The Rest Is History - 12 Days: Coronation of Charlemagne and the collapse of the Soviet Union

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

To kick off our 12 Days of Christmas mini-series, Tom and Dominic remember the birth of the Holy Roman Empire and Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Happy Christmas. Go on, Dominic. You're allowed to say Happy Christmas too. Honestly, the Scrooge-like figure

glowering at the screen. It's Christmas Day. It's the birth of our saviour. Very happy Christmas to all our listeners. Domin dominic is glaring away in the background i was just wondering if you were going to keep talking you will leave me a cap for me i'd offer the festive greeting well merry christmas everybody welcome to the first of our 12 days of christmas podcasts and you can already see the spirit in which this will unfold so okay tom explain that this is all your idea uh the reason i'm doing nothing but podcasting between now

july christmas day is because of you and this crackpot wheeze of yours so explain it to the listeners please well so um we're not going to be putting out the regular um pair of episodes instead we're making we're going to make it much harder for ourselves. And we're going to do a succession of podcasts themed around the concept of the 12 days of Christmas, which is, of course, a very sacral idea. Very sacral. Do you know what it originates in, Dominic? Christianity. Yeah, it originates in Christianity.

And specifically, the Council of Tor in 56 Christianity. Yeah, it originates in Christianity. And specifically the Council of Tor in 567. Wow, I didn't know that. The 12 days following Christmas will be a time of festive reflection. But it's not the Council of Tor that dictates the pear tree and people sleeping or whatever. That's later. So lots of people think that, you know, you have Christmas and then it's over on Boxing Day and you go to the sales. But of course, that's not the case. Christmas goes on until either the 5th of January or the 6th of January, depending on whether you start the 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Day or from the day after Christmas Day.

We are going to do, we're basically doing the 13 days. Yeah, we're doing both, aren't we? Unlucky for some. So, and the idea is that each day we're going to discuss an event that happened on one of the 12 days of Christmas. And I've chosen one and Dominic has chosen one. So, Dominic, shall we reveal to the listeners how this works by saying what have you chosen?

Okay. So I've chosen a very festive seasonal anniversary. So 25th of December, 1991, it's the end of the Soviet Union. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing screams the festive spirit. Like a discussion of the end of the Soviet Union.

I think when people... You're preparing your turkey, you're sorting out your Brussels sprouts. Tree. Mikhail Gorbachev. Economic reform has gone wrong. That's what people think about at Christmas isn't it

so ho ho ho ho ho and do you know what I've gone for well you do because I've already told you yeah because it was written down in front of me

I have chosen the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome on Christmas day well that's a very I mean that's probably 8800

and again nothing screams Christmas like listening to someone going on about international politics in the ninth century but you know what tom i think that's probably the most famous thing other than christmas to have happened on christmas day isn't it possibly the coronation william the conqueror no the coronation of charlemagne is more famous yeah i think it is it is yes and it's it's and we've chosen i mean not so not all the episodes that

we've chosen are going to be quite as seismic and historic but both both our choices are very very historic um and uh i guess we should crack on so i have yeah so i've chosen the coronation of charlemagne charlemagne titanic figure in the history of um western europe we have we haven't done yet but we could absolutely do um an episode on in due course. Set the scene, Tom. Where and when are we? So Charlemagne is the king of the Franks. And the Franks have emerged in the centuries that have followed the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West as the most powerful kingdom in what had been the Roman Empire in the West.

There are other players in Christian Europe, the two most significant of which are the emperor in Constantinople, who rules in a direct line of succession from the Roman Empire of the East. Well, they sort of think of themselves as the Romans. Yeah, all the way back to Augustus. And the bishop of Rome, the Pope, who is the Bishop of one of the most important city in the Christian world.

So there are five patriarchs. There's the Patriarch of Rome, of Constantinople, of Antioch, of Jerusalem, and of Alexandria. Is Rome more important than Constantinople? Surely not. Yes, it is. of Antioch, of Jerusalem, and of Alexandria. Is Rome more important than Constantinople? Surely not. Yes, it is. It is because it's where Peter and Paul were martyred and are buried, and it was the original capital of the Roman Empire.

