Twenty-one years have passed since the State Emergency Committee attempted to change the Gorbachev-Yeltsin course that was disastrous for the peoples of the USSR, and there are still debates about what the members of the State Emergency Committee were, could they have won, and what were the reasons for their such inglorious defeat?
The newspaper “Glasnost Dossier” (N3, 1999) published the most shameful repentance of V. Kryuchkov and Marshal D. Yazov from “Matrosskaya Tishina”. There is so much to be found in these letters! What worries for the priceless Mikhail Sergeevich and even for dear Raisa Maksimovna! Marshal Yazov went so crazy as to call himself... “an old fool”! And others also wrote... And these are the leading people of our time!?
They say that the reason for the defeat of the Emergency Committee is the poor organizational skills and lack of will of its members. But they were all very experienced organizers of industry, agriculture, party, administrative and security structures. Could Gorbachev agree, for example, that Yu. Plekhanov be the head of his security, and B. Boldin the head of his apparatus, if they were bad organizers? Why was P. Kryuchkov an excellent organizer of the storming of Amin’s palace in Kabul and an excellent organizer of the operation to collapse the GDR, but suddenly became a poor organizer when it was necessary to arrest Yeltsin and his camarilla? And, in general, would these people be able to reach the highest government positions if they were bad organizers and weak-willed people? No, where they were firmly are sure that some specific actions them necessary and useful - from a career to solving professional problems - they were both good organizers and strong-willed people.
What particularly difficult demands did life present to them in August 1991, and what special qualities did they lack to defeat the cliques of Gorbachev and Yeltsin? They lacked one most important quality, the one that soon after the death of I.V. Stalin gradually became increasingly scarce among many of our leaders. Them Bolshevism was not enough.
This was expressed, firstly, in their failure to understand that the viability and progress of socialism can be ensured only under the condition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the steady overcoming of market relations, and in their failure to understand that the rejection of these most important provisions of scientific communism inevitably leads to the restoration of capitalism. They saw with their own eyes the monstrous results of the transition to a market economy, but they were possessed by the illusion of the possibility of some other kind - a “good market”. They did not have complete confidence that the market is the death of socialism, or confidence in the absolute need to fight against market reforms.
They were full of democratic illusions. And, although they saw with their own eyes how actual power in the country was rapidly passing into the hands of the bourgeoisie, they did not understand that this was a consequence of the rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat imposed under Khrushchev, that the path of Gorbachev’s so-called democratic reforms inevitably leads to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
All these illusions were reflected in the loud, but very abstract, and therefore ineffective Address of the State Emergency Committee to the people: “... A mortal danger looms over our great Motherland... Started on the initiative of M.S. Gorbachev’s reform policy, conceived as a means of ensuring the dynamic development of the country and democratization of public life, for various reasons, has reached a dead end...” But who brought this mortal danger? Who is the enemy? What “various reasons” for the “failure of reforms” are we talking about? There is no answer, because before us is a sweet lie of people who either did not understand or were afraid to say that the “reforms” have not reached a dead end at all, on the contrary, they are successfully fulfilling their purpose, carrying out a well-planned restoration of capitalism.
“...The crisis of power has had a catastrophic impact on the economy,” the Address says, “The chaotic, spontaneous slide towards the market has caused an explosion of selfishness...” Again a lie! It was not the crisis of power that affected the economy, but the government deliberately gave the economy into the hands of the bourgeoisie, which, having acquired the necessary strength, began to seize power. It is also a lie that the cause of the troubles is supposedly a chaotic, spontaneous slide towards the market. It turns out that the market is normal, but we had to crawl towards it somehow differently!
At the end of the Address it was said: “We call on all citizens of the Soviet Union to realize their duty to the Motherland and provide full support to the State Emergency Committee and efforts to bring the country out of the crisis. “Realized! But how to provide this support!? Listen to “Swan Lake”? What efforts, what actions did the State Emergency Committee need to support? After all, the State Emergency Committee was completely inactive! Were needed specific directives. There weren't any. The State Emergency Committee did not dare to call on workers to strike, did not dare to organize even a Moscow-wide rally to counter the orgy of the Yeltsinists. Everyone could see Yeltsin, Rutsky, Silaev and others at the House of Soviets, but where and why were the members of the Emergency Committee hiding? Why wasn't Yeltsin arrested? This is where we had to start. Why didn't the troops cordon off the House of Soviets? Who was supposed to do all this? Grandmothers with umbrellas? A good call: “Provide all possible support”! In form it is correct, in essence it is a mockery.
