Vitalii Tret’iakov, The People Have Made Their Choice. April 1, 1989
Original Source: Pravda, 1 April 1989.
The problem of the popularity of politicians and political leadership, which has always existed everywhere, has always been studied everywhere in the civilized world with care and without servility towards those who laid claims to this popularity or leadership. For dozens of years we excluded ourselves from the civilized world on this count as well. Life, however, takes its revenge. The interests of perestroika demand that the phenomenon of Eltsin’s popularity should no longer be ignored.
In the above quote from a Pravda editorial I was surprised by the word “suddenly”. No, it’s not all of a sudden. The situation which existed on March 26-the election day–offers a logical confirmation of the fact that the Eltsin phenomenon has not only been born of perestroika, but is part of it. That is why I would like to find the reasons for his popularity and examine some components of “Eltsin’s image” in the masses’ social awareness.
It stands to reason that this image does not coincide with either the political or everyday reality of Boris Eltsin. It is better for someone else who knows Boris Eltsin well to judge the extent of these discrepancies. The overwhelming majority of electors, whose votes ensured Eltsin’s landslide victory in the elections, do not have a good and intimate knowledge of him either. The electors decided on the basis of the candidates’ image as happens most often in the battle of the hustings. What was in that “image” that generated the most sympathy? In an attempt to answer these questions I shall try-to the extent to which this is possible-to avoid introducing my own evaluation of the “Eltsin image” which has taken shape in mass mentality.
Eltsin’s birth as a political leader, enjoying, according to Pravda, “powerful support from the people”, has been recorded with absolute precision. It was that moment on February 26, 1986, at the 27th CPSU Congress, when he uttered the following words, with the accent on the last phrase: “The untouchability of authorities, the infallibility of leaders, and the ‘dual-track morality’ are intolerable and impermissible in present-day conditions. A system of periodic accountability must at last be worked out at the CPSU Central Committee for leaders at all levels. Delegates may ask me: why didn’t I say this when addressing the 26th Party Congress? Well, I can reply and do it frankly: at that time apparently I still lacked courage and political experience.”
Having said this, Eltsin was one of the first to accept responsibility for the “accomplishments” of the stagnation period, although he was by far not the first among the culprits of these ‘,’accomplishments”. The initial stage of any revolutionary process is a period of searching for answers to the question “Who is to blame?” Whoever found the courage to say “I am to blame” immediately received powerful moral support in the eyes of millions of people eager to hear precisely from “above” the words about personal, and not only collective responsibility for what happened.
Since Eltsin’s example was not followed by the majority of those who needed to do this, in the people’s opinion, he retained moral leadership, specifically in the right to reply to the next question of perestroika: “What is to be done?” And people started listening to his replies, the more so that, in his post as the leader of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, Eltsin passed over more quickly than the others from words about perestroika to real perestroika as he understood it.
First and foremost, he constantly accentuates the problems confronting perestroika, using examples from everyday life which are easily understood by the ordinary person.
Eltsin honestly exposed the ‘techniques” of perestroika, especially in the methods of work with people. The idea of cutting down the Party apparatus was still only being discussed, but he got down to business in Moscow’s City and District Party committees which came under his jurisdiction. While yet another discussion of the food supply problem was going on, the First Secretary of the Moscow City CPSU Committee used his own power and authority to bring about abundance at Moscow’s fairs and collective farm markets. He took perestroika-and he is not alone in this-literally. Glasnost? He speaks about everything. Struggle against red tape? He looks for it at all institutions. The electoral struggle? Eltsin straightforwardly seeks to win support from the people, as did certain other candidates. And he succeeded where others failed.
Lastly, Eltsin constantly serves as a reminder about the slow pace of perestroika, saying that people don’t want results tomorrow, but today, that tomorrow will possibly be too late.
These are some of the methods which, to all appearances, Eltsin tried to use in his actions. At times he succeeded, and he always had the support of those who, during the stagnation years, became fed up with promises instead of actions.
As a result, the majority feels that Eltsin speaks on behalf of at least those who are still powerless to affect developments.