But the people in Constantinople wouldn't have said that, would they? Well, so this is a kind of long-running fracture point, a stress point. So the patriarchies of Alexandria, of Jerusalemusalem and of antioch have come under muslim rule uh constantinople obviously directly under the thumb of the emperor in in constantinople the bishop of rome in a slightly ambiguous position uh and an exposed position because um the romans the byzantines whatever it becomes incredibly confusing because you never know

when you're talking about the romans whether you mean the people from rome or whether you mean the romans of byzantium but let's call them byzantines um have reconquered much of italy but it's kind of frayed away um and the pope is essentially he's the servant of the the emperor in constantinople he he's a subject of the emperor in constantinople. And every time a Pope is elected, he sends the news directly to the Emperor in Constantinople. However, the problem is that Byzantine control over Italy is threatened by various barbarian peoples, of whom the most significant are the Lombards. And the Lombards are constantly pressing down on Rome and the Bishop of Rome wants to keep his independence. So by the 8th century, the Pope is starting to look around for another protector. And the obvious person to turn to is the King of the Franks.

Right, because they're the big power in Western Europe, aren't they? The big power in Western Europe. So one of the Popes goes, he crosses the Alps and he goes to Francia. What are the Franks looking for? Well, as it so happens, there's just been a regime change in Francia. The Merovingian dynasty, the original dynasty of the Franks has been toppled. And the pretenders, the line of Charles Carolus, so Charles Martel, who defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Tours, the Carolingians, as we call them, they are looking for the kind of legitimacy that only the Bishop of Rome can provide.

And so the Pope zips over the Alps. He crowns Pepin, who's the son of Charles Martel, as king. And basically it's a kind of, you know, it's a match made in heaven. The Pope benefits, the Carolingians benefit. So Charlemagne is the son of Pepin. He's become absolutely the grand fromage of Latin Western Europe. He's conquered the Saxons. He's pushed into Eastern Europe. He's defeated the Saracens in Spain. Everything's going tremendously well for him. Then there is a crisis in Rome.

And Dominic, I'm aware that I've been talking a lot. Do you have anything to contribute to this topic? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Speak to, carry on talking. I'm interested. I'm listening to the story. It's Christmas Day.

I'm busy cooking my goose. And I'm listening. I'm thinking, what do I want? I want Tom Holland to talk to me about the Franks. So nothing. I mean, what is more festive um a tale of maiming go on then name away so 795 yeah uh a pope called hadrian i um who is a roman aristocrat very very connected um being very very popular with the uh the carolingians he dies and he gets succeeded

by a guy who takes on the name of leo the third okay um and leo's background is is much less exclusive and so hadrian's relatives are a bit resentful of this you know feel he's a bit of a parven a bit of an upstart yeah and so they they essentially they're they're kind of bubbling away in the background their cross and they seize in 799 they ambush leo and they blind him and they cut his tongue out that's kind of always the way though isn't it in this period blinding cutting off people's noses all that sort of stuff is very much par for the course yeah but what happens next is not par for the course and this is where it's a christmas miracle because what then happens is leo escapes and miraculously he regains his sight and he regains his ability to talk okay so that suggests to me that both the blinding and the tongue severing

were not they they were not carried out properly they were carried out incompet. Or it happened that through God's full knowledge and action, Leo recovered his sight and his tongue was restored to him so he could speak. Okay, well, that's a different interpretation. So either it didn't happen or God made it happen. Yeah, it's Christmas, so let's say it did happen. So Leo, having done his escape and had this miraculous recovery, he scarpers off north to meet Charlemagne, who is hanging out in Saxony. Charlemagne basically means Carolus Magnus, isn't it?

Charles the Great. Charles the Great, yeah. And Charles comes to meet him, and they meet up at a place called Paderborn. Leo stays there for three months. They commune. They chat away. Clearly something is brewing.