The complete lack of Bolshevik qualities among the members of the State Emergency Committee, and the complete defeat of their consciousness by democratic idiocy, was also expressed in their hopes for the possibility of victory over the bourgeoisie through negotiations - in a failure to understand “that the bourgeoisie will never give up power and property without a fight.” They saw how easily the bourgeoisie took power. But they had to understand that the bourgeoisie relies on the power of money, and therefore has the ability to bribe the media and recruit mercenaries, while the working people can only take power through the most difficult power struggle.
Therefore, calling on the Soviet people to “provide full support to the State Emergency Committee,” the latter had to take all necessary measures to coordinate their actions and make full use of the power structures that were at its disposal. At the same time, members of the State Emergency Committee should not have considered that it was enough for them, precious ones, to get away with abstract calls and watch from their offices how unarmed people provide them with “full support.” They had to personally lead the uprising, they had to take upon themselves the solution of all the main and most dangerous tasks of the struggle.
Unfortunately, there was none of this. A Don’t we know how fearlessly the Bolsheviks acted during the Revolution and Civil War!? Is it possible to imagine Stalin or Dzerzhinsky, who, say, having been captured by the Provisional Government, would write tearful letters to Kerensky? But these were the Bolsheviks! These were people absolutely confident in the rightness of their cause and ready to give their lives for its victory. These were truly the best people of their time. The members of the State Emergency Committee were just the best people from Gorbachev’s entourage. They were not capable of heroic deeds for the sake of the victory of socialism simply because, in essence, they did not even really know what it was. There was not a grain of Bolshevism in them and that decided everything.
The country was flying into the abyss, and the people who could hold it ignored the military oath
For more than a quarter of a century after the events in August 1991, many books and articles were written, many television materials were created, and a large number of debates took place on the radio dedicated to the short history of the existence of the State Emergency Committee.
On the one hand, those in power with amazing persistence continue to repeat the false templates of Yeltsin’s propaganda, born 27 years ago.
On the other hand, despite the fact that most people have long realized the falsity of these writings, they come to the conclusion: many of the circumstances of those days are still shrouded in mystery.
The desire to reveal the truth of the dramatic events that led to the collapse of the USSR and socialism is evidenced by the abundant literature on the history of the State Emergency Committee, which continues to grow every year.
Books and articles published in printing and distributed on the Internet find their many readers who continue to wonder: “Why were the leaders of the government and all law enforcement agencies unable to realize the goals proclaimed by them in the “Address to the Soviet people of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR” dated August 18, 1991, and stop the process of the country’s collapse and the liquidation of the socialist system?”
The Myth of the Coup
Such thoughts do not arise in the minds of those who mindlessly repeat the official explanation of the August 1991 events: “Then a putsch occurred,” that is, there was a rebellion of a small group of adventurers, doomed to failure in advance.
Those who studied modern history in Soviet times could remember this short German word in connection with two events that happened in Germany in the 20s of the twentieth century.
Almost a hundred years ago, putsch was the name given to the attempt at a coup d'etat in Germany, undertaken on March 10, 1920 by landowner W. Kapp, as well as generals Ludendorff, Luttwitz, Seeckt and others.
Relying on the paramilitary "volunteer corps" and units of the Reichswehr, the putschists captured Berlin. The German government fled to Stuttgart.
In response, a general strike of 12 million German workers began. The 100,000-strong German Red Army created these days gave armed resistance to the putschists. Five days later, the Kapp Putsch was defeated.
The history books also mentioned the “beer hall putsch” of the leader of the Nazi Party Hitler and General Ludendorff.
On November 8, 1923, in a Munich beer hall, Hitler announced the overthrow of the governments of Bavaria and all of Germany, as well as the creation of a provisional government of the Reich.
However, the Munich police began shooting at the rioters when they moved from the beer hall to the center of the Bavarian capital, where government offices were located.
Some putschists were killed, others, including Goering, were wounded, and others, including Hitler and Ludendorff, were arrested.
First of all, the word “putsch” to describe the events of August 19–21, 1991 was used in order to equate the creation and activities of the State Emergency Committee with attempts at unsuccessful fascist coups.
