collapse the soviet union. i'm not so sure about i think the important event as far as to collapse the soviet union was deal was coup or the attempted coup which we can go because of position and strength and. power. in the opportunity to precipitate the breakup i don't think global political from is necessarily. how to lead to the break up of the solving i think those reforms necessarily or very likely to lead to the end of the soviet common system but don't think that society has to break up with the soviet so richard where do you come in on that ok because i mean to this day in in the new russia there is an argument in who is responsible for the breakup of the soviet union was that boris yeltsin looking for power at any cost and he chose the russian federation or got a bunch of it and got a bunch of fending off a a political rival and that was. well i think the two are interconnected and i would also make a point perhaps is a minority point of view the nationalities question was also played a very large role

soviet union collapsed those broken up twenty years ago. i wouldn't put it beyond the bounds of possibly that we could be some kind of reunification or some kind of union. involving russia and neighboring countries particularly if if there's some dramatic events in europe if the eurozone collapses if the you club says i think that those kind of conditions then political perspectives on the some kind of multinational union on the territory of former soviet union much the pier appear very differently you know stephen if i can go back to you i mean early in one thousand ninety one there was a referendum to keep the soviet union together but by the after the august coup things had changed so much i mean is that tell us about the pace of change because i mean i in the course of months you know there's a people change their mind ok i mean we when we picked that particular look at places like the baltic republics which goes even way back before that tobacco couldn't even it in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight but then there was staring in ukr

but first let's see what russians think about him the last leader of the soviet union much of is now eighty years old his name was forever linked with attempts to reform the soviet system and his policies have received different assessments through the years the russian public opinion research and i ask russians to define his historical role fifty one percent of the respondents said his opposed to show who was thinking about the betterment of his country but made a number of mistakes sixteen percent called him this honest man who most of my did the collapse of the country and of the twelve percent see him as a brave man who took responsibility to oversee vital reforms in the country gorbachev attempted to create a more open and prosperous country through the paula says of glasnost and perestroika back to peter ok that's what russians think about the legacy of mr gorbachev well our sophie shevardnadze interviewed mr gorbachev and this is what he said to her about what he thinks his legacy is. i think it is you know world. personas. world free of the ideological struggle. has to put thi

that set up the soviet union. the soviet union was finished. in 1991, all the leaders of the republic in the soviet union, and agreed they would settle the soviet union, a commonwealth of independent states but no common center, nobody in charge of their foreign policy. it would literally be no role for gorbachev anymore. gorbachev still felt he was in the soviet union in some form, that they would see and wrote a long letter that they would all day in the kremlin as a figurehead in charge of foreign policy and -- [talking over each other] >> host: delusional. >> guest: james baker was secretary of state at the time went to see him. other foreign visitors. this was two days before the end. they saw gorbachev expanding on possibilities of the soviet union expanding on a role in the world. and with a deadpan face, not literally but figured raising eyes to the rising heavens this guy doesn't get it. >> guest: >> host: addition to the yields and/gorbachev tension you have a group of communist party functionaries leapi

the soviet union. the former moscow correspondent detail the day mikhail gorbachev resigned as president of the ussr and the coup that led to that day. discusses the transition from communist superpower to open market republic with thomas blanton, director of the national security archives. >> conor o'clery, author of moscow december 25th:1991:the last day of the soviet union. a stupendous moment, end of an empire without firing a shot. alternative versions of that day include the current prime minister of russia calling it a geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. can you give us a sense of that historic perspective, your take legal big picture? >> when my publisher asked me to write a book about the fall of the soviet union to mark the 20th anniversary i came to realize that this day was a day for a human drama because of the -- boris yeltsin and mikhail gorbachev, but also it goes and retarded in most histories of the time. i came to realize this day marked the end of the superpower. if you co

comrades in the soviet union. and he was really taken aback when people in the crowd dared to challenge him. >> that was in a top aide says gorbachev was basically blind it to. gorbachev would say, don't they mud if they lead the soviet union, there will be no an cor and no economy, and the aide comments, he doesn't get it. >> and you know, the democrats in russia at the time, from yeltsin to the intelligence ya, they were outraged by what happened in the baltics and blamed gorbachev. he surrounded himself with people -- the interior memberster and the head have kgb, who were hardliners. and he didn't condemn what was happening but he pulled back because he was going to lose his credibility in the world. ... he really did want to affect a change. >> and he does "that line that is in your book that covert tough, when pressed to get rid of those hard-liners and the old communist party and the repressive apparatus to something like, have to keep that lousy rapid dog on the leash. otherwise it will turn on us and turn

he wanted the soviet union to survive, a soviet union that was supplicant to the west to the survive -- maybe that's not the right word. he wanted that to survive rather than having 15 independent republics, some with nuclear weapons. so right up to august '1991, he was taking it response himself to lecture other leaders, particularly in ukraine, against nationalism because he wants gorbachev to succeed in the reformed soviet union. when the inevitable end came he questioned people not to be triumphant about it, but as with american politics, an election was looming. people felt he would get re-elected without any trouble, but it's bothersome guy called bill clinton came along and began to eat into this poll numbers, and not only did he claim victory for the -- in the cold war after his annual address to congress in january of 1992, but after the republican party convention in houston, which i also attended because i was then white house correspondent, he had shouted u.s.a., u.s.a., when he claimed they won the colored war, which prompted bill clinton to say that's like a rooster cla