And then Leo goes back to Rome. And for a year, they don't see each other then on the 23rd of november 800 charlemagne is approaching rome with a great army great retinue and leo goes out to meet him and they come into rome yeah and charlemagne has come basically to legitimate leo's papacy so he convenes a synod. He exonerates Leo of all the charges that have been brought against him by his enemies. He affirms the fact that, you know, a pope can't be judged. He's the pope.

And this is so basically Charlemagne by now is in Rome. Other things, however, simultaneously are happening in the background. So on the theme of mutilation, you said how mutilation is very Christmassy, but a key part of what's going on here. So meanwhile, in Constantinople, so three years earlier in 797, you have one of the great women of Byzantine history, Irene, of an aristocratic Athenian family, who's gone to Constantinople, married, had a son. This son has become Constantine VI. But in Irene's opinion, in mum's opinion,

he doesn't measure up. So do you know what Irene does? Blinds him. Cuts out some time. Yeah, blinds him. Blinds him. And she basically becomes empress.'s her own son this is yeah she blinds her own son that is very poor parenting it's strict isn't it yeah it's harsh um and any parents out there with difficult toddlers or it's christmas and the tempers do get fraught don't go don't don't go the full irene um so so you've got charlemagne in rome

you've got an empress in constantinople and then on the 23rd of december a further miraculous episode so two um sorry three of charlemagne's servants arrive from Jerusalem yeah and they are bringing with them the keys to the holy sepulcher and a holy banner oh that's nice and it's a miracle it's another Christmas miracle they've turned up two days before Christmas yeah incredible odds against that you don't reckon they arrived early and were just waiting outside to kind of well that would be the perspective of a cynical 21st century historian yeah again let's run with the idea of a Christmas miracle so everything is coming together so there's this idea that um charlemagne is now the guardian of the holy sepulcher in jerusalem you know very holy uh the the pope is there he's beholden to charlemagne

um the empress in constantinople that's looking illegitimate i say on the 25th of December, Charlemagne is crowned as emperor, not as king, but as emperor in Rome. And the idea there is that the line of emperors in Rome that had been extinguished with Romulus Augustulus back in the 5th century has now been revitalized. So just as in the 4th and the 5th centuries, you might have two emperors in the Roman Empire. Ever since the 5th century, there's only been the one, the fifth centuries you might have two emperors in the roman emperor yeah in the roman empire ever since the fifth century there's only been the one the one in constantinople now with the crowning of charlemagne there are two once again and he's crowned by the eastern roman empire and the western roman he is crowned by the pope now did charlemagne know what was coming this is the big question so there's um a guy called einhardt who's a monk who um writes a life of charlemagne that's modeled on satonius's lives of the caesars yeah and he says that at first charlemagne was so averse to receiving the name of emperor that

he said he would never have entered the church that day even though it was the most important feast day if he had known the pope's plan beforehand so charlemagne shocked shocked to discover that he's being crowned as emperor but i think almost certainly charlemagne absolutely knew what was happening yeah um and i think the key the key proof of that really is the incredibly serendipitous if it is just serendipitous, turning up of the people from Jerusalem. It's obviously stage-mannered to make it look as good as possible. And a contemporary chronicler gives three reasons why it's legitimate for Charlemagne to be crowned as Roman emperor. Are you going to tell us?

I know you are. I am. I can see you looking at your notes. I am. Tell us the three reasons. One of them is that you have a woman ruling as emperor in Constantinople. Okay, that's... So this is a sexist era, and this is viewed as being...

Yes, shocking. Unacceptable. The second is that Rome is the seat of the Caesars, the ancestral seat of the Caesars, and it is now effectively under the protection of Charlemagne, and so therefore he should be emperor. That's a terrible reason, because I mean... That's a good reason. Rome has been under the protection of Charlemagne. And so, therefore, he should be emperor. That's a terrible reason. That's a good reason.