The constant use of this term helps to consolidate in the public consciousness the idea of identity between communism and fascism, fabricated in the West.
Its blatant falsity is once again refuted when comparing the State Emergency Committee with the juntas that were created during the fascist uprisings.
Unlike the organizers of the above-mentioned putschs, the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), in its appeal transmitted on August 19, 1991, did not announce the overthrow of the then existing Soviet government.
On the contrary, the State Emergency Committee defended the Soviet system and announced its intention to liquidate institutions created over the past couple of years contrary to the Constitution of the USSR.
The troops sent to Moscow did not storm government buildings, but protected them from possible attempted attacks. Members of the State Emergency Committee did not seize power because they occupied senior government positions.
The State Emergency Committee included Vice-President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev, Prime Minister of the USSR V.S. Pavlov, Minister of Defense D.T. Yazov, Minister of Internal Affairs B.K. Pugo, KGB Chairman V.A. Kryuchkov and others.
The State Emergency Committee became the highest authority in the country, similar to the State Defense Committee of the USSR, created on June 30, 1941.
Then it never occurred to anyone to accuse the members of the State Defense Committee of the coup and call them putschists.
However, unlike the events of 1941, when the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party I.V. Stalin, half a century later, President of the USSR, General Secretary of the Central Committee M.S. Gorbachev did not head the State Committee, which had similar powers.
At the same time, as former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR A.I. repeatedly recalled. Lukyanov, the plan to create the State Emergency Committee was first discussed at a meeting with Gorbachev in March 1991.
According to him, this committee was created by Gorbachev on March 8, 1991, and he also determined its composition: “Then the State Emergency Committee under the leadership of Yanaev included all those whom we saw on TV in August 1991. Leaving for Crimea, Gorbachev left Yanaev in his place as acting.”
This would be similar to if Stalin had refused to head the State Defense Committee and appointed his first deputy V.M. as chairman. Molotov.
However, unlike Gorbachev, Stalin did not shirk responsibility; he thought about state interests, and not about how he would look in the eyes of the “world community.”
Gorbachev chose to remain behind the scenes while members of the State Emergency Committee brought order to the country destroyed as a result of his vicious leadership.
Therefore, when members of the Emergency Committee arrived to him in Foros on August 18 with a proposal to declare a state of emergency in order to prevent the adoption of the Union Treaty, which would lead to the actual liquidation of the USSR, Gorbachev told them: “Act.” But he himself removed himself from doing business.
Although modern school textbooks claim that members of the State Emergency Committee declared that “M.S. Gorbachev is temporarily removed from power,” these words cannot be found in any of the documents of the State Emergency Committee.
True, to explain Gorbachev’s absence from the State Emergency Committee, its members announced the illness of the General Secretary.
However, already at a press conference on August 19, Yanaev firmly said that members of the State Emergency Committee intend to continue to work together with Gorbachev.
Counter-revolutionary rebellion against the constitutional order
Accusations of the organizers of the State Emergency Committee of organizing a putsch came from members of the leadership of the RSFSR, led by B.N. Yeltsin, who acted according to the old principle, when the one who stole shouts loudest: “Stop the thief!”
Even before the creation of the State Emergency Committee, the Yeltsin government adopted a number of unconstitutional decrees prohibiting the application of union laws without the consent of the authorities of the RSFSR.
The statements of the Yeltsin government after the creation of the State Emergency Committee were just as illegal.
Since the government of the RSFSR was directly subordinate to the government of the USSR, refusal to recognize the creation of the State Emergency Committee and carry out its orders was a rebellion against the legitimate all-Union government.
For a similar reason, the southern states that declared secession from the United States in 1861 were declared in rebellion by the legitimate government of Abraham Lincoln.
However, if the rebellion of the southern slave-holding states led to the split of the United States into two parts, then Yeltsin’s rebellion provoked the collapse of the USSR into several state entities and led to the liquidation of a great power.
But above all, Yeltsin’s rebellion represented the culmination of counter-revolutionary efforts to restore capitalism in our country, which grew with every year of Gorbachev’s perestroika.
It is no coincidence that Yeltsin’s supporters, at a demonstration of brokers led by Borov, representing the rapidly emerging bourgeoisie of Russia, walked through the Moscow streets with a giant tricolor, as if announcing the resumption of the civil war against the Land of the Soviets.
