Word: mikhail
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years, as they watched Mikhail Gorbachev bull his way through history, remaking his country, his era and himself, Soviets and Westerners alike wondered whether there was anything he couldn't do. Wasn't there some innovation so radical, or some capitulation so abject, that he simply couldn't get away with it? Like scientists pondering the limits of an anomalous but potent force of nature, Kremlinologists speculated about the existence of a "red line" that Gorbachev could not cross without reaping the whirlwind...
...first Gorbachev and the reactionaries tried to co-opt each other. One of Gorbachev's aides, fluent in the earthy idiom of American politics, paraphrases a favorite line of Lyndon Johnson's: "Mikhail Sergeyevich felt it was better to have the camels inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. He wanted to keep them where he could see them and where they would have to take his orders. He also wanted to use them to put pressure on the Balts." That arrangement was fine with the reactionaries, since they had considerable latitude in how to interpret...
Throughout Soviet history, Kremlin leaders have taken special care to prevent the army from interfering in the nation's internal politics. Yet the new order being established by Mikhail Gorbachev was not the kind that soldiers were accustomed to living with. Pulled out of Afghanistan, shown the door in Eastern Europe, beset by shrinking defense outlays, low pay and ethnic tensions, the army smarted under the changes sweeping the U.S.S.R. For the plotters of the coup, such discontent seemed to make the military a logical -- if reluctant -- ally. Its armed might made it an essential...
...army's trauma is not over. Yazov was arrested and faces trial. His protege, former Chief of the General Staff Mikhail Moiseyev, 52, played a role ambiguous enough to let Gorbachev name him acting Defense Minister shortly after the coup's collapse. That decision alarmed those who expected the reinstated President to clean house. Under pressure from Yeltsin, Gorbachev replaced Moiseyev one day later with an unambiguous reformer: Colonel General Yevgeni Shaposhnikov, 49, the commander of the air force who had refused to support the coup...
...page letter from Boris Yeltsin reached him as he flew from Maine to Washington aboard Air Force One. Bravely resisting the coup against long odds, Yeltsin implored Bush to bring "the attention of the world and the United Nations" to bear on Moscow and "demand the restoration" of President Mikhail Gorbachev. Yeltsin added what for Bush are magic words, asking for "operational contacts." Translation: "Give me a call...