Rome has been under the protection of lots of people in the intervening 324 years. Yeah, but the Byzantine, you know, Irene can't come to, you know, muscle in on the Lombards. Charlemagne's defeated the Lombards. But previous people haven't crowned themselves emperor, have they? I mean, you know, Theodoric the Ostrogoth or whatever these people are called who've been in charge of Rome.

Yeah, but that's because the third reason, Charles Dominion now ranks as an empire because he has many provinces. Yeah. Okay. That's a good reason because he is ruling an empire. Yeah. Isn't he?

So for those reasons, it's viewed as absolutely legitimate. So Charlemagne becomes emperor. And that's the dawn of the Holy Roman Empire, right and that's the dawn of the holy roman empire right it's the dawn of the holy roman empire i mean there will be a break because um charlemagne furiously divides his empire up so it kind of gets increasingly fragmented um the figure of the the emperors who succeed him become increasingly kind of wraith-like and spectral and finally they vanish completely um and that but and it's not until the 10th century when Otto the Great, friend of the show that hairy chested

victor at the Battle of the Lechfield is crowned emperor again and that then establishes the continuous line that runs right the way through to Napoleon Yeah, but at that point from Otto onwards the Holy Roman Empire is basically Germany isn't it

with a bit of northern Italy attached and then Napoleon, his coronation is modelled on Charlem is basically Germany, isn't it, with a bit of northern Italy attached. And then Napoleon, his coronation is modelled on Charlemagne's coronation, isn't it? But he crowns himself, so the Pope is there, but doesn't crown him. So that's very festive, Tom. Yeah, I think, I mean, nothing more festive than

a few blindings. Well, there is actually something more festive. What does that, Dominic? That's Soviet politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And that's what we'll turn to next after the break. So get ready, get your Christmas crackers ready, prepare the pigs and blankets, Mikhail Gorbachev is coming.

See you after the break. we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

Hello, welcome back to uh christmas day on the rest is history uh and it's the first of our 12 days of christmas specials uh we are looking at events that happened on this day uh decades centuries millennia ago who knows um in the first, we looked at the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome on this day in AD 800. And now, Dominic Sandbrook, you are going to tickle the festive underbelly by telling us all about the end of the Soviet Union. Well, the funny thing is this is on Christmas Day, but it wasn't Christmas Day in Russia where it happens.

So obviously they have their Christmas much later. I can't even remember what day the Orthodox Christmas is on, but it's some day in January, isn't it? So this isn't Christmas Day for them. So this is the 25th of December 1991, and we are in the Kremlin in Moscow, and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, is about to resign as president of the Soviet Union, a state which has only hours left and is kind of dead already, actually. So it's an extraordinary moment. Vladimir Putin says this is the greatest kind of geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Has the KGB been abolished by this point?

I think it's sort of been abolished in name, but not in... But still, he's hovering around. Yeah, he's hovering around. Although a lot of KGB officers, like Putin, are kind of completely discombobulated and astonished. There's an incredible sense of kind of febrile uncertainty in Russia. And it's extraordinary to think that basically at the beginning of the year, 1991,

the Cold War is obviously over. The Berlin Wall has fallen. Eastern Europe is no longer communist. But nobody thinks the Soviet Union is going to wither away. I mean, it's still there. And CIA analysts and so on, they don't think it's going anywhere. Because we should explain, shouldn't we, that it's a union. So the vast majority of it is Russia

but you've also got... All these other republics. Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia. Central Asia or the Caucasians. The Stans. Exactly. And that was something I think that for a lot of people in the West they didn't really appreciate because we'd used Russia and Soviet

interchangeably. Like England and Britain. Exactly. And that's something that's about to sort of really catch up with Soviet politics. So Gorbachev has been in since 1985. He's a hero in the West because he's seen as cuddly and peace-loving and all these kinds of things. Got a glamorous wife. You're right, Raisa, exactly. And he comes and has summits with Reagan and Thatcher and so on. But in reality, in Russia, his popularity has been sinking like a stone. Because the economy has been sinking like a stone.