When in 1987 Eltsin, having quit the “upper echelon”, found himself back up there, the crest of his popularity rose so high that his planned exile into the political wasteland did not materialize. This was also corroborated by the March 26 elections, as a result of which Eltsin became a people’s deputy of the USSR. Before this, the impression of Eltsin’s personal unity with the people was daily reinforced in popular opinion both by the deeds of Eltsin himself and by the words and deeds of those who criticize him.
He exists in popular opinion as a normal person and as a man of action. Eltsin was the first to tear from himself the shroud of secrecy which usually veils personal acts by representatives from the “upper crust. The image of a destroyer of secrets always has a great appeal to people. It is also satisfying to confirm what I guessed a long time ago: the shroud of secrecy hides no secrets at all. He delivered many of the insulting meaning imposed by the tradition of secrecy: that the actions of those on top are inaccessible to rank-and-file persons in both meanings of the word “inaccessible”-no access and none of your business. Eltsin made access free and showed that the same human beings sit “at the top”. They are like all the others-they argue, err, make rash steps, get excited and furious, disagree with each other on small and occasionally big things. By so doing, as it seems to people, Eltsin brought big-time politics down from the Olympic heights and put them at the feet of rank-and-file citizens.
Moreover, Eltsin himself tried to come down from these heights to his rank-and-file co-citizens, and risked departing from the bureaucratic traditions: he was the first to go by streetcar, give up rations and sign up at a district polyclinic. Some said that all of this was done as a pose. But so far there are simply no other leaders who would have done the same even as a pose.
He started addressing the broadest audiences not with speeches, but with answers to hundreds of questions-moreover, any questions. He started giving interviews to journalists, telling them not only about his decisions, but also his doubts, failures and the personal threats against him. It is, of course, possible to be ironical. It is possible to assert that after exposing the storerooms of food stores overstuffed with goods, Eltsin did not solve the problem of shortages, but merely created an illusion that the solution was around the corner. But just recall the name of Caliph Harun al-Rashid He is remembered because he studied the real life of rank-and-file people of Baghdad without any suite and in ordinary dress.
In his speeches Eltsin calls for solving not all the problems facing society, but precisely those which have a direct bearing on the ordinary life of ordinary people: food, housing, social justice, and crime, especially in trade. Needless to say, in so doing he does not touch upon the strategic track of perestroika along which the entire load of problems must be pulled without getting stuck in the past of any of them. He owes his strength to his accuracy in hitting the sorest points. And it is this that has a hypnotic effect; it’s the same as Dr. Kasyan, working with the strength of his fingers and hands, who attracts thousands of patients who have lost faith in the miracles of modern medical science.
Moreover, in his numerous statements – especially those made after his departure from the top echelon of the leadership – Eltsin asks people to understand and support him. The feeling that remains after hearing such statements is unusual and gratifying: it is not us, the people, that a leader helps find the right road. It is he who asks us for help in the search for this road.
Thus, people identify with Eltsin. He is a victim of dislike on the part of higher-ups-who of us hasn’t been in the same position? And he is being slighted for refusing to look for their approval-who hasn’t dreamed of doing this? And the main thing-he speaks with everyone, those below and those above, in a similar way and on equal terms, crushing the hierarchical barriers which everyone, especially those below, is fed up with.
The overall impression is that he is not fighting for power for his own sake: he resigned from his post in 1987, and announced his readiness to give up his ministerial post in the event of his being elected a people’s deputy. He is accused of being power-hungry, but everyone is accustomed to believing that the most logical thing to do in this case would be not to resign and not to publicly express his disagreement with colleagues at the top, but something precisely the opposite. True, this is the logic (if common sense. A subtle political strategy, however, can be built on much more intricate tactical maneuvers. This is all quite hypothetical, but the fact remains that we strongly miss people behaving like he does.
Is it really the case or does it only seem that he is not fighting for power for his own sake? One thing is self -evident-Eltsin is fighting for himself, for his honor: he demands political rehabilitation during his lifetime in defiance of tradition. He doesn’t confess his sins, but stands up for himself everywhere. He may have delusions-but his own, not borrowed from someone else.
He is expelled from the highest political circles but, refusing to resign himself to this, comes up again and again to the rostrum, becoming a target for criticism. Glasnost is his assistant, but after all he uses it to the fullest, something which many others do not dare to do.
