9 October 2025
by Aleksandr Cherkasov [reposting an article by Sergei Davidis written in 2014 to mark the 32st anniversary of the 1993 conflict in Moscow]
Source: Facebook [source of original article: Facebook]
On the latest anniversary of our little civil war. Long-ago thoughts of Sergei Davidis: ‘…now, in 2014, I do not think there is any place for this illusory justification…. 1993 was not just a crime, it was also a mistake…’
9 October 2014
by Sergei Davidis
Source: Facebook
The latest anniversary of 1993 was missed due to preparations for the registration of the 5th of December Party and other matters. A week ago, these thoughts would have been more appropriate.
But I don’t feel like waiting another year until the calendar date.
Many of my ‘democrat’ and ‘liberal’ colleagues will probably judge me, but I may finally have come to think that 1993 was not just a crime, it was also a mistake.
I have in mind the pragmatic assessment that stems from the consequences for Russia of decree 1400 and the ensuing events.
The illegality of Yeltsin’s actions and the executive branch was obvious even then. But who, especially in their youth, would prefer the letter of the law over truth and progress? Immediately after Yeltsin’s decree disbanding the Supreme Soviet was issued, I, like virtually everyone in my inner circle, supported it unambiguously, and on the night of 3-4 October I was on the barricades by the Moscow Soviet. Later, on 4 October, when the sacrificial feat of the White House’s defenders (who neither then nor now, neither politically nor morally, were close to me nonetheless) became obvious, when it became clear that the regime itself through its actions had provoked the bloodshed (had not blocked off the White House in advance, had not removed the weapons from it, and so on and so forth), when the cops who had hidden there the night before came out on the streets and began to recoup their losses with impunity on whoever they came across at their own risk, my position was replaced by ‘a plague on both your houses’. Politically, though, for quite a long time after, I still considered Yeltsin’s coup and its consequences a positive for the country, despite the improper means and the impermissible, excessive costs. Nonetheless, those events were perceived as a one-time violation of democracy and human rights for the sake of their future triumph. My perception began to change only after Putin came to power, the natural continuation and development of the post-Soviet Yeltsin regime.
My perception changed gradually. In the 2010s, I think it was, I encountered in D. Furman a thought that for some reason, apparently, I had not arrived at myself: Putin and the succession instead of a democratic regime change in general were not simply the natural but also the inevitable continuation of the Yeltsin period. After bloody 1993, the 1990s political elite could no longer allow a transfer of power by election rather than as a result of a behind-the-scenes deal that provided a security guarantee, reasonably fearing accountability.
Nonetheless, until recent times, there was still the possibility of believing that, despite the understanding that ‘democracy is procedure’, even such a blatant retreat from this procedure as in 1993 could be justified by the fact that the alternative, the victory of the Supreme Soviet, would have been an even greater evil for Russia and its future.
And now, in 2014, I do not think there is any place for this illusory justification either.
I have no illusions when it comes to Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, Makashov and Barkashov. They would and could have brought nothing good to Russia (although a certain psychological role in the final change in my assessments was probably played by my getting to know and interacting with Ilya Konstantinov, who at the time, in 1993, was seen as the main bogeyman, and 20 years later turned out to be one of the most sensible and balanced of people). But everything becomes known by comparison. Had the Supreme Soviet’s supporters come to power then, their dictatorship would have been perceived as Red-Brown revanche in its worst manifestations, since the memory of the Soviet Union was still fresh and not mythologized, and the political picture of Russia was sufficiently clear—the bearers of the old and new, supporters of authoritarianism and democracy, were clearly delineated and sufficiently different. ‘Democrats’ (‘Liberals’) who had honestly surrendered power via democratic procedures would have retained their moral rectitude and the whiteness of their robes.
Yes, it’s likely that then we would have had a few difficult years, but it would have been harder for both Russia’s citizens and the outside world to deceive themselves, to confuse black and white: the authoritarian wolf would not have donned the white garments of democracy. And the resources at the disposal of the revanchists in power would have been incomparably less than later ended up at the disposal of Putin and Co. due both to the favorable state of the raw materials markets and to the fact that the entire difficult period of restructuring the economic and political system was over by the time he came to power, and all the reputational costs associated with it lay on democracy and liberalism.
But it could not have turned out worse than now, when we have a country with an ineffective, corrupt, quasi-state economy and an authoritarian, fascizoid political regime that possesses an enormous resource of strong-arm repression of any dissent and has monopolized all significant channels of mass communication and that relies on the artificially formed passive conformist support of the majority and its significant accumulated resources for its survival. The matter is compounded by the sequentially propagated total replacement of concepts by the cult of force and falsely understood interests that stand in for institutions and values, and now also by outward aggression.
‘They would not have surrendered power’—people say about the then Red-Browns. So, too, Putin has no intention of surrendering it. Only he has much more power for that.
Most important, back then everything would have happened much more quickly and with fewer costs for the people of Russia. Back then, the ‘democratic’ regime’s refusal to violate democratic procedure and the likely temporary revanche of authoritarianism would have innoculated our country against the disease that, thanks to its lack of immunity, has overwhelmed it today. I believe that our country will recuperate, but the healing will be long and painful.
In a paradoxical way, authoritarianism established itself because of the nondemocratic victory of democracy’s supporters in the country, whereas it’s likely that as a result of a democratic victory of authoritarianism’s supporters, Russia would already have arrived at democracy.
Troubled times await us again, and God willing, Russia draws a conclusion from this paradox.
P.S. As usual, the Ekho Moskvy site twice refused to publish this text. First they asked me to remove the mention of an ‘authoritarian, fascizoid political regime’, and when I changed the text, writing that many consider the regime to be just that, they informed me that it was, you see, on a ‘too common topic’.
Translated by Marian Schwartz