The economy has been terrible. He's tried political and economic reform simultaneously and hasn't produced the results that he wanted. But what he's done is by having economic reforms and political reforms simultaneously, he's done two things. He's alienated a lot of ordinary Russians whose living standards are kind of imploding and who sort of feel lost in this new world.

But at the same time, he's alienated a lot of the elites that he would need because of his political reforms, because it's sort of moved to some kind of democracy and so on. So by the middle of 1991, Gorbachev is in this dreadful mess where he's sort of – nobody is for him. He's caught between the liberals and the conservatives. Like Boris. Well, that's –

Warriors from history. Yeah, well, I'm not sure that Boris is going to have like a coup and be locked up in the Crimea on on holiday or something um but anyway yes so poor old gorbachev he goes off to the crimea on holiday exhausted beleaguered and hardliners in the kremlin really because they're they're outraged um that he's trying to get through this new treaty to reassert the soviet union a new union treaty with the various republics. And they think that will give away too much power from the centre, and they think this is their last chance to kind of stop him.

So they launch this coup, where they basically lock him up in his dacha in the Crimea, and then they seize power in Moscow. I remember seeing the evening standard headlines saying coup in so yeah i remember i mean it was extraordinary because it was so control of the missiles it was so incompetent and it was it was but it was played out in the full glare of the media i mean i can remember watching news night on this that when the um the protesters were massing outside the russian parliament building the white house it's called in in Moscow. And there were tanks surrounding them. And there was this standoff.

And basically everybody in the West... And the mayor of Moscow? Well, he's not the mayor of Moscow. What did he say? Boris Yeltsin? He's the leader of the Russian Soviet Republic. So Boris Yeltsin. So you should tell us who Boris Yeltsin is. So Boris Yeltsin is a former...

He's been a Communist Party apparatchik, but he has fallen out with Yeltsin is. So Boris Yeltsin is a former, you know, he's been a Communist Party apparatchik, but he has fallen out with Yeltsin, with Gorbachev rather, because Boris Yeltsin has been sort of pushing to go further and faster. They have fallen out. He's made himself very much the face of the kind of reformers. And once Gorbachev is imprisoned by the coup plotters, sort of head of the KGB and the defence ministry and so on. They made the terrible mistake of not locking up Boris Yeltsin

because they just think he's a loose cannon and a drunk and a wastrel. It's like the assassins of Caesar, neglecting to arrest Mark Antony. Mark Antony. It's exactly that, actually, Tom. That's a very good parallel. So Yeltsin, of course, then seizes his moment. He jumps onto a tank and he sort of rallies the Russian people.

The coup collapses pretty quickly, within days. Gorbachev flies back from the Crimea, but his power has completely... Yeah, he's a broken reed. Yeah, has completely seeped away. And in the next few weeks, there is this sudden, there's this kind of rush of events. So Yeltsin outlaws the Communist Party in Russia

and the old sort of elite the hardliners so broken by the failure of the coup and so kind of disorientated that they can't stop him so he outlaws the communist party and then you get this sort of domino effect and the key moment i think is on the first of december when ukraine very irrelevant given the headlines in the last few days so ukraine holds a referendum about asserting its sovereignty and basically independence in the Soviet Union. And to a lot of people's astonishment, the Ukraine votes to leave, basically.

On a massive majority. Yeah, extraordinary. And that's a sign of how much the elite sort of driven reforms have alienated people, I think. I mean, obviously, it's a sign of nationalist sentiment and so on. But I think the results take everybody by surprise. Then seven days later, Yeltsin and the leaders of the leader of Ukraine and the leader of Belarus, they meet a base called Belavezha in a kind of hunting lodge behind Gorbachev's back.