He proves to be right more often than it may seem. Yesterday he alone said what everyone is discussing now. When the verbatim report of the October 1987 Plenary Meeting of the CPSU Central Committee was published at long last, it became clear that the rumors we heard were false. Readers even ask: “Hasn’t the verbatim report been cut?”
Of course, this may be the “effect of being late” to which political documents are very sensitive . In March 1989 we read what was said in October 1987 The 19th Party Conference shifted a number of accents in the CPSU Central Committee’, activities and introduced changes into the Secretariat’s work, which had been criticized by Eltsin. The September 1988 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee modified the composition of the Politbiuro, which we know today but which we couldn’t have anticipated in 1987.
Ironically, even those who criticize Eltsin never tire of mentioning his positive features and businesslike qualities, and his ability and desire to work. Whatever he is accused of, and whatever he is guilty of, can be said about any Soviet boss-everything down to his difficult character. But then his positive qualities are unusual, they betray a figure which may even be contradictory, but is likeable in a human way even in its errors and delusions.
Relations with the apparatus are a special component of the Eltsin phenomenon. This phenomenon could originate only in the apparatus because so far the apparatus has been a real and stable part of power; people need stability. But the stability and strength of the officialdom irk people and restrict their freedom. Therefore sympathies are given to those who shatter this apparatus. However, any serious shattering of the apparatus is feasible so far only on the part of those who themselves constitute its part and therefore are a real force. The circle closes-the Eltsin phenomenon moves in this circle. I am sure that had Eltsin run for the post of director of some research institute or factory, his success could not be guaranteed. On March 26, 1989, Eltsin was voted in by the overwhelming majority not as a “boss for the people”, but as a “boss for the bosses”. The unanimity in voting for Eltsin was the people’s reply to the apparatus for its arrogant use of power.
A mishap and a lucky one-he falls and rises again. This is Eltsin-personalized glasnost and perestroika with their advances and reverses. For long people have wanted such a leader to make an appearance. And he did appear. People said: if a man like this comes, he will be removed. And he didn’t hold out.
The usual collapse of an ideal. it not only frightens us, but makes us rise to defend it, because faith in the ideal remains.
Of course, an element of idealization is in evidence here. An additional proof of this is the rich campaign folklore from the election period associated with Eltsin. The main thing, however, which attracts people’s sympathy is the fact that he has been doing everything which perestroika and glasnost permit, but which dozens of people above him and millions of others below him have not dared to do. He is a product of perestroika, which is why he is so popular. Each time, he continues whatever Mikhail Gorbachev begins. He continues it, sharpening it to the extreme and boldly throwing it onto the altar of “people’s love” or into the face of those who were not yet prepared even for the delicate formulations of the General Secretary (or who hoped that words would not be followed by deeds)
It is hard for a leader with a real policy to retain the sympathies of everyone, bears golden fruit all at once and for because a real policy never be . ion of a everyone. Of course, Eltsin has the advantageous position of a critic of whatever is being poorly done as a “shadow leader”, result of that real policy. The majority of his admirers engage in the same kind of criticism, lacking-in contrast to Eltsin-just one thing: the possibility of being heard . And they support a person who elevates their thoughts to the level of decision making.
His real value as a politician can come to a head only when he gets real political responsibilities instead of the portfolio of a sector minister. They say that he had one during the period of his Party leadership in Moscow and he couldn’t cope. That may be. But the other less open people must still prove that they cope better. Until they prove this, even Eltsin’s failures will be blamed not on him, but on the command system or on some of his critics. Moreover, if perestroika takes a turn for the worse in comparison with the present-day situation, Eltsin’s popularity will increase. if for the better, it will diminish because the success will then be attributed to other active leaders of perestroika as well.
Eltsin himself, of course, may not even last in political life. But as long as perestroika is alive, his place will not be vacant. It shouldn’t be consigned to the back of the hall. There is a need to understand why many want Eltsin to be their spokesperson in discussing the country’s problems.
Politically this phenomenon arose thanks to the Party, but today it exists thanks to the people-and it’s impossible not to reckon with this. Supporting perestroika as a whole and in it separate parts, people take an extremely critical attitude toward its slow (or seemingly slow) pace. In this Eltsin is at one with the people.
Source: Jonathan Eisen, ed., Glasnost Reader (New York: New American Library, 1990), pp. 425-431.