Yeltsin's counter-revolutionary rebellion was supported by the shadow bourgeoisie of other republics of the USSR, emerging from underground, and by the leaders of the largest Western powers.
In Moscow, tens of thousands of residents of the capital came out in support of the rebellion, who came to the walls of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR on the morning of August 19.
According to the then USSR Minister of Defense D.T. Yazov, about 70 thousand Muscovites gathered there, which was less than 1% of the then population of the capital. Nowhere else in Moscow or other cities of the Union were such meetings held in those days.
Later I learned that among those gathered were my acquaintances from the school where I studied and the academic institute where I worked.
Although quite good, if not excellent, specialists in their fields, they, like some intellectuals in the capital at that time, did not have sufficiently deep knowledge on many of the most important issues of social development.
However, for many years they compensated for their ignorance by voraciously devouring sensational rumors and false material from foreign radio voices.
During the years of Gorbachev's perestroika, they became regular consumers of anti-Soviet propaganda, disseminated in fiction novels, films, journalistic articles and television materials, where an attack was launched on the past and present of our country, the idea that Soviet society had reached a dead end was persistently imposed.
Under the influence of this propaganda, the participants in the gathering at the walls of the Supreme Council, long before August 19, formed as enemies of the existing system.
It is not surprising that they joined the ranks of the rebels and began to build barricades.
People who still considered themselves intellectuals decorated the walls of nearby buildings with obscene inscriptions with curses addressed to members of the State Emergency Committee.
This was greatly facilitated by their consumption of alcohol, which was distributed free of charge by the owners of the newly established cooperatives.
Some Moscow intellectuals tried to portray the participants in the uprising as they imagined it from Soviet historical and revolutionary plays and films.
In the book “How Gorbachev “broke into power,” Valery Legostaev described his impressions of a walk through the center of Moscow on August 20: “On the corner of Gorky Street, near the underground passage, there is a tank.
It shows a young man about 30 years old, overweight, waving a striped flag...
From time to time he shouts: “Gorbachev, Yeltsin - yes!” Military coup - no!”
A crowd of about 10 people nearby picks up this slogan.” Legostaev also remembered a woman of about 40–45 years old who swoops down on a tired soldier like a kite and shouts in his face: “Are you going to shoot at mothers?
Are you going to shoot mothers?!”
That same evening I was on Teatralnaya Square and saw a similar “lady” who, standing near the tank, shouted similar lines from an old-fashioned theater performance.
The soldiers on the tank, as well as the rest of the people in the square, looked at the woman as if she were crazy.
At that time, none of the unwitting spectators of these amateur mini-performances could imagine that their performers would soon receive medals for their services to the struggle for democracy and would be called “Defenders of the White House.”
The myth of the “people's revolution”
In his book “The Rebellion against Yeltsin. Team to Save the USSR" Vladimir Isakov, who at that time was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, captured how and by whom the legend of nationwide resistance to the "putsch" was created.
In his diary he wrote: “The internal radio broadcasts around the clock...
There is a continuous stream of comments, interviews, summaries of the latest events, and famous artists perform in front of the White House defenders.
Before our eyes, the image of a GREAT EVENT materializes, is cast in bronze with gilding, and is replicated in millions of copies.”
To complete the majestic picture, an armed clash between the “heroes of democracy” and the “putschists” was not enough.
This deficiency was supplemented by the clash that occurred the next day, August 21, on the Garden Ring between the crew of an armored personnel carrier and three young men with bottles containing a Molotov cocktail.
Through the efforts of the media, this event was turned into a heroic battle.
And although the armored personnel carrier was moving in the opposite direction from the building of the Supreme Council, it was argued that the young people who died during this skirmish stopped the assault on the Russian parliament.
The exaltation of the EVENT AND ITS HEROES continued in the following days. On August 31, 1991, the Rossiya newspaper was choked with delight: “Today, all of us, Russians, are, as it were, at one of the peaks of the mountain system of history. Totalitarianism, the empire, and forcibly implanted Idols are collapsing.
At a new stage, there is a return to the path of development that excludes violence against nature, into the bosom of civilized states.”
The famous publicist A. Bovin, who soon became ambassador to Israel, wrote in Izvestia in those days about the “people's revolution.” Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, writer A. Adamovich called for declaring the events of August 19–22 “a revolution with a smile of Rostropovich,” since a photo of a smiling cellist with a machine gun in his hands near the building of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR was widely circulated in the media.
