeting in the Leningrad City Council reflects the severity of the internal political crisis in the USSR on the eve of its collapse, when the rivalry between the main political leaders of the country: the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev and the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR B. N. Yeltsin became especially acute. The materials of the publication are of interest to specialists in the socio-political history of Russia at the end of the twentieth century.

Accounting and Control as Mechanisms for Solving Economic Problems as Viewed by Russian Citizens of the Perestroika Era (Based on the Analysis of Letters to the Authorities)

This article deals with the public attitude toward the economic reforms of 1989–1990, specifically, the citizens’ suggestions on how to improve the country’s economy. The author analyses previously unpublished letters written by Russian citizens and addressed to the country’s leaders (Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev) or sent to Soviet newspapers. To investigate people’s mental attitudes, the article focuses not only on social polling, but also on emotions, feelings, and thoughts shared by the letterwriters. The author of this article maintains that many citizens feared that the country would be swept away by the avalanche of capitalism and were prejudiced against perestroika-induced innovations. Habitual mental attitudes were undermined by the cooperative movement and private entrepreneurship. Various unrealistic and paradoxical suggestions were not infrequently made by the letter-writers who knew very little, if anything, about market economy. The majority of people suggested that command economy with its bureaucratic flavour should be improved. The analysis shows that Russian citizens’ mental attitudes were predominantly shaped by the notion of a bipolar world, as well as by Vladimir Lenin’s teaching about the socialist state and its role in the accounting and control over the Soviet state. The letters demonstrate that Russian citizens hoped to upgrade the Soviet economy through improvements introduced into the system of accounting and control, through harsher regulatory measures imposed on the economic system, as well as through rationing and strictly supervised distribution of goods. Many people believed that socialism was inviolable and that the Soviet economy could be improved by means of administrative reforms.

Documentary Publications on the History of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War on the Website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library

The article analyses publication of a large set of historical and archival documents on the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War on the website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. Since 2009 it functions as the national electronic repository of digital copies of the most important documents on the history of Russian statehood and Russian language, as well as multimedia, multifunctional, cultural, scientific, educational and information-analytical centre with the status of the national library of Russia. In the “Collections” section, the libraryʼs website places online publications of various forms and subjects. The author considers the methods of publishing digitized copies of archival documents. Within the frames of the first part of the Internet project “The Second World War in archival documents (set of digitized archival documents, footage and photo materials)” there are published 1767 electronic copies of documents, then promised to continue. There is placed the full list of published documents, it provides the ability to sort them, search by date and place of storage. Virtual multimedia exhibition “The Great Patriotic War, which determined the outcome of the Second World War. For the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—1945” presents more than 500 official documents, documentary photographs, periodical materials and leaflets. The authors of the exhibition apparently consider the online publication “Combat actions of the air defence forces of the navy in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—1945” as a kind of rare publication, therefore they decided to publish the facsimile reproduction of it. The article concludes on the great significance of the project “The Second World War in archival documents (set of digitized archival documents, footage and photo materials)” that placed a large set of documents from Federal and departmental archives, many of which were first declassified. The author reveals shortcomings of Internet publications of archival documents in the field of placement methods related to inaccurate determination of their readership.

The Concept of Russian Federation Foreign and Security Policy by Eugene Primakov

The aim of this article is to analyze the concept of Russian foreign and security policy by Eugene Primakov, one of the most eminent Russian politicians of the twentieth century. The article applies research methods and techniques appropriate to science about politics. These include a comparative analysis and a method of historical analysis that enabled the presentation of political events and factors shaping the foreign and security policy of the Russian Federation. In 1996, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Primakov to the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The goals and assumptions of foreign and security policy have undergone a thorough redefinition, related to the tendencies noticeable in Russia in 1993–1995. Before, foreign policy had been dominated by neoliberal and Euro-Atlantic options, whose representative was predominantly Primakov’s predecessor as the minister of foreign affairs, Andrei Kozyrev. After the fall of Sergei Kirijenka’s government, Primakov assumed the office of Prime Minister on September 11, 1998 and held it until May 12, 1999. It was a cabinet of political compromise, which was supposed to facilitate agreement with the opposition and the continuation of reforms, although not on the same principles as before. Primakov criticized his predecessors for the wrong political line, the lack of effectiveness of the stabilization policy, which resulted in a fall in production. He stressed that his government did not give up market reform, but called for the state’s participation to be increased. Yevgeny Primakov claimed that Russia should strive to formulate a multipolar system of international relations that truly reflects the multifaceted nature of the present world with the diversity of its interests. Primakov exerted a huge influence on the Russian foreign and security policy of Putin’s day. His political line was carried out by his successors, and above all Igor Ivanov and Sergey Lavrov. The main directions and assumptions of his concepts are still repeated in official documents articulating the Russian doctrine of security and defense, and nothing indicates that this state of affairs has changed, and this in turn carries the threat of destabilization in Central and Eastern Europe.

Improvising urban spaces, inhabiting the in-between

This paper discusses improvisation as a liminal practice of inhabiting the in-between that marks urban spaces from squats and brownfields to communal gardens, from infrastructural maintenance and urban living labs to political protest and solidarity in times of crisis. It shows how improvisation emerges in the interstices between uncertain flux and ossified rigidities to construct in-between spaces of ambiguous political openings even in ostensibly formal, rigid contexts. To that end, it draws on documents, media reports, interviews and participant observation to analyse the multiple mutations of what eventually became the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre in Ekaterinburg, a cultural flagship in Russia’s third largest city. Morphed from an abandoned office block into a memorial multi-purpose complex, the Yeltsin Centre is the product of elites and ordinary people responding to conjunctural openings in seemingly inert structures. While highlighting the political openings made possible by improvisation inhabiting the in-between, the paper also underscores the ambiguous nature of this practice and its limits.