And they basically sign an agreement that they will, they're different republics, they will set up as independent states and they will be part of a commonwealth of independent states and they won't be part of the Soviet Union anymore. So you can sort of imagine this in a previous era, in a completely different political context. The reaction of the Kremlin would have been to just arrest them,

put them in a gulag, send in the tanks, just crush it. But Gorbachev doesn't have that instinct. Whether the army would obey him anyway is very dubious. Power has left him. The old sort of structures have lost all credibility and self-belief. The old system collapsed before a new one had time to start working, apparently they said. That's what Gorby joff said

isn't it in his christmas day speech so from that point from the 8th of december onwards the end of the serving union is absolutely inevitable i mean the republics are declaring then what happens is more and more republics don't want to be left behind so they start rush they rush to to declare their independence too and of course the reason for that is that the individual the sort of the old party barons in these places think, this is the way I will hold on to power because I will declare, you know, I will rush. Which is what Yeltsin had done.

Yeah, precisely. This is, I will reinvent myself as a nationalist. And this is the way I will, this is what the people do in Central Asia. This is what Putin does. So Gorbachev, suddenly he's there in the Kremlin, but basically he's leading a state that is crumbling around him that no longer exists and um I think on the 23rd of December he has a

meeting with Yeltsin um quite a tense a long meeting for hours where they agree that in two days time he will hand over the nuclear briefcase and he will basically give up power and this happens to be that day happens to be the 25th of December, which obviously for us is Christmas Day. Extraordinary kind of coincidence. So the stage is set then for this speech. Gorbachev is going to give this internationally televised speech, an absolute, an extraordinary moment in history that actually,

even now I think people in the West don't get their heads around enough, that the guy who was the successor to lenin and stalin and brezhnev and khrushchev is going to resign and and the state is going to collapse live on television um now they want to do it with the cameras uh first of all the head of russian tv says to gorbachev i want you to sign it'd be great television if you would sign the resignation live, like, you know, we'd have the cameras on you. And Gorbachev says, no, I won't do that. I'll sign it when the cameras aren't rolling. Then there's the question of how are they going to broadcast it? The Russian, I mean, this is an extraordinary metaphor. The Russian cameras are not, they're huge, they're antiquated, they're basically like cameras from the 1950s or something.

And they don't have the facilities to do a kind of satellite broadcast around the world. So CNN are the only people in Moscow with the facilities to do it. So it's an American television crew that are going to capture these images that go around the world. It's like the Sasanian emperor using a Roman emperor as his mounting block. It's even more than that, Tom, because the moment comes for Gorbachev to sign the resignation. The office, if you've ever seen footage of presidents giving speeches, the office is out of shot.

It's packed with technicians and so on, most of whom are American, not Russian, because they're working for CNN. Gorbachev goes to sign the piece of paper, and the pen doesn't work. The Russian pen doesn't work. It's a Soviet pen. So do you know what he does? He borrows a pen from a man called Tom Johnson,

the president of CNN, who hands him his Mont Blanc pen, a pen that could not be... A capitalist pen. The ultimate capitalist pen. And Gorbachev signs it, signs the resignation the ultimate capitalist pen uh and gorbachev and gorbachev signs it signs the resignation with the capitalist pen then he gives this um twin what is it 20 minute 30 minute speech where he basically says um he he he he defends himself against the idea that he has unnecessarily plunged the country into turmoil because he says we had to change we were failing you know i know it hasn't worked out and he's sort of this very

sort of passionate defense of his of his own policies um and then but of course he's incredibly unpopular in russia to an extent that again i think people in the west don't really grasp we think of him as cuddly and liberal and we don't understand why but russians just look at him and they think this is the man who's destroyed our country and plunged us into an economic abyss so he's giving this sort of rather plaintive defense of his policies but it's actually too late uh then he finishes and then at 7 32 in this again fantastically symbolic moment the two workmen take down the red flag that flies over the Kremlin that has flown there since, effectively, kind of metaphorically, since the Russian Revolution, since the death of the Tsars and all that stuff.

So down comes the red flag and up goes the white, blue and red tricolour of Russia rather than the Soviet Union. And then there are these two sort of rival drinking sessions. So Gorbachev goes into his office with a couple of his aides with a bottle of cognac and they, you know, they sort of reminisce about what went wrong and all this kind of thing. And meanwhile, Yeltsin. What's Yeltsin up to?

