Vodka Politics (102 page)

55
. Ibid..

56
. Personal correspondence, Aug. 19, 2011.

Chapter 19

1
. Lilia Shevtsova,
Russia—Lost in Transition: The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007), 1, 5; Peter Kenez,
A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End
, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 284–85, 293.

2
. Mikhail Gorbachev,
Memoirs
(New York: Doubleday, 1995), 632; Jonathan Steele, “Gennady Yanayev Obituary,”
The Gaurdian
, Sept. 26, 2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/26/gennady-yanayev-obituary-communist-gorbachev
(accessed Oct. 11, 2011); Jerrold M. Post and Robert S. Robins,
When Illness Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 74; Dmitrii Yazov, “Interrogation of Defense Minister Dmitrii Yazov on August 22, 1991,” in
Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup
, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell, Ann Cooper, and Gregory Freidin (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 58–59.

3
. Yazov, “Interrogation of Defense Minister Dmitrii Yazov on August 22, 1991,” 62; Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 632; Nikolai Vorontsov, “Between Russia and the Soviet Union—With Notes on the USSR Council of Ministers Meeting of August 19, 1991,” in
Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup
, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell, Ann Cooper, and Gregory Freidin (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 194. For Pavlov’s account see Valentin Pavlov, “Interrogation of Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, August 30, 1991,” in
Russia at the Barricades
, 64–65.

4
. Jonathan Aitken,
Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan
(New York: Continuum, 2009), 94–95; Aleksandr Korzhakov,
Boris El’tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata
(Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 80–82.

5
. Aitken,
Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan
, 97–98.

6
. Aleksandr Lebedd’,
Zaderzhavuobidno
… (Krasnoyarsk: Chest’ i Rodina, 2004), 415. Curiously, this paragraph is completely omitted from the English translation: Alexander Lebed,
My Life and My Country
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1997), 293. See also Conor O’Clery,
Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), 144;
Daniel Treisman,
The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 35–36.

7
. William E. Odom,
The Collapse of the Soviet Military
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 358.

8
. Donald J. Raleigh, “A View from Saratov,” in
Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup
, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell, Ann Cooper, and Gregory Freidin (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 136–37. On the general sobriety of the resistance see: Lauren G. Leighton, “Moscow: The Morning of August 21, 107, and Iain Elliot, “Three Days in August: On-the-Spot Impressions,” 291, both in
Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup
, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell, Ann Cooper, and Gregory Freidin (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994). On the press conference see “The Press Conference of the State Committee for the State of Emergency, August 19, 1991,” in
Russia at the Barricades
, 49–50.

9
. Peter Vincent Pry,
War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1999), 79–80; Post and Robins,
When Illness Strikes
, 74.

10
. Yazov, “Interrogation,” 61.

11
. David Remnick,
Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia
(New York: Random House, 1997), 27.

12
. Ibid., 3–4.

13
. Leon Aron,
Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life
(New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 7–8; Timothy J. Colton,
Yeltsin: A Life
(New York: Basic Books, 2008), 35, 551 n. 69.

14
. Aron,
Yeltsin
, 112–13.

15
. Viktor Manyukhin,
Pryzhok nazad: O El’tsine i o drugikh
(Ekaterinburg: Pakrus, 2002), 177.

16
. Colton,
Yeltsin
, 88–89.

17
. Ibid., 117–18.

18
. Dimitri K. Simes,
After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as a Great Power
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 51.

19
. Ibid., 51–52.

20
. Colton,
Yeltsin
, 310.

21
. Ibid., 310–13. Yuri M. Baturin et al.,
Epokha El’tsina: Ocherki politicheskoi istorii
(Moscow: Vagrius, 2001), 515; Aleksandr Nikishin,
Vodka i Gorbachev
(Moscow Vsya Rossiya, 2007), 235; Remnick,
Resurrection
, 277, 328.

22
. See
chapter 21
, Aleksandr Nemtsov, “Tendentsii potrebleniya alkogolya i obuslovlennye alkogolem poteri zdorov’ya i zhizni v Rossii v 1946–1996 gg.,” in
Alkogol‘ i zdorov’e naseleniya Rossii: 1900–2000
, ed. Andrei K. Demin (Moscow: Rossiiskaya assotsiatsiya obshchestvennogo zdorov’ya, 1998), 101–5.

23
. Celestine Bohlen, “Yeltsin Deputy Calls Reforms ‘Economic Genocide’,”
New York Times
, Feb. 9, 1992,
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/09/world/yeltsin-deputy-calls-reforms-economic-genocide.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
(accessed Oct. 21, 2011).

24
. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 52–53. See also Stephen White,
Understanding Russian Politics
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 107.

25
. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 49, 58–59; also 244.

26
. Colton,
Yeltsin
, 311.

27
. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 58–59.

28
. Donald Murray,
A Democracy of Despots
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996), 177. That tea was meant as a signal that he was not drunk was made explicit by CNN and the international press. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioXt3RT5ueA
(accessed Feb. 17, 2009).

29
. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 64.

30
. Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski,
The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy
(Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001), 426.

31
. Korzhakov,
Boris El’tsin
, 195–98. For a counterpoint see Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier,
From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 76–77.

