Samizdat and Ethnic Mobilization

Abstract

“In 1985, when Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev came to power,” wrote A. Motyl in 1990, “the Soviet state was stable by any standard. Party rule was perceived as legitimate, the population was quiescent and generally satisfied, and open opposition to the regime was minimal … [By 1990] the condition of the Soviet state had experienced a 180-degree turn. The Party was thoroughly delegitimized, … the population was in the streets, and open opposition was the order of the day…. Who or what pushed the USSR onto this slippery slope? The answer, quite simply, is Mikhail Gorbachev.”¹ Predicting a “breakdown or a crackdown,”² as extreme variants of political developments, Motyl remarked: “I still doubt that the non-Russians, who may increasingly want to rebel, will be able to do so successfully.”³