The fact that efforts to create a heroic myth about the victory of the popular uprising against the State Emergency Committee were crowned with success is evidenced by its consolidation in the curricula of Russian schools.
School history textbook for 11th grade, written by N.V. Zagladin, S.I. Kozlenko, S. T. Minaev, Yu.A. Petrov, broadcasts: “The society did not support the policy of the State Emergency Committee. Thousands of Muscovites rose up to defend the government and parliament of Russia, which did not recognize the power of the putschists, and surrounded their residence, the White House, with a living ring.”
Dive into the swamp
In fact, in addition to those who stood near the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, in those days there were many more people who held different views.
Gennady Yanaev recalled in his book “GKChP against Gorbachev. The last battle for the USSR": " On the first day of the state of emergency declared in the USSR, out of every thousand telegrams I received in the Kremlin, 700–800 were in support of the State Emergency Committee.” True, Yanaev admitted that the ratio between telegrams of approval and messages condemning the State Emergency Committee on August 20 was already “fifty-fifty.”».
Such swings in mood were explained by deep contradictions in the public consciousness of the Soviet people. Data from sociological surveys, which were announced by V. Kryuchkov and then cited in his book “August 1991.
Where was the KGB? Oleg Khlobustov, testified to the split of Soviet society into three groups:
"ABOUT 5 to 10 percent of the population actively expressed a negative attitude towards the Union and the socialist social system».
Second group (up to 15 - 20 percent) " firmly advocated for the preservation of the Union, for the socialist choice... The bulk of the population - up to 70 percent - behaved indifferently, passively, hoping that decisions that would meet their interests would be developed and accepted by someone other than their interested participation».
Khlobustov noted: “The participants in this “undecided” swamp were situationally oriented, that is, they could support first one side or the other on certain issues».
Contrary to the false information now disseminated in school textbooks, “the defenders of the “White House” did not represent the entire society, but at most 5–10 percent of the country’s population, who were conscious enemies of socialism and the Soviet system.
At the same time, it is possible that a significant part of the telegrams that went to Yanaev in the Kremlin were sent from the “swamp”.
Those who were supposed to show firmness and determination also plunged into the unsteady swamp. A former employee of the Central Committee apparatus, Valery Legostaev, recalled: on the morning of August 19, there was a rumor that the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Oleg Shenin had sent an encrypted message to the localities with instructions to support the State Emergency Committee.
Later this rumor was confirmed.
However, “in the afternoon, Ivashko came to the Central Committee from Barvikha, pushed aside Shenin and took control of the control. It immediately became quiet, like in the children's game “freeze.”
Nobody could really explain anything.”
Since V.A. Ivashko was the first deputy general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, he had to follow Gorbachev’s instructions. However, he had no such instructions.
Ivashko forbade the transmission of encryption, but verbally advocated support for the State Emergency Committee.
The position of non-intervention taken by Gorbachev and a number of other leading figures of the Party Central Committee paralyzed the main political force of the country, capable of mobilizing the most active part of the Soviet people to repel the counter-revolution.
Recalling the situation in the Central Committee apparatus, Legostaev wrote:
« Only rumors swarmed around. A feeling arose in my soul and began to grow that we were all in a trap from which there was no way out. On Tuesday, August 20, there was no one in the corridors of the Organizational Department. Everyone sat in their offices like mice. Sometimes one of my colleagues would drop by, leave a rumor and disappear».
Meanwhile, the actions of the State Emergency Committee, according to Yanaev, “were subject to the vicious logic of demonstrative confrontation with the Yeltsin authorities.
A senseless struggle of decrees and resolutions began: we issue - they cancel, they issue - we cancel.
This “tug of war” took up precious time, which, as they say, did not work for us.
Why did everything turn out this way?
Probably, first of all, because we, members of the State Emergency Committee, found ourselves in such “abnormal” conditions for the first time and were too poorly prepared for them.
And this weakness, half-heartedness in decision-making, which Soviet society undoubtedly expected, could not but affect its mood in the August days of 1991.”
Those who betrayed their oath
It was impossible to crush Yeltsin’s rebellion with decrees, and the Emergency Committee developed decisive measures in advance to suppress it. However, their implementation was thwarted by those who stabbed supporters of the preservation of the Union in the back.
