WHITE KNIGHT WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE RED KING
Daniel Johnson
The Times/UK
November 6, 2007
The chess matches between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov are a
metaphor for the downfall of the USSR
In 1984 Garry Kasparov, the last Soviet and the first post-Soviet
world champion, made his mark by challenging Anatoly Karpov, the
personification of the Soviet school of chess, in a match that began
in September. Six months later, on March 10, 1985, a leader emerged
who would preside over the dismantling of the Soviet political system:
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet head of state.
Seven years and four more Karpov-Kasparov matches later, the Soviet
Union was history. Kasparov was the first Soviet world champion who
refused to obey the USSR Chess Federation and the Sports Committee,
first by appealing over their heads to his allies in the Kremlin,
later by openly defying the regime itself. Nurtured to be a Hero
of the Soviet Union, he became one of its gravediggers. After the
Cold War symbolism of the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky match in 1972,
when the American broke the Soviet monopoly, no chess duel has had
the political resonance of the Karpov-Kasparov matches.
The ascendancy of the brash, pro-Western Kasparov anticipated the
collapse of communism. He was born Garik Kimovich Weinstein in 1963
in Baku, Azerbaijan. His Armenian-Jewish background made it more
likely that he would grow up to be a champion not only of chess but of
dissidents, too. The young Garry Weinstein listened to Radio Liberty
and Voice of America, then argued about politics with his communist
grandfather. At the age of 12 he adopted a Russified version of the
name of his Armenian mother, Klara Kasparyan, in lieu of his Jewish
father’s. His talent was recognised early; he won the USSR junior
championship at the age of 12 without losing a single game. At 13 he
was sent to France to play in the 1976 world junior championship. Once
he began to travel to tournaments in the West, he soon noticed the
contrast between the culture of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness abroad and the culture of death, tyranny and corruption
at home. "It was a shocking revelation," he told The Sunday Times in
2005. "By 16, I had no illusions." By the time he was 20 his rating
(2,715) had already overtaken Karpov’s (2,705). But Karpov was still
the favourite; in his decade as world champion, he had won or shared
first prize in all but two major tournaments in which he took part,
some 25 victories.
The first Karpov-Kasparov world championship match began on September
19, 1984, in Moscow, amid feverish publicity. It began disastrously
for Kasparov, whose aggression made no impression on Karpov. After
two weeks Karpov led 4-0 with five draws. The next 16 games were
drawn, many without a fight. The organisers were regretting the
open-ended format. On November 24, in the 27th game, the champion
struck again. It was a classic Karpov win; Kasparov seemed to make
no mistakes, yet was imperceptibly outplayed. The score was 5-0 and
Karpov was on the verge of a third successful defence of his title,
which would have made him one of the greatest champions of all.
He had to win only once more. It was not to be.
New year 1985 came and went, yet the deadlock continued. Behind
the scenes, the president of the World Chess Federation, Florencio
Campomanes, was trying to broker an end to a match that had become
an embarrassment.
Karpov’s doctors said that his health would not stand any more; he
looked like a ghost. Finally, in February 1985, Kasparov achieved
the breakthrough for which he had waited so patiently. First he won
the 47th game, his first victory with Black. Then, in the 48th,
he beat Karpov again, a massacre that left the champion visibly
demoralised. Karpov had not won a game for more than two months,
while Kasparov had come back from the dead.
At 21, he had made history. Although Karpov still led by 5-3,
the odds favoured Kasparov. What happened next still remains
controversial. After the 48th game, by agreement with the Soviet
officials, Campomanes halted play again. The match had continued for
159 days, in only 58 of which had any chess been played. After six
days of frenzied talks, on February 15 Campomanes summoned a press
conference at which he announced that "the match is ended without
decision". A new one would begin in September with the score 0-0.
By the time the return match took place, the new men in the Kremlin had
concluded that the game was up. Neither the West nor the dissidents
could be defeated. The Soviet system must adapt or die. The man
chosen to succeed the geriatric Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko
was Gorbachev. Kasparov quickly forged good relations with the new
people around Gorbachev. The changing of the guard in the Kremlin was
symbolised at the second Karpov-Kasparov match by the appearance at
the opening ceremony, again in Moscow, of the new Foreign Minister,
Eduard Shevardnadze. He greeted Kasparov warmly, while ignoring
Karpov. This time the duration of the match was limited to 24 games;
the winner would no longer be the first to win six games, draws not
counting. Kasparov won the first game. After a couple of draws, Karpov
struck back, winning the fourth and fifth games to take the lead. A run
of draws followed. Everything hung on the last game. If Karpov won,
the match would be drawn and he would retain his title. Kasparov had
only to draw to win. In desperate time trouble, Karpov passed up a
last chance to draw (which would have been tantamount to renouncing
his title) and went down to defeat: 5-3, with 16 draws. Kasparov had
become world champion at the age of 22, the youngest in history. But
his real achievement was not just to have eclipsed his predecessors;
it was to have taken on the Soviet chess establishment and won.
