Gennady Burbulis, Russia’s sole secretary of state and one of Boris Yeltsin’s closest aides, died on June 19, 2022.

When people heard the news of his death, most recalled that he was a signatory to the Belovezh Accords which dissolved the USSR. But even this historic event is perceived differently by the liberal-minded public, which in recent years has preferred Mikhail Gorbachev to Boris Yeltsin. .

And so, Burbulis enters eternity under a shadow as someone who “ruined” or destroyed something.

But what has he accomplished? who was he?

He was a modest assistant professor in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), a specialist in social sciences and the holder of a doctorate. who first worked at the Ural Polytechnic Institute, then at the branch Professional Development Institute. In 1987, in Sverdlovsk, a club called Discussion Forum was organized in the Center of Automotive Culture. One of its main founders was Burbulis. He led the meetings, inviting various “informal politicians” (as they were then called) on stage. Philosopher and pedagogue, he possessed, on the one hand, the qualities to control a conflict, and, on the other hand, the intellectual courage. That is, Burbulis was not afraid of any subject, and the audience liked him.

In his book “Ye-burg”, the writer Alexei Ivanov devoted a separate chapter to Burbulis and his Tribune. He wrote: “Gennady Burbulis proved to be an able moderator, and the Tribune quickly became the center of political and social life. Intellectuals and activists conquered the heart and soul of the city. Local television taped all of the Tribune sessions, and they were watched more than even the most popular music shows. Nothing was like Tribune in the Soviet Union at that time, and internationally renowned heroes of the “struggle against the system” and stars of the fledgling democracy were happy to come to Sverdlovsk. Rostrum meetings lasted four or five hours and drew up to a thousand people, who filled the room and stood along the walls, hanging on to every word. Sometimes people whistled and shouted, climbed the wall and waved homemade posters. This ‘symphony’ was conducted by Burbulis, under whose elbow sat a council of experts — another innovation.

For Sverdlovsk, a city literally closed to foreigners because of its defense factories but on the other hand full of intellectuals, some of whom worked in the defense industry, it was a gift: a breath of fresh air, a chance to discuss the hot topics of the day in front of a huge audience – not in their kitchen or the break room at work.

Nobody forgot that about Burbulis. In 1989 he was elected to the first Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR. During those unforgettable days of May, he sat down with the whole country and listened to Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly Sobchak, Yuri Afanasyev, Gavriil Popov and many others. Like all of us, he had to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming, but unlike us regular people, he listened to them sitting in the audience. He – a young man at the time – could go up to any of these people, get to know each other and write down their phone number. Together with Muscovite Sergei Stankevich, Burbulis did the most important thing – he brought them together. He united Yeltsin, Sakharov, Afanasyev and Popov into one group, joined by all the other deputies who did not want to toe the party line – and then there was only one party, the Communist Party – or the line of any other business structure.

The interregional group of deputies, created behind the scenes of the Congress by Stankevich and Burbulis, was above all a tandem of Yeltsin and Sakharov – the most famous dissident and the most famous opponent of the Communist Party’s top leadership. When they united, it unleashed an explosion of such power that nothing could resist – neither the mighty organization of the Communist Party, nor the machinations of the KGB, nor the coup that took place two years later, nor even the will of Gorbachev, who at the time was the most influential politician in the world.

This energy of liberation and this will for liberation eventually led to the collapse of the old system.

Of course, there were other powerful factors, such as the clumsy and brutal intervention of the Soviet troops, the economic collapse, the failure of the governmental Committee on the state of emergency. But every liberation movement must always have a symbol, a certain iconic moment that brings together the whole revolution in a single sign. In Russia, this sign was the union of Sakharov and Yeltsin in a political alliance.

In 1990, a new Russian congress was elected which would eventually establish the new state by amending the RSFSR Constitution, electing Yeltsin as head of state, introducing the post of president, etc. Two years later, in April 1992, this same congress demanded that Yeltsin dismiss Burbulis, one of the creators of the new political order and of democratic Russia. From March 1990, when Burbulis helped Yeltsin in the Sverdlovsk elections, to April 1992 – this was his short life as a politician.

What did he accomplish during those two years?

He was one of the founders of the Democratic Russia Party, the first liberal party in the country’s history.

He was the Secretary of State and First Deputy Prime Minister who created the reformist government of Yegor Gaidar. It was Burbulis who introduced Yeltsin to Gaidar, and it was Burbulis who persuaded Yeltsin to bet on this team of economists.

