Author to reader

We publish the prefaces of the famous journalist and writer Oleg Moroz to two of his books: “So who destroyed the Union?” and “Why did he choose Putin?”

“So who destroyed the Union?”

Dear friend!

Much has been written about the collapse of the Soviet Union. So much that for a person who is not very “in the know”, it is not so easy to figure out what exactly happened in the last years and months of the life of the Soviet empire...

This book is a “chronicle” (remember, like Pushkin’s Pimen: “Describe without further ado…”) It outlines, step by step, in chronological order, the main political events that took place in the Soviet Union, starting from the bloody dispersal of the multi-day Tbilisi rally April 9, 1989, which marked the first tremors of the approaching earthquake, and ending with the resignation of the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, on December 25, 1991.

So, if you wish, you can simply use the book as a reference book - if you need to see exactly what events were the main ones at such and such a time. But in general, this is not a reference book - it is literary documentary, written according to the laws of literature. Perhaps you will find it not as entertaining as some other similar works, where a strict documentary narrative is often, for the sake of entertainment, flavored with fiction and “artistic” inventions. I did not strive to artificially create additional entertainment. For me, the main thing was to preserve (perhaps for future generations, if the paper does not decay and the letters do not crumble) FACTS of a great historical era. Indeed, during this period, not only did the collapse of the USSR take place, but the Great Liberal Democratic Revolution also took place in Russia, led by two great men, two great Russians - Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev and Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin.

I will be glad if you like the book and find it useful.

“Why did he choose Putin?

Dear friend!

Not much has been written yet on this topic - why Yeltsin chose Putin as his successor to the post of President of Russia. And what is written to a large extent is propaganda lies. There are absolutely fantastic versions. For example, as if Yeltsin made this decision as a result of some kind of FSB conspiracy: as if back in the early summer of 1999 he was presented with an ultimatum - either he leaves, cedes his post to Putin, or it will be bad for him, his family...; and Yeltsin was so afraid that he resignedly gave in to the conspirators. One must have absolutely no knowledge of Yeltsin or the political situation of that period in order to bring such nonsense to the public.

This book tells how everything really happened, how Putin, who previously worked for Sobchak, in the mayor's office of St. Petersburg, after the defeat of his boss in the elections in July 1996, ended up in Moscow, in the Kremlin, who exactly and to what positions here he was recommended, how he climbed the steps of his career ladder, how he “caught the eye” of Yeltsin and why Boris Nikolaevich chose him.

In addition, the book sets out in sufficient detail who, strictly speaking, besides Putin, could have aspired to the post of President of Russia in that period - in 1998-1999. The contenders were, first of all, Alexander Lebed, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Evgeny Primakov, Yuri Luzhkov, Sergei Stepashin. The corresponding chapters talk about the chances of each of them.

The book contains many details concerning the activities of President Yeltsin during that period, his relationships with his closest aides, advisers, and employees of the Presidential Administration - details that have never been reported anywhere before.

I will be glad if the book interests you and will clear away for you the fog that covers (and continues to be deliberately whipped up for propaganda purposes) this period of recent Russian history.

Oleg MOROZ,
writer, publicist,
member of the Moscow Writers Union

The authors of the most interesting comments on the announcement of a public discussion with Oleg Moroz “Gorbachev and Yeltsin: who is right? Reasons for the Collapse of the USSR” will receive a gift from Oleg Moroz’s book “So who destroyed the Union?”