As parliamentarians arrived at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses one day last week, they were handed copies of an open letter to Mikhail Gorbachev demanding that he "stop the chaos" and "prevent a collapse of the country." If necessary, it said, the President should declare a state of emergency and rule by decree to halt the activities of "separatists, subversives and nationalist militias."
The letter bore 53 signatures, including those of the Minister of Culture, the Deputy Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff of the armed forces, the commander of Interior Ministry troops, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church,...
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