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The Twenty-Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: A Personal Assessment*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Peter Frank
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Extract

TO PARAPHRASE ALEXANDER YAKOVLEV, THE ONLY predictable thing about the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) would be its utter unpredictability.

Twice brought forward from its original planned date (February 1991), it began its deliberations in Moscow's Palace of Congresses on 2 July 1990. Little optimism attended the opening. Instead, the mood was nervous and jittery, angry and spiteful. Gone were the self-congratulation, unanimity and routinized ovations of previous congresses. Society at large was stubbornly indifferent to what was happening in the Kremlin; the Party was riven with dissent, while the Congress delegates themselves were in a fractious, belligerent mood.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1990 , pp. 472 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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Footnotes

*

The author was in Moscow for the duration of the Congress as consultant on Soviet affairs to ITN’s Channel Four News. In that capacity, he had access to a direct television feed from the Kremlin and watched the entire proceedings. It should be obvious when subjective assessments are being made in the article; otherwise, unless specified differently, all quotations are taken from Pravda, the official organ of the CPSU.

References

* The author was in Moscow for the duration of the Congress as consultant on Soviet affairs to ITN’s Channel Four News. In that capacity, he had access to a direct television feed from the Kremlin and watched the entire proceedings. It should be obvious when subjective assessments are being made in the article; otherwise, unless specified differently, all quotations are taken from Pravda, the official organ of the CPSU.