From the book “Leonid Shebarshin,” in which Anatoly Zhitnukhin presented a comprehensive portrait of this talented intelligence officer, it becomes clear that the leading executors of the State Emergency Committee's decisions sabotaged them from the first hours of its existence.
Zhitnukhin writes:
« Already on August 19, at a meeting of the intelligence leadership, on the initiative of Shebarshin, it was decided not to take measures to implement the instructions of the KGB chairman in connection with the introduction of a state of emergency and the decisions taken by the State Emergency Committee, but to limit ourselves only to informing foreign apparatus and intelligence officers about the events that had taken place in the country. Instructions were given to send only information about the negative reaction of government circles to the Analytical Department of the KGB and the State Emergency Committee and the public of foreign countries on events in the USSR».
Explaining the reasons that leading KGB officer Shebarshin took the path of sabotage, Zhitnukhin wrote about his long-standing disagreements with KGB chairman Kryuchkov.
These disagreements were caused by Shebarshin's hostility towards the Communist Party, its policies and theories. Zhitnukhin writes:
In addition, as Zhitnukhin notes, “Shebarshin’s line of isolating intelligence from other departments and divisions of the KGB, accompanied by his frequent discussions about the elitism and corporate characteristics of intelligence, was too obvious.
Behind this point of view, the leadership of the KGB and many heads of other departments saw not only some snobbery, but also a desire to remove only intelligence from the sweeping criticism of the “democrats” and declare its non-involvement in the repressions of the 1930s.”
It turns out that, blinded by his high professionalism, Shebarshin put himself and the interests of his colleagues above state considerations and official duty.
Taking a course to sabotage the actions of the State Emergency Committee, “Shebarshin forbade Colonel B.P. Beskov, the commander of the Vympel group, is to participate in the planned actions of the State Emergency Committee, which include, in particular, the arrest of Yeltsin.”
The logic of Shebarshin’s actions, who in the past boldly carried out responsible and risky government tasks, brought him into the camp of the enemies of the USSR.
Zhitnukhin admits:
« Shebarshin in those days took the side of Yeltsin’s entourage. At the critical moment of the confrontation, he was with G.E. Burbulis, Yeltsin's closest ally, and consulted with him. It was from Burbulis’s office that Shebarshin, as he writes in his memoirs, called Kryuchkov and began to dissuade him from any decisive action
. At the same time, he believed that a civil war might break out. But it looked rather naive - there were no prerequisites in the country for this O".
Shebarshin was not alone in his subversive activities. Zhitnukhin writes:
« Following this, the same decision was made by the commander of the Alpha group, Major General V.F. Karpukhin. Both heads of special forces just before the start of the special operation “Thunder” to seize the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in the office of the first deputy chairman of the KGB G.E. Ageeva refused to participate in it...
The developers of Operation Thunder, scheduled for three o'clock in the morning on August 21, understood perfectly well that neither tank regiments nor airborne battalions were needed to implement it - it was assumed that army units and units of internal troops would only block the Supreme Council.
Two elite teams - the groups of Karpukhin and Beskov - could easily cope with the main task. Karpukhin and many other experts shared this opinion the day before.
Later, during interrogation, the head of the Alpha group department, A. Savelyev, also expressed a similar point of view: “As a professional, I will say that in technical terms, the storming of the building of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR was not particularly difficult, our people were well prepared and could complete the task».
Not only some KGB officers took part in actions against the State Emergency Committee. Zhitnukhin writes:
« Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR V.A. Achalov convinced his minister D.T. Yazov to cancel the participation of military units in Operation Thunder.
The then first deputy minister of internal affairs, V.V. Gromov told Minister B.K. Pugo that the internal troops will not carry out his orders».
The simultaneous refusal of leading figures in the security forces to carry out the orders of their superiors means that the motives that Zhitnukhin revealed to explain Shebarshin’s behavior are unlikely to be fully applicable to interpreting the behavior of other saboteurs.
They were unlikely to share Shebarshin’s thoughts about the elitism of foreign intelligence officers.
At the same time, it is possible that some of the reasons for the reluctance of Gromov, Achalov, Shebarshin and others to carry out the orders of their superiors were similar.
Perhaps they were terrorized by mass propaganda, which constantly spoke about “Stalinism” and the inadmissibility of its repetition.
