1. To search for a short-term variable capable of explaining movement toward and away from democracy in Russia, the first requirement is a periodization of the movement
    1. Any potential cause must precede the effects it explains
    2. If it is unknown when the effect occurred, whether a development preceded the effect cannot be known
  2. Periodization of Russian movement toward and away from democracy
    1. Periods are to be identified according to the meaning of dictatorship and democracy
      1. Dictatorship or monarchy means that only a few of those subject to the authority of the rulers are able to take sides
      2. Democracy means that the collective project is inclusive: everybody is entitled to take sides in the contest for leadership, normally by voting
    2. In the table I start arbitrarily with the approval by the Central Committee of Leonid Brezhnev as its First Secretary, renamed General Secretary in 1964
      1. This was of course the latest event in a series of choices of Russian and then Soviet leaders by tiny proportions of the population
        1. Beginning in the ninth century a Russian state formed in the area around Kiyv, now capital of Ukraine
        2. This state was a monarchy ruled by a kniaz' accepted as such by a veche or council consisting of the heads of powerful families
          1. Kniaz' is ordinarily translated "prince" or sometimes "duke"
          2. but note the similarity to English "king"
        3. This state was overrun and destroyed by Mongols during the years 1237-1240, and Russians endured foreign rule until around 1480
          1. However, it should be noted that the Mongols ruled through local kniazi tasked with collecting taxes to support the Mongol empire
          2. Russians were ruled directly by princes or kniazi of Russian ancestry
        4. Under the leadership of the Moscow kniaz', local Russian rulers freed themselves of their taxpaying obligations to the weakened Mongol empire
        5. In 1547, at the end of a protracted civil war among powerful families, the Moscow kniaz' Ivan accepted the new title tsar', or "caesar," approved by a Zemskii Sobor, or "gathering of the land"
          1. Members of this gathering of the land were "chosen" from all ranks of the people
          2. Yet there was no assumption that Russians were somehow equal in their right to choose
          3. Ivan and later Tsars ruled in consultation with a Boyar Duma, a council of heads of the most powerful families
          4. This Ivan is the one known to Russians as Groznyi, translated into English as "the Terrible" but meaning more "Awesome"
          5. He launched an attack on the boyars and put a number to death during a period called the oprichnina
        6. After 1700 the tsar' Peter took the title of Imperator, or Emperor, and again attacked the Boyars, forcing them to shave and replacing them with a new aristocracy often of humble birth
        7. Rule by an Imperator through a nobility of appointees to state office lasted until 1917, when peasant uprisings could not be suppressed by an army weakened by defeat in the wars against the Germans
        8. Taking advantage of popularity among industrial workers numbering no more than 3 percent of the population, a minor noble named Vladimir Ulyanov, who took the pseudonym Lenin, gained control of the largest cities where industry was concentrated
        9. Having won a civil war against the former nobles by conscripting peasants, Lenin and his colleagues in a new Politburo established the Soviet Union
        10. One of them, Iosif Stalin, triumphed in a ruthless struggle to gain the adherence of the Central Committee
      2. Accordingly, Brezhnev's approval by the Central Committee was merely the latest in a millennium of choices of national leaders by small numbers of ranking officials
    3. Brezhnev dies in November 1982
      1. He is succeed by Yuri V. Andropov, who suffers from diabetes and lasts barely more than a year
      2. Andropov is succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko in February 1983, who suffers from emphysema and lasts barely more than a year
      3. Chernenko is succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev, who is 59 years old and healthy
      4. All three are chosen in exactly the same manner as Brezhnev
      5. The state remains an authoritarian dictatorship
    4. Gorbachev announces two new policies: perestroika and glasnost'
      1. Perestroika is usually translated "restructuring"
        1. it's usually also pointed out that in ordinary Russian conversation, it usually refers to a cosmetic repair of an apartment, such as repainting or improving the plumbing
        2. This is intended to convey the notion that Gorbachev's choice of this word meant no great change and a desire to preserve of the existing authoritarian system
        3. But among communists perestroika referred to Stalin's abolition of all private property
        4. A perestroika was an economic reorganization that, among people who asserted that economics was the basis of all social organization, conveyed a thorough transformation of the system as far reaching as Stalin's in the 30s
      2. Glasnost' was another standard communist term
        1. It's usually translated "openness"
        2. But it means the abstract quality of being voiced
          1. Russian golos means voice or vote
          2. "Glas" is the Church Slavic form of golos, meaning an abstract quality in the same way that English speakers use Church Latin forms to express abstractions
          3. "Abstract voiced-ness" meant that the communists would reveal more information about their conduct of rule
        3. Under Gorbachev's predecessors the habit had arisen of concealing even the most routine information
          1. If a plane crashed, the crash was never announced
            1. If you were waiting for a relative or friend at the airport, they would mysteriously fail to appear
            2. If you were a close relative, you would later receive a death notice without explanation of how the death ahd occurred
            3. No announcement of the crash would ever be made
            4. Instead the newspapers would print a true story describing a recent crash in the United States or another Western country
          2. For another example the defense budget was unpublished
            1. When Andropov added economic policy to Gorbachev's responsibilities in the Politburo, Gorbachev asked to see the defense budget
            2. Andropov summoned him and told him to keep his nose out of matters that didn't concern him
        4. When an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl scattered radioactive particles all over the surrounding area, the Politburo tried to keep it secret, despite the announced policy of glasnost'
        5. The spread of the particles to Sweden enabled Western broadcasts to spread information about the disaster in Russia, enabling Gorbachev to force the Politburo to authorize a Soviet announcement
        6. After that glasnost' began to take hold
        7. It was however still far short of freedom of speech
    5. Gorbachev and his allies in the Politburo used glasnost' to reveal the corruption practiced by Brezhnev's appointees who were still holding on in the Politburo and Central Committee
      1. They were able to use corruption to force the resignation of the Politburo member who also served as first secretary in the capital, Moscow
      2. They replaced him with a first secretary from a Siberian province, Boris Yeltsin
      3. Yeltsin began to seek popularity in Moscow by demonstratively associating himself with the people and separating himself from the Politburo
      4. Within the Politburo he began criticizing Gorbachev's opponents
      5. They demanded and obtained his removal from the Politburo, but Gorbachev refused to allow his ouster from the Central Committee
      6. This gave Yeltsin immunity from arrest and from being sent away from Moscow to a location where, out of the public eye, he could have quietly prosecuted
    6. Encouraged by the removal of a series of first secretaries, crowds of a few thousand people gathered in the streets in Iuzhnosakhalinsk, capital of the island north of Japan
      1. Normally such gatherings would have been dispersed by the police
      2. To obtain police action, however, the local first secretary had to call party headquarters in Moscow and obtain approval for the police Minister in Moscow to issue an order to his subordinates in Iuzhnosakhalinsk
      3. Presumably the local first secretary made the call, but no action was forthcoming
      4. Drawing the appropriate conclusion, the local first secretary sent in his resignation to the Central Committee
      5. Gorbachev accepted the resignation and announced it
      6. This was the first occasion when popular demands affected the choice of an official -- opening move toward democracy