ABSTRACT
The Moskva Hotel sits like a massive granite prison on Manege Square just outside the Kremlin walls. The legitimacy conferred on the deputies by open elections empowered them to demand that officials, and ministers, even the head of state stand accountable for their conduct, their decisions, and their mistakes. Mikhail Gorbachev was only able to save his minister of defence, Dmitri Yazov, by trampling on the rules he himself had approved. Gorbachev’s manipulation of the committee on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was even more blatant. Gorbachev’s relationship with the Soviet press was complex. He was proud of his policy of glasnost and of the atmosphere of free discussion it had fostered. In the expectation that Gorbachev would refuse to recognize one of its known Moscow leaders, the group chose a deputy from the Russian provinces, Vladimir Shapovalenko, to read out the manifesto on the final afternoon of the Congress.
