The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

by Serhii Plokhy

By August 28, a mere two days after Yeltsin and the new Russian deputies had reduced Gorbachev to submission and all but taken over the Union center, the victors found themselves in great difficulty. Kravchuk and Nazarbayev, who were supposed to have been reminded of their place in the Union hierarchy, were evidently refusing to fall into line. It was becoming clear that the non-Russian republics were not just pawns in a chess game between the Russian president and his Soviet counterpart. They had agendas of their own, and their combined forces were too strong to be kept in check by two main players at odds with each other. The formerly united Russian forces were now in disarray. Some of Yeltsin’s advisers wanted to take the place of the Union center in negotiations with the republics; others suggested strengthening the unequal Yeltsin-Gorbachev alliance. There were also those who saw no sense in fighting for a Union that would leave out Ukraine and Belarus but include the “undemocratic” Central Asian republics. And, finally, there were those outside Yeltsin’s immediate circle who welcomed the fall of the empire and called for the dissolution of the USSR, no matter what the consequences.