One sign that times were changing was that the third match opened in
the Park Lane Hotel in London on July 28, the first time that two
Soviet world champions had contested the title outside their own
country. Having outbid Leningrad, the London organisers had agreed
to share the match: 12 games in each city. The opening ceremony was
dominated by Margaret Thatcher, the first Western leader to establish
a close relationship with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. Along with
Pope John Paul II and President Reagan, she was one of the three
conservative revolutionaries who would lead the West to its bloodless
victory over communism.
Once again, chess provided the perfect symbol. The third match began
with three draws, but Karpov’s resistance crumbled in the fourth
game and it turned into a rout. Both players agreed to donate their
prize money to the fund for the recent Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
which had such an impact on the Soviet system that Gorbachev later
saw it as the single biggest cause of communism’s demise.
The denouement has become a classic: Karpov avoided an ending in which
he would have had practical chances in favour of a continuation that
allowed Kasparov to win with an elegant combination. With two games
left, Kasparov was a point ahead, and Karpov had shot his bolt. The
last two were quiet draws.
Kasparov had retained his title by the narrowest of margins, but he
had little time to prepare before Round IV, which began in Seville in
October 1987. This match was expected to be an easy victory for him,
but proved to be the narrowest squeak of all. The last two games,
at Lyons, mattered to both men. Karpov won the 23rd, setting up a
grand finale in the last game.
Kasparov played to win. His pieces dominated the board. Just as he
seemed poised for the coup de grâce, however, the champion offered
a draw, which Karpov gratefully accepted. He had lost by the slimmest
of margins: 12.5-11.5.
Why did Kasparov show such magnanimity? "It showed strength and fair
play," he said afterwards. It also showed that both men knew that they
would never play again for the world championship, and that with them
the Soviet era in chess had passed into history. The Kasparov-Karpov
duel was the climax of the story of chess and the Cold War. That story
is also a hitherto untold chapter in the history of liberty. Kasparov’s
confrontation with Karpov was different. By the mid1980s the battle
between East and West had become internalised by the USSR. The power
struggle had also been a battle between ideology and truth. Karpov v
Kasparov gave dramatic form to this struggle within the Soviet system
during its last decade, as its people awoke from their long trance and
came to terms with the truth. Kasparov was a quick learner; he was
among the first to realise that the system could survive only if it
adapted. But he was also among the first to grasp that the system was
too sclerotic to adapt. And he was among the first to comprehend that
only revolution – the peaceful overthrow of communism – would suffice.
— This is an edited extract from White King and Red Queen , published
by Atlantic Books on November 8, £22. Available from Times BooksFirst
at £19.80, free p&p. 0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
© Daniel Johnson 2007
Grandmasters exit
Long before the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lost its monopoly
of power in politics, it had been forced to give up its monopoly over
chess, as players followed the money to the West. For many chess
masters living under communism, the pressure to conform had been
intolerable. The exodus of those who moved to the West after the Berlin
Wall fell was proof that the Soviet experiment in using chess as an
instrument of social engineering and ideological warfare had failed.
It was no accident that the capital of chess during the last
quarter of the 20th century was not Moscow but London. Thanks to
a sustained economic boom, the City survived the worst that Irish
terrorism and municipal socialism could throw at it. One beneficiary
was chess. Financial institutions drew the elite of the communist
bloc to take part in events that inspired a British renaissance;
by the end of the century there were dozens of British grandmasters,
including Nigel Short and Michael Adams.
But when the frisson of a proxy war between superpowers vanished, so
did the market for chess. The present world champion, Vladimir Kramnik,
is relatively unknown even in his native Russia. Still, the chess
heroes of the Cold War can still make headlines. The irony is that
while the last Soviet world champion became passionately anticommunist,
the last US champion, Bobby Fischer, became virulently anti-American.
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