Yeltsin, doubtful to the end, wanted to keep two “poles” in his economic team, trying to get Gaidar and Grigory Yavlinsky to work together. But it was impossible. Burbulis joined Gaidar’s cabinet and was the man who provided these Russian “Chicago Boys” with a political platform. Having Yeltsin’s back, being his de facto chief of staff, he did the tremendous organizing work to make private property, a freely convertible ruble and free trade a reality.

Without Burbulis – and not just Gaidar – this wouldn’t have happened. And that’s not all Burbulis achieved in Yeltsin’s time. It was Burbulis who found the lawyers who, under Gorbachev, wrote the key laws that radically changed the life of the country, such as the law on freedom of press and information, the law on free exit of the USSR, the law on freedom of conscience and the law on the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist repressions. Under his leadership, these laws had already been passed by the new Russian parliament and worked in the new reality. Under Burbulis (and for some time after him), the Presidential Council included some of our most illustrious contemporaries, such as Galina Starovoitova and other first-wave democrats.

And finally, Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The signature of Russian State Secretary Burbulis is also on this document, because in December 1991 he was officially considered the second person in the state. And above all, it was he who wrote on paper the key phrase: “the Soviet Union as a geopolitical reality ceases to exist”.

This sentence had to be written in the present tense in the style of the document, but the truth was that the Soviet Union had already ceased to exist. At that time, the Soviet Union no longer existed in its former form, and it was too late to save it. And besides, there was no will to save him. After the failed coup, after the Ukrainian referendum, after the banning of Communist Party activities, after the collapse of economic ties, it was all over.

When Yeltsin fired Burbulis, he might have hoped to bring him back after some time, just as he had tried to bring back Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais and many other members of his team after firing them.

But Burbulis did not return to big politics, although he was a member of the State Duma and a senator in the Federation Council for a time.

He went back to where he started: discussions, political education and organizing meetings of thinking people. Apparently, that’s what he liked the most.

In Moscow, in the Bolshaya Sadovaya Ulitsa, in a mansion built by the famous modern style architect Fyodor Shekhtel for his family, Burbulis opened his Strategy Foundation. There, the foundation held meetings with people who had been at the heart of the action in the 1990s, who didn’t need to read the newspapers to find out what was happening in the country. Actors and figures of the democratic revolution of the 1990s came together to speak out after the fact, and perhaps even to argue. And just to see each other.

Burbulis loved music. At these events, as well as at the Discussion Forum events at the Yeltsin Center, young musicians have always performed. He probably thought that music would soften passions, relieve tension, and help build intellectual harmony. Very often, he takes this company of “hardened democrats” to the provinces to speak in front of pupils and teachers within the framework of the numerous educational programs of his foundation. Once, as the author of Yeltsin’s biography, I was included in this enterprise. I was impressed by his level, both human and intellectual: Viktor Sheinis, Arkady Murashev, Stanislav Shushkevich, Andrei Nechaev. It was an honor to be in their company.

Knowing the character of Burbulis, I’m sure he also invited his former opponents to his club meetings, but this tradition has not caught on in our political culture.

But once another professional political adviser, Georgy Shakhnazarov, who was a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s inner circle for a long time, had the same idea in a dream. He wrote about a panel discussion about the events in Poland in the early 1980s, which was attended by all parties to the civil conflict at the time. “For a second I imagined the same square table but in the Kremlin’s faceted chamber, with on one side Gorbachev with Yakovlev, Medvedev and other supporters of perestroika, on the other – Yeltsin, Burbulis, Gaidar and their associates; from the third side – the communists Zyuganov, Lukyanov, Ryzhkov and members of the “emergency committee” who intended to save the Union; the fourth – the leaders of the other former Soviet republics Nazarbayev, Karimov, Niyazov, Aliyev, Shevardnadze… They sit there telling journalists “how it was”, quietly detailing the details… What a nightmare! It didn’t happen because it could never happen with us!

But Gennady Burbulis was perhaps the only person in our political life who would have been quite capable of moderating such a discussion. He would have at least tried to end the current civil war in a conversation, to make these difficult subjects a subject of discussion, of research and not of confrontation – to stop bickering and insulting each other – in at least 30 years.

But he couldn’t do that. If anyone else will succeed, only time will tell.