Sakharov's "Decree on Power"

Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), the Soviet physicist who designed the hydrogen bomb and attained worldwide renown for his political dissidence, became one of the best-known members of the First USSR Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. His inclusion in the Congress, enabled through his membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, was surprising given that, only three years earlier, he had been in political exile in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). Sakharov became one of the Congress’s most outspoken contributors, obtaining the microphone at least eight times during the two-week gathering. Of the 2,000-plus delegates in attendance, most did not get to speak even once, making his prominence all the more remarkable.

Sakharov’s final speech before the Congress illuminates the transformative power of glasnost itself, as well as its empowerment of an independent media. Unusual in many other ways as well, the First USSR Congress was especially notable because it was broadcast live from start to finish. On the final day of the Congress, 9 June 1989, this fact proved to be a gamechanger. Ahead of the session, Sakharov had asked Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) to grant him the floor for one last 15-minute block. His intention was to read his “Decree on Power,” a document denouncing Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, which made the USSR a one-party state, and calling for a multi-party system—among other drastic changes.

Based on rumblings in the room, some in the assembly may not have wanted Sakharov to have the floor. But when Gorbachev put the question to a vote, a majority elected to grant Sakharov the microphone, if only for five minutes. Hearing this verdict, Sakharov replied that he would “do his best” to respect the time limit, provoking the other delegates’ laughter. And indeed, although he abbreviated his speech, he quickly exceeded the 5 minutes Gorbachev had allotted him. The General Secretary repeatedly interrupted with requests to wrap it up, but Sakharov kept on speaking. His voice occasionally wavering, he called out the Soviet Union’s grotesquely oversized army; its imperialistic oppression of ethnic minorities; its ineffective kolkhozes (collective farms), which required endless “resuscitory infusions” of cash; and its disproportionately powerful KGB.

After more than ten minutes had elapsed, Gorbachev cut the microphone connecting Sakharov’s podium with the room, preventing the other delegates from hearing the remainder of his speech. Yet as Sakharov’s wife, Yelena Bonner (1923-2011), revealed to him at the end of the session, although the room’s microphone had been shut off, the one connected to the national broadcast was still live—meaning that, although the 2,250 delegates could not hear his speech, millions of viewers at home did. Although Gorbachev eventually managed to re-impose order, this departure from staid parliamentary procedure (which ended in a standing ovation for Sakharov) may have influenced his government’s decision not to broadcast future congressional sessions in full.