Rivalry and Rhetoric

YELTSIN ON GORBACHEV

“My perpetual opponent, the lover of half-measures.”

Feb. 19, 1988, during his resignation speech from the Politburo:

* “It is my belief that if Gorbachev didn’t have a Yeltsin he would have had to invent one . . . He realizes that he needs someone like me--prickly, sharp-tongued, the scourge of the overbureaucratized party apparat, and for this reason he keeps me near at hand. In this real-life production, the parts have been appropriately cast, as in a well-directed play. There is the conservative (Yegor K.) Lighachev, who plays the villain; there is Yeltsin, the bully boy, the madcap radical; and the wise, omniscient hero is Gorbachev himself. That evidently is how he sees it.”

Feb. 19, 1991, in an unprecedented call carried on national television for Gorbachev’s resignation:

* “I warned in 1987 that Gorbachev has in his character an aspiration for absolute personal power. He has already done this and has brought the country to dictatorship, to presidential rule as they call it. I distance myself from the position and the policy of the president and advocate his immediate resignation and the handing over of power to a collective body. . . .”

March 10, 1991, speaking in Moscow and escalating his political feud with Gorbachev:

* “Let’s declare war on the leadership of the country, which has led us into a quagmire. This year will be decisive. Either (Communist hard-liners) will strangle the democrats, or we will survive and win.”

April, 1991, shortly after Moscow demonstrations calling for Gorbachev’s resignation:

* “The right is preparing disasters for democracy and when we see that, we act to prevent the right from advancing. In that struggle we are prepared to cooperate with President Gorbachev.”

June, 1991, shortly after his election in a popular vote to the presidency of the Russian Federation:

* “To a large extent, I don’t like (Gorbachev). Certain things I do like about him. I am saying that he is inconsistent. . . . He has a strength for a certain period of time; and then, under pressure from other forces, he may change his decision. That isn’t a good thing. . . . As long as Gorbachev supports reform, for democratic transformation, for independent republics, for the development of the entire country, for democratic management of territories, Yeltsin will side with Gorbachev.”

From Yeltsin’s autobiography, “Against The Grain”:

* “What he has achieved will, of course, go down in the history of mankind. Everything that Gorbachev has initiated deserves such praise. He could have gone on just as Brezhnev and Chernenko did before him. I estimate that the country’s natural resources and the people’s patience would have outlasted his lifetime, long enough for him to have lived the well-fed and happy life of the leader of a totalitarian state. He could have draped himself with orders and medals; the people would have hymned him in verse and song, which is always enjoyable. Yet Gorbachev chose to go another way. He started by climbing a mountain whose summit is not even visible. It is somewhere up in the clouds, and no one knows how the ascent will end: Will we all be swept away by the avalanche or will this Everest be conquered?”

GORBACHEV ON YELTSIN

“Politically immature and extremely confused. . . . “

November, 1987, during a bitter Kremlin debate that led to Yeltsin’s ouster as Moscow mayor and later, from the ruling Pulitburo:

* “Is it not enough for you that the whole of Moscow revolves around your person, that you now want the Central Committee to spend time on you as well? Have you reached such heights of self-admiration and is your opinion of yourself so great that you have put your own ambitions above the interests of the party and the cause? Are you so politically illiterate that we need to give you classes?”

May 29, 1990, commenting on Yeltsin’s selection as chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation:

* Described himself as “somewhat worried” by the move, but added: “I would say there is hope. We must have cooperation.”

June 3, 1990, during a joint press conference following his summit meeting with President Bush in Washington:

* “If this is nothing but a maneuver and (Yeltsin) will return to what he has been doing in recent years, not only criticizing . . . but engaging in destructive activities, destructive efforts, then his chairmanship (of the Russian repubilc) will certainly complicate these (reform) processes.”

July, 1990, after Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party:

* “That ends the process logically.”

Feb. 26, 1991, in a barely camouflaged swipe at Yeltsin during a trip to Byelorussia:

* “There is no need to wonder hat these ‘democrats’ enter a political alliance with separatists and nationalist groups. They have one aim in common: to weaken and, if possible, to dismantle the union.” He said that “millions of Communists” are more deserving of the label “democrat” than Yeltsin and his allies.