So Yeltsin also goes into an office with a bottle of cognac, but there are conflicting accounts. So some people say Yeltsin up to? So Yeltsin also goes into an office with a bottle of cognac. But there are conflicting accounts. Some people say Yeltsin and his mates got lashed, but others say Yeltsin was actually... Yeltsin was a much more anxious person than is often... In the West, he's often perceived as kind of jovial... Jovial drunk. Shambolic bear.

Yeah, a bit of a kind of Boris Johnson, actually. You know, sort of a... A drunk Boris Johnson. Yeah, a drunk but slightly more of Boris Johnson, actually, you know, sort of a drunk Boris Johnson. Yeah, a drunk, but slightly more serious Boris Johnson. In fact, Yeltsin was much more kind of neurotic. And only a couple of years later, Yeltsin had basically had a nervous breakdown. And I think a lot of people say tried to kill himself. So Yeltsin is much more anxious. And some sources say Yeltsin didn't join in the drinking because he was so overawed by the responsibility that he knew was awaiting him.

So the Soviet Union comes to an end. George Bush interrupts his Christmas Day in America to give a speech to the American people saying, you know, the Soviet Union has ended over. We will work with Russia. We won, all that sort of stuff. USA, USA. Now, what you could say, Tom, is that this one reason

that this is such an important moment in our modern... Well, it's not just China. It's also because this is the point at which, in a way, you could argue, I mean, some people would say, Russia wasn't the West's to lose, but the West does lose Russia. Because what then happens to Russia... Yeah, all those kind of 20-year-old management consultants rushing, privatising everything.

Yeah, everything goes horribly wrong for the russian people their their savings their pensions their living standards collapse the living standards of russian ordinary russians dip colossally in the next few years russia's so that's putin wars in china it matters massively for china because i think every chinese leader looks at the humiliations visited on gorbachev and thinks we're not going to allow that to happen. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. They definitely think that. So it's the making of Xi Jinping and of Putin.

Well, they think, they say this is what happens when you foolishly do political reform and economic reform at the same time. The political reform is you just throw away your power. You know, you need to do the economic reform. And the Chinese famously thought that Gorbachev was mad for doing these two things at once.

And of course, for Putin... Well, because the chairman had been, you know, in 89, summer of 89. Yeah. So they'd already decided on that policy. And never apologised for it. Now, for Putin, and so for people who are in our Rest Is History club,

it's not too late to join up on Christmas Day, of course. It's still the Christmas present. It be Christmas without a hint of commercialism. For people in our Restless History Club who are on the Discord chat, they've been talking a lot about this in the last few weeks, about Gorbachev and Russia. And I think one of the key things when you're understanding Putin is for a lot of ordinary Russiansussians they say of course putin is better than the alternative because we tried the alternative in the 1990s and it was a complete

and utter disaster so this moment that we in the west think of as a moment of celebration and triumph the end of the ussr to you know more than 100 million people it's a moment of utter, as they see it, a moment of utter disaster and chaos and tragedy and so on. And arguably, I think the Coronation of Charlemagne obviously is, to me, the most famous Christmas Day event since the birth of Christ.

Was he born on Christmas Day? Well, that's the question, isn't it? But I think the end of the Soviet Union, we're still actually grappling to come to terms with it. Well, there's a wonderful symmetry there, isn't there? Because we've had the end of the Soviet Union, we're still actually sort of grappling to come to terms with it. Well, there's kind of wonderful symmetry there, isn't there? Because we've had the birth of an empire. And the death of an empire. And the death of an empire.

Tom, we couldn't have scripted it better. Yeah. And both very festive. Now, we should say that they will be the future editions of this podcast. Slightly less heavyweight. They will be less heavyweight. I look through my notes and I see the delights to come. I see the poetry

of William McGonagall, the Battle of Wakefield, the Tay Bridge disaster, the birth of Queen Emma of Hawaii, the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, Albert Camus. We've got so many Christmassy

treats coming up. So one a day, one a day up to the 6th of January. So we'll have a podcast every day till then. And we look forward to talking to you for the next one, whether you like it or not. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.