In his book, Oleg Khlobustov told how in 1989 he “had the opportunity to take part in conducting a content analysis of a number of publications of central and regional publications - about 900 articles in total - on the issues of covering the activities of state security agencies at various stages of their existence.”
According to O. Khlobustov, “about 70% of the analyzed publications had a clearly negative, “exposing” character regarding the activities of state security agencies, and they mainly concerned the period 1930–1950.
But the “conclusions” were extrapolated to the activities of the KGB of the USSR. 20% were “neutral” publications and about 10% were “positive” materials about the modern activities of the KGB bodies.” Khlobustov admitted that “the latter, as a rule, were prepared with the participation of public relations units of the KGB of the USSR.”
Law enforcement officers realized that if they participated in the dispersal of “popular” protests and arrests, they would immediately be declared continuators of “Stalinist repressions.”
From Zhitnukhin’s words it follows that Shebarshin was afraid of this, who tried to separate foreign intelligence from the activities of Soviet counterintelligence, especially in the 1930s. Perhaps they were afraid of being labeled “neo-Stalinists”
Gromov, Achalov and others.
The fact that these fears were not groundless was evidenced by the events that followed the arrests of members of the State Emergency Committee.
They were accused of intending to unleash monstrous mass repressions.
A lie was spread on radio and television that the State Emergency Committee allegedly ordered a certain factory to produce a million handcuffs. Hysterical calls from a number of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for reprisals against members of the State Emergency Committee and their “accomplices” (and these speeches were broadcast live on radio and television), wild pogroms in the premises of the CPSU Central Committee, the overthrow of the monument to F.E. Dzerzhinsky and many other events at the end of August showed the extent of the anti-Soviet psychopathic epidemic.
The fear of becoming its victims made many people forget what the price of their inaction would be.
But they had already witnessed the bloody events in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, they already knew about the uncontrolled growth of criminal business, lawlessness and crime.
They could easily guess what awaited the country if measures, even severe ones, were not taken to save it.
And yet it is obvious that not all law enforcement officers were intimidated by propaganda terror.
At the same time, we do not yet know all the methods of influence that were applied to those who violated the oath. It is possible that they received “offers they could not refuse.”
All the secrets of how and by whom the defeat of the Emergency Committee was prepared have not yet been revealed.
There is still much to be learned about which of the embassies of the Western powers and their intelligence services directed destructive activities against the defenders of the integrity of the USSR.
Zhitnukhin states:
« The country was flying into the abyss, and the people who could hold it ignored the military oath... It was a complete failure».
Sabotage in the leadership of the security forces of the USSR, and not the screams of exalted ladies on the streets of Moscow and the drunken public at the walls of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, paralyzed the activities of the State Emergency Committee.
The defeat of the Emergency Committee meant the victory of the counter-revolutionary separatist rebels not only in Russia.
Soon after the arrest of the members of the State Emergency Committee, many union republics adopted declarations of independence.
The path to Belovezhskaya Pushcha to the complete dismantling of the USSR was opened in August 1991.
Despite the incessant slander against the State Emergency Committee, for more than two decades of life without the USSR and socialism, many of those who were previously stuck in an ideological swamp realized what a disaster the defeat of the last defenders of the USSR turned out to be. Unfortunately, this realization came too late and the price was too high for it.
Yuri Emelyanov
Members of the Emergency Committee declared a state of emergency in the country, and troops were sent to Moscow. The main goal of the putschists was to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union... One of the symbols of the “August putsch” was the ballet “Swan Lake,” which was shown on television channels between news broadcasts.
Lenta.ru
17-21 AUGUST 1991
A meeting of future members of the State Emergency Committee took place at the ABC facility - the closed guest residence of the KGB. It was decided to introduce a state of emergency from August 19, form the State Emergency Committee, demand that Gorbachev sign the relevant decrees or resign and transfer powers to Vice President Gennady Yanaev, Yeltsin was detained at the Chkalovsky airfield upon arrival from Kazakhstan for a conversation with Defense Minister Yazov, further action depending on the results of the negotiations.
Representatives of the committee flew to Crimea to negotiate with Gorbachev, who was on vacation in Foros, to secure his consent to introduce a state of emergency. Gorbachev refused to give them his consent.
At 16.32, all types of communications were turned off at the presidential dacha, including the channel that provided control of the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR.
