The Faces on the Front Page

In the Soviet Union, the most feared knock on the door didn't come from the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or the Commission for Discipline Inspection. It came from the State Propaganda Committee.

They didn't interrogate. They didn't torture. They simply spoke—and by the time they were done, the country hated you.

Once a dull relic of the Party bureaucracy, the Soviet propaganda machine had been reborn under Yanayev. No longer a gray, plodding beast parroting slogans—now it charged like the Ura-wailing Red Army of old, swift and lethal. The transformation was total.

And its newest victim was Yakovlev.

A former editor of Moscow News, Yakovlev had once believed himself untouchable—a darling of glasnost, a face of liberal reform. But the era had changed, and Yanayev's weaponized press now wielded tabloid tactics with surgical precision. A front-page exposé shredded Yeltsin's character, complete with photos, bank transfers, and itemized U.S. dollar deposits to two decimal places. It was brutal and effective.

From national hero to drunken clown. From savior to snake. The fall was swift—and irreversible.

Yanayev had long understood what the liberal intelligentsia never did: the people didn't rise for abstract freedoms. They rose for bread, for dignity, for justice. The slogans of democracy had been hijacked by opportunists. Now, those who once preached freedom watched, stunned, as the people turned on them.

And for Yakovlev, the reckoning came not in a courtroom or prison—but in the street.

He had only wanted a loaf of bread.

It was early. Snow crusted the edges of the sidewalks. Yakovlev stood in line at a newsstand near a bakery, fumbling in his coat for coins. But something was wrong.

People were staring.

He caught his reflection in the glass—nothing unusual. Still balding, still sallow. Then he turned and reached for a newspaper.

That's when the vendor pointed. Not at the change. At the paper.

"Is this you?" the man said gruffly, tapping a photo. "You're Yakovlev?"

"...Yes," he replied, hesitantly.

The headline above his image screamed:

"Soviet Heroes: Intellectuals Demand a Ban on Alcohol!"

The article claimed Yakovlev, alongside Korotich and twenty other writers, had submitted a joint letter to the government urging a national prohibition. The text even quoted him—fabricated entirely—mocking workers and peasants as "fermented animals" and calling for their exile to "the coal pits of Siberia."

The reaction was immediate.

"You think you're better than us, you pencil-pushing worm?" one man barked, rising from the breadline. "You say I'm a beast 'cause I drink? I'll show you what a beast can do!"

Yakovlev raised his hands. "I never said that! It's fake—I swear, comrades!"

A younger man stepped forward. "So now you're calling the Moscow Daily a liar?"

More heads turned. The crowd was forming, fast. And their mood was turning black.

"Don't want to drink? Then maybe you're not a man at all!" one of them snarled, cracking his knuckles.

"Please—let me explain."

But no one wanted an explanation. Yakovlev had made a career out of words. Now, no one cared what he had to say.

A thick-set man grabbed his collar, yanking him forward. Another spat at his shoes.

"You called us pigs!" he shouted. "Called our fathers alcoholics! Now you'll see how we deal with traitors."

From the edge of the gathering, a calm voice said, "I'm with the KGB. Go ahead, comrades. I didn't see anything. If the militia arrives, I'll vouch for you."

Yakovlev's blood went cold.

They beat him in the slush and snow. His glasses shattered under a boot. His coat tore as fists pummeled him from all sides. The crowd—older women, coal-dusted men, a few youths—watched with a mix of fury and satisfaction.

In his articles, he'd called for "the awakening of the masses." Now the masses had awakened, and they were using his body to write their reply.

From across the street, two Ministry of Internal Affairs officers stood watching. They shared a cigarette and laughed.

"Isn't that the bastard who wrote that piece about us being the Soviet Gestapo?"

"Looks like he's meeting the real people's justice now."

They made no move to intervene.

Yakovlev, gasping in the snow, realized the truth too late.

He had mistaken the tolerance of law for protection. He had believed his words had power. But now he understood—he had only ever been tolerated. And when the machine turned against him, it didn't need to kill him. It merely stepped aside and let the people do it for them.

Bloodied and alone, Yakovlev stared up at the gray Moscow sky, a snowfall of headlines still fluttering in the wind.

The same people he once believed he spoke for now stomped on his name—and he couldn't even argue back.