32
. Baturin et al.,
Epokha El’tsina
, 515.

33
. Colton,
Yeltsin
, 311; Korzhakov,
Boris El’tsin
, 217–18.

34
. Baturin et al.,
Epokha El’tsina
, 521.

35
. Ibid., 522–24.

36
. Strobe Talbott,
The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy
(New York: Random House, 2002), 46.

37
. Ibid., 45–47; Colton,
Yeltsin
, 310.

38
. George Stephanopoulos,
All Too Human: A Political Education
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2000), 139–40; Colton,
Yeltsin
, 310–11.

39
. Simes,
After the Collapse
, 104.

40
. James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul,
Power and Purpose: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Russia after the Cold War
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 141; Talbott,
Russia Hand
, 89, 185. Thomas Friedman went further, opining in the April 16, 1999, edition of the
New York Times
that “even a half-dead, stone-cold-drunk Boris Yeltsin is still an enormous asset for the U.S.” See Boris Kagarlitsky,
Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: Neo-Liberal Autocracy
(New York: Pluto, 2002), 226.

41
. Taylor Branch,
The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 198. Branch mistakenly attributed the year of the visit to 1995, an error the Russian press has used to discredit the entire account. “Bill Clinton and His Tapes: Lies, Lies, Lies,”
Pravda
, Oct. 2 2009,
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/02–10-2009/109635-bill_clinton-0
(accessed Nov. 11, 2011). Clinton advisor Strobe Talbott confirmed a slightly different take of the pizza event but dated it more precisely at September 26–27, 1994. Talbott,
Russia Hand
, 135.

42
. Nikolai Kozyrev, “The President Failed to Show…”
International Affairs
53, no. 4 (2007): 169. Ambassador Kozyrev is no relation to Andrei Kozyrev, then Yeltsin’s minister of foreign affairs.

43
. Ibid.: 170–71.

44
. Ibid.: 169–71; Korzhakov,
Boris El’tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata
, 204–5; Mark Franchetti, “The Sober Truth behind Boris Yeltsin’s Drinking Problem,”
Sunday Times
March 7, 2010,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7052415.ece
(accessed March 8, 2010); Colton,
Yeltsin
, 315, 552–53 n. 93; Aron,
Yeltsin
, 578. See also “Reynolds Tells of Yeltsin’s Favours after Shannon Snub,” Breakingnews.ie, April 23, 2007,
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/reynolds-tells-of-yeltsins-favours-after-shannon-snub-307635.html
(accessed Nov. 11, 2011); Remnick,
Resurrection
, 250; also 328, 33–34.

45
.
Lipetskaya gazeta
, March 2, 1995, 2; quoted in White,
Understanding Russian Politics
, 108. On media reception see Kozyrev, “President Failed to Show…,” 171.

46
. Anatol Lieven,
Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 86.

47
. Georgie Anne Geyer,
Predicting the Unthinkable, Anticipating the Impossible: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to America in the New Century
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2011), 230–31.

48
. Andrew Higgins, “Grozny Rebels Braced for Final Assault,”
The Independent
, Jan. 13, 1995; Charles King,
The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 235; O’Clery,
Moscow, December 25, 1991
, 282–83.

49
. Emma Gilligan,
Terror in Chechnya: Russia and the Tragedy of Civilians in War
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), esp. 26–27.

50
. Lieven,
Chechnya
, 50.

51
. O. P. Orlov and Aleksandr Cherkasov,
Rossiya—Chechnya: Tsep’ oshibok i prestuplenii
(Moscow: Zven’ia, 1998); an English translation was published as “Russia and Chechnya: A Chain of Errors and Crimes,”
Russian Studies in History
41, no. 2 (2002): 88–89. The commander was apparently incorrect—marine depth charges were not used; instead, concrete-piercing, high-explosive bombs that had the same effect. See also Iu. Kazakov, “Voina zakonchilas’, no mir re nastupil,”
Nezavisimaya gazeta
, June 25, 1997. Similarly, regarding the Second Chechen War, see Amelia Gentleman, “82 Civilians Feared Dead in Chechen Massacre,”
The Guardian
, Feb. 22, 2000,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/feb/23/chechnya.ameliagentleman
(accessed Dec. 20, 2011). On alcohol and barter see Pavel Baev, “Enforcing ‘Military Solutions’ in the North Caucasus: Accumulated Experiences in Conflict (Mis)Management,” in
Russian Power Structures: Present and Future Roles in Russian Politics
, ed. Jan Leijonhielm and Fredrik Westerlund (Stockholm: FOI, Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2007), 50.

52
. Lieven,
Chechnya
, 17–18, 49–50, 286.

53
. Henry E. Hale,
Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism and the State
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 68; Vladimir Petrovich Kartsev and Todd Bludeau,
!Zhirinovsky! An Insider’s Account of Yeltsin’s Chief Rival & ‘Bespredel
’ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 81; Kevin Fedarko, “A Farce to Be Reckoned With,”
Time
, Dec. 27, 1993.

54
. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 305–6; Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way,
Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 194; Colton,
Yeltsin
, 315.

55
. Michael McFaul,
Russia’s 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1997), 23–24. Remnick,
Resurrection
, 102, 334.