Chapter 6 Summary

In 1988, the monthly journal Znamya published "Onward, Onward, Onward," a play about Lenin and Stalin written by Mikhail Shavtrov. Many readers felt the play falsely represented Stalin and "blackened" Soviet history. The conservative newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya prints a negative review and one reader, Nina Andreyeva, a chemistry teacher from Leningrad, writes a letter in support of the newspaper's critical review of the play. The editor of Sovetskaya Rossiya, Valentine Chikin, forwards the letter to Yegor Ligachev at the Party's ideology office. Ligachev advises Chikin to print the letter. Chikin sends science/ideology editor Vladimir Denisov to Leningrad to work with the author to "improve" the letter. With the approval (and encouragement) of Ligachev, the letter is intentionally published on March 14, 1988 when Gorbachev is out of the country. An internal battle, known as the Andreyeva Coup, within the Communist Party ensues, but eventually Gorbachev...