... the end of 1988 Gorbachev had revolutionised the political system to the extent that a genuine contested elections to a new democratic body were planned for the following spring. At this stage the arguments of perestroika were, in Gorbachev's own words, "fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy".2 This idealistic goal owed an unacknowledged debt to Roy Medvedev, whose ideas foreshadowed Gorbachev's 'new thinking'. The vision contained within it was of a reformed Soviet Union, strengthened by democracy, markets and new relationships with the republics. By the bleak winter of 1990-1991, however, the majority of those who had shared such a hope had ceased to believe in the Soviet state and the Soviet system altogether. In hindsight the attempt to create a 'democratic' Soviet Union could be considered a contradiction in terms, and was arguably impossible to achieve without so altering the system as to change ...

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