The vehicle chosen to this end is, at first glance, a little odd. Yeltsin has announced he will return Dec. 25, the day in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev admitted defeat and stepped down as president of a by-then defunct Soviet Union.
Few Russians remember Gorbachev or the Soviet system fondly, but most are nostalgic about the Soviet Union. Its destruction was hardly Yeltsin's most popular move. Yet the president has gone out of his way to defend his decision to collapse it and replace it with a loose commonwealth.
That, certainly, was the theme of Yeltsin's interview in the daily Trud last week, and it would also fit with his decision, doubtless made primarily for other reasons, to reinstate Sergei Shakhrai -- a man deeply disliked by the political opposition precisely because he was seen as a mastermind behind the accords that destroyed the former empire.
So the question arises as to whether Yeltsin was right to allow the 15 republics to go their separate ways. Recent opinion polls suggest most Russians do not think so, that they attribute many of their current hardships to the breakup of the Soviet Union.
But Yeltsin was right. True, he signed away the empire for less than philosophical reasons -- it was simply the fastest and most assured way of getting rid of Gorbachev and of becoming master in Moscow. But it was the right decision nonetheless.
What would have been the outcome if Yeltsin had not agreed to let go the other republics, many of which had conducted unofficial referenda to demand independence? We cannot know for sure, but the options are not attractive.
One is a former Yugoslav scenario, in which Russia tried by force to maintain its empire. Another is one of gradual decay, in which the empire ceased to be effective and Moscow gave up its powers one by one, paying for the privilege of maintaining an empire it demonstrably could not afford. That process had already begun.
Many Russians would answer that no result could have been worse than the penury they face now. But that is not so; war is far worse.
But in truth, it should not be their decision to make in any case. Nobody feels sorry for the wounded pride or economic losses suffered by the British or French when they lost their empires -- their former vassals had every right to be free and decide their fates. And so did the Balts, the Moldovans, the Armenians and the rest.
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