29 Viktor Sheinis, Vzlët i padeniye parlamenta: perelomnyye gody v rossiiskoi politike, 1985–1993 (The rise and fall of parliament: years of change in Russian politics, 1985–93) (Moscow: Moskovskii Tsentr Karnegi, Fond INDEM, 2005), 357.
30 Naina Yeltsina, personal communication to the author (July 29, 2007).
31 Anatolii Chernyayev, 1991 god: dnevnik pomoshchnika Prezidenta SSSR (The year 1991: diary of an assistant to the president of the USSR) (Moscow: TERRA, 1997), 37.
32 Politburo transcript, May 3, 1990 (Volkogonov Archive), 516, 533.
33 Pervyi s”ezd narodnykh deputatov SSSR, 25 maya–9 iyunya 1989 g.: stenograficheskii otchët (The first congress of people’s deputies of the USSR, May 25–June 9, 1989: stenographic record), 6 vols. (Moscow: Izdaniye Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1989), 2:48.
34 Hough, Democratization and Revolution, 385. On this general issue, see also Edward W. Walker, Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
35 Most accounts leave out this last detail. The congress in fact rejected an amendment that would have had the declaration of primacy click in immediately. Gwendolyn Elizabeth Stewart, “SIC TRANSIT: Democratization, Suverenizatsiia, and Boris Yeltsin in the Breakup of the Soviet Union” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1995), 272–73. Once the provision was in effect, though, it was reminiscent of the theory of nullification put forth to defend states’ rights in the United States by John C. Calhoun in the 1820s and 1830s.
36 Boris Yeltsin, first interview with the author (July 15, 2001).
37 Ivan Silayev, interview with the author (January 25, 2001). Agreements were reached with Lithuania in the Baltic and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, but the general arrangement stayed put.
38 Bill Keller, “Boris Yeltsin Taking Power,” New York Times, September 23, 1990.
39 “Trusy Yel’tsina” (Yeltsin’s trunks), http://www.channel4.ru/content/200205/10/112.trus.html.
40 A. L. Litvin, Yel’tsiny v Kazani (The Yeltsins in Kazan) (Kazan: Aibat, 2004), 70–71; Loginov, Soyuz mozhno bylo sokhranit’, 165–66.
41 “Yeltsin Continues Russian Tour to Bashkir ASSR,” FBIS-SOV-90-156 (August 13, 1990), 82.
42 Dobrokhotov, Gorbachev–Yel’tsin, 198.
43 Ibid., 194.
44 Shakhnazarov, S vozhdyami i bez nikh, 373; Aleksandr Yakovlev, first interview with the author (June 9, 2000). Yakovlev said that with him Gorbachev was at first somewhat receptive to the vice-presidential initiative, but went solidly against it after discussion with Politburo members.
45 Boris Yeltsin, second interview with the author (February 9, 2002).
46 At the Politburo meeting hours after Yeltsin attacked Gorbachev, the Kremlin chief of staff, Valerii Boldin, said it was time “to part with illusions with relation to Yeltsin. . . . He will never work together with us. He is a not entirely healthy person and sees himself only in confrontation.” Prime Minister Ryzhkov concurred, saying Yeltsin was only interested in power and would not rest until he had Gorbachev’s job. V Politbyuro TsK KPSS . . . (In the Politburo of the CPSU) (Moscow: Gorbachev-Fond, 2006), 618–19.
47 Yelena Bonner, interview with the author (March 13, 2001). Yeltsin made the comment as Bonner stood with him on the balcony of the Russian White House, at the conclusion of the putsch of August 1991. She had told him several months before that Gorbachev had made him look foolish over the Five Hundred Days plan.
48 Vyacheslav Chornovil, “Yel’tsin vnis duzhe konstruktyvnyi moment u politychnu real’nist’ v Ukraini” (Yeltsin injected a very constructive note into Ukrainian political reality), Za vil’nu Ukrainu (Ukrainian-language newspaper, L’viv), November 23, 1990; reference supplied by Roman Szporluk. Despite the implicit recognition of the border, Chornovil did say Yeltsin’s attitude toward the Crimea issue gave him some concern.
49 Chernyayev, 1991 god, 76.
50 Karen Brutents, Nesbyvsheyesya: neravnodushnyye zametki o perestroike (It never came true: engaged notes about perestroika) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, 2005), 108.
51 Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire (New York: Random House, 1995), 488.