soviet union. >> guest: soviet union. now, he reserved 100 seats in the congress for top communist party officials which meant he didn't have to face election himself. but he created the conditions where -- this is gorbachev didn't have to face election -- he created the conditions where boris yeltsin could stand for election as representative of moscow, and he got something like nine million votes. so gorbachev created the democratic conditions for the democrats to advance. and i think that we must see gorbachev as a statesman and yeltsin as an opportunest with the right impulses. i think that would be -- >> host: opportunist with incredible moments of courage. >> guest: yes. he made big bets on his instincts, and it required a lot of courage to do that. and history proved that he was right. the time had come to wind up the soviet union, and he was the one who realized that and who went about doing it. he's paid tribute to for bringing freedom to russia. >> host: and what about the what s? what ifs? gorbachev looks back

but an absolutely convinced the soviet union could not have survived. said the union treaty had been agreed, i think the drift was still for all the republics having got a taste of freedom would still have gone for freedom. >> and what if yeltsin had shows it different for a change to say as soon as the coup and failure of the coup and standing on the tanks in his except to, he chose that moment to go into decreeing nose. he essentially decided to change the whole system i decrease. he was reducing 10 decrease the day and some of their episodes were the mayor of moscow can't stand you yeltsin dashes off 10 decrease to take over this, take over that. is there any possibility for something that was more democratic, less autocratic? because what you sowed the seeds of today's territory in russia and the lack of any oil transition. >> one of the.yeltsin made was to make a wonderful speech, a forceful speech about a month after he had gone off to write his memoirs. there's a pattern that he would do something very courageous and then he would need to calm dow

that would have been true of a federated soviet union i mean it may not have been called a soviet union then it may you know but but. a federation of. of the many of the twelve republics as were willing. that would have suited u.s. policy very well the coup was really about ideology and systems and once gorbachev began to change the system here once he dropped the class struggle ideology and you know this began started when you want to say he started winning when he dropped the you know he went one in the sense that he liberated the country from the burden of the arms race which was killing it economically and had the freedom then to try to put it on a more modern turn back and that's what he was trying to do things you you you a man in your age your position should be becoming a pacifist but you say that a war can be good it can be a win win situation well only because the cold war was not a real war of words it was not their wars on the group but we're here today because it was not a war and in fact i think one of the problems we make is calling it a war it was a confrontation and a c

the soviet union disintegrated. was it as much of a surprise as it was for ninety percent of the russian people. when they. came to the state bank in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine prior to that so i worked my entire life. toward bank foreign trade bank were often interacted with western businesses so i realized we were moving towards a dead end. so. since my college years i've been friends with violence in public of who was the head of the pricing committee and later finance minister and later got involved to the ninety ninety one coup. so i big trouble lots of information from my conversations with him. in fact there were serious reforms in the works in this government they included three key aspects. the first the pricing reform because pricing and been wrong ever since industrialisation. i see. what then there was only government property and collective property. you know there were a few workshops in collective property producing consumer goods like clothes for example and some apartment blocks were coll

and the soviet union. i will not going to the background of cultures, but andropov's, general secretary a party at the time, made a comment in september of 1983 that if anyone ever had any illusions about the possibility of an evolution for the veteran, those illusions are completely dispelled now. in the early part of november, but in the second and the 11th, nato conducted an annual command post exercise named able archer, which was to practice procedures for releasing nuclear weapons in the event of a war. soviet intelligence monitoring this very closely, as would be its practice. on november 8 or november 9 in the middle of the exercise kgb residences abroad received an urgent telegram mistakenly reporting an alert at u.s. bases and implying that the alert might not be the beginning of a countdown to nuclear war. according to one report, the staff of the general of stol ordered some soviet missile forces and other measures were taken to enhance the readiness of soviet air forces in central europe. oleg

completely is another let's be heretical it's not even clear they didn't want to be part of the soviet union remember in march only a few months before the abolition of the soviet state there was a referendum. nine republics took place there was a very large turnout seventy six percent voted for the union the cultural point that nikolai makes are very very important but the more important thing is when the rest of the world was economically integrated in europe in particular suddenly what had been a soviet integrated economic common space was blown apart for no rational reason that's what plunged people at the beginning in the poverty along with the shock therapy now when you've seen then that's the kind of the logic of the economic integration driving itself well if there is a more there's a political resistance but the logic of economics is formidable now suddenly you have two proposals by putin for example one for a common trade a common space analogous to the european union and now his new idea for you are always in the union in itself part of this is political but i think the economic l

he wanted the soviet union to survive, the soviet union that was to the west, to survive. i don't think survive is the right word. he wanted to survive having 15 independent republic, some with nuclear weapons. that was the prospect. so right up to august 1991 he was taking it upon himself to lecture other republicans, particularly in the ukraine, against nationalism because he wanted gorbachev to succeed and reformed soviet union. when the inevitable endgame, he did caution some people not to be triumphalists take, but as one with american politics, and election was looming. people thought he would get reelte