50 While all were aware of Yeltsin’s dislike of long memos, some found that they could slip in additional information in attachments and illustrative materials. One official took the art to a higher form by throwing in attachments and making references in the body of the note to them. Yeltsin never reprimanded him for this practice. Andrei Kokoshin, interview with the author (June 6, 2000).
51 Baturin et al.,
52 Viktor Chernomyrdin, interview with the author (September 15, 2000).
53 Oleg Poptsov,
54 Boris Yeltsin, first interview with the author (July 15, 2001).
55 Boris Yel’tsin,
56 Oleg Lobov, interview with the author (May 29, 2002).
57 This was made abundantly clear in my interviews with both men. Korzhakov (
58 Morshchakov, fifteen years older than Yeltsin, had been his early protector in Sverdlovsk and the organizer of his duck and elk shoots when he was first secretary (see Chapters 3 and 4). Yeltsin first recruited him to work in the Russian Supreme Soviet while he was its chairman. Petrov and Lobov were somewhat younger than Yeltsin. Ilyushin, sixteen years younger, was from Nizhnii Tagil (like Petrov) and had been first secretary of the Sverdlovsk Komsomol and a member of the bureau of the obkom. Lobov was deputy or first deputy premier for four stints (in 1991, 1993, 1996, and 1996–97) and secretary of the Security Council from 1993 to 1996. Another prominent Sverdlovsker was Yevgenii Bychkov, the chairman of the state committee for precious metals and jewels until 1996, but he was appointed to this position by Gorbachev in 1985. One of his deputies after 1991 was Yurii Kornilov, the former chief of the Sverdlovsk KGB.
59 Pikhoya was still in the UPI social sciences department when she joined Yeltsin. Burbulis was affiliated with the institute from 1974 to 1983. Three other UPI faculty members came to Moscow at the same time as Pikhoya.
60 Lyudmila Pikhoya, interview with the author (September 26, 2001).
61 Fëdorov interview.
62 Yeltsin in his memoirs (
63 Gennadii Burbulis, third interview, conducted by Yevgeniya Al’bats (August 31, 2001). The State Council replaced a Political Consultative Council Burbulis set up for Yeltsin as head of the Russian parliament in 1990. Besides informing Yeltsin, this earlier body was designed to help him outbid Gorbachev for the affections of the Moscow intelligentsia.
64 The cabinet ministers were Eduard Dneprov (minister of education), Nikolai Fëdorov (justice), Andrei Kozyrev (foreign affairs), Valerii Makharadze (deputy premier), and Aleksandr Shokhin (deputy premier and labor minister). Shakhrai retained the title of state counselor when he became a deputy premier in December 1991.
65 “The creators of the new structure . . . are inspired by the idea of ‘the constructive state,’ which they juxtapose to ‘the corrupting state’ based on apparatus ‘moves,’ ‘corridor pragmatism,’ and the system of personal connections and mutual favors. To all appearances, the leaders of the State Council see the source of this evil in the old apparatus of the Russian Council of Ministers.” Burbulis antagonized others by trying to get a clause in the State Council’s charter giving it the right to review all draft presidential decrees. Mikhail Leont’ev, “Rossiya bez pravitel’stva” (Russia without a government),
66 Sergei Stankevich, interview with the author (May 29, 2001). The same point was emphasized by Sergei Shakhrai, second interview with the author (January 24, 2001).
67 Yel’tsin,
68 Stankevich was to be accused of corruption for an incident in 1993. He fled the country in 1995 and returned in 1999 after the charges were dropped. A group of ten or eleven presidential advisers, most of them unpaid, remained on the roster until the end of 1993. They had very little say collectively or individually. Yeltsin retained a few individuals with that rank in later years.