At 04.00, the Sevastopol regiment of the USSR KGB troops blocked the presidential dacha in Foros.
From 06.00, the All-Union Radio begins to broadcast messages about the introduction of a state of emergency in some regions of the USSR, a decree of the Vice-President of the USSR Yanaev on his assumption of duties as President of the USSR in connection with Gorbachev’s ill health, a statement by the Soviet leadership on the creation, an appeal to the State Emergency Committee to the Soviet people.
The State Emergency Committee included Vice-President of the USSR Gennady Yanaev, Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Boris Pugo, Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Kryuchkov, First Deputy Chairman of the Defense Council of the USSR Oleg Baklanov, Chairman of the Peasant Union of the USSR Vasily Starodubtsev , President of the Association of State Enterprises and Industrial, Construction, Transport and Communications of the USSR Alexander Tizyakov.
At about 7.00, on the orders of Yazov, the second motorized rifle Taman division and the fourth tank Kantemirovskaya division began moving towards Moscow. Marching on military equipment, the 51st, 137th and 331st parachute regiments also began moving towards the capital.
09.00. A rally in support of democracy and Yeltsin began at the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky in Moscow.
09.40. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his associates arrive at the White House (House of Soviets of the RSFSR), in a telephone conversation with Kryuchkov he refuses to recognize the State Emergency Committee.
10.00. The troops occupy their assigned positions in the center of Moscow. Directly near the White House there are armored vehicles of the battalion of the Tula Airborne Division under the command of Major General Alexander Lebed and the Taman Division.
11.45. The first columns of demonstrators arrived at Manezhnaya Square. No measures were taken to disperse the crowd.
12.15. Several thousand citizens gathered at the White House, and Boris Yeltsin came out to them. He read from the tank “An Appeal to the Citizens of Russia,” in which he called the actions of the State Emergency Committee a “reactionary, anti-constitutional coup.” The appeal was signed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Ivan Silaev and acting. Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov.
12.30. Yeltsin issued Decree No. 59, where the creation of the State Emergency Committee was qualified as an attempt at a coup.
Around 2 p.m., those gathered near the White House began constructing makeshift barricades.
14.30. The session of the Leningrad City Council adopted an appeal to the President of Russia, refused to recognize the State Emergency Committee and declare a state of emergency.
15.30. Major Evdokimov's tank company - 6 tanks without ammunition - went over to Yeltsin's side.
16.00. By Yanaev's decree, a state of emergency is introduced in Moscow.
At about 17.00, Yeltsin issued Decree No. 61, by which the Union executive authorities, including security forces, were reassigned to the President of the RSFSR.
At 17:00, a press conference by Yanaev and other members of the State Emergency Committee began in the press center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Answering the question where the President of the USSR is now, Yanaev said that Gorbachev is “on vacation and treatment in Crimea. Over the years he has become very tired and it takes time for him to improve his health.”
In Leningrad, rallies of thousands took place on St. Isaac's Square. People gathered for rallies against the State Emergency Committee in Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen and other cities of Russia.
The radio of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, which had just been created in the White House, broadcast an appeal to citizens, in which they were asked to dismantle the barricades in front of the White House so that the Taman Division, loyal to the Russian leadership, could bring its tanks to positions near the building.
05.00. The Vitebsk Airborne Division of the KGB of the USSR and the Pskov Division of the USSR Ministry of Defense approached Leningrad, but did not enter the city, but were stopped near Siverskaya (70 km from the city).
10.00. A mass rally on Palace Square in Leningrad brought together about 300 thousand people. The city's military promised that the army would not interfere.
At about 11.00, the editors of 11 independent newspapers gathered at the Moscow News editorial office and agreed to publish the Obshchaya Gazeta, which was urgently registered with the Ministry of Press of the RSFSR (published the next day).
12.00. A rally sanctioned by the city authorities began near the White House (at least 100 thousand participants). The rally at the Moscow City Council - about 50 thousand participants.
In connection with the hospitalization of Valentin Pavlov, temporary leadership of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was entrusted to Vitaly Doguzhiev.
Russia creates a temporary republican Ministry of Defense. Konstantin Kobets is appointed Minister of Defense.
In the evening, the Vremya program announced the introduction of a curfew in the capital from 23.00 to 5.00.
On the night of August 21, in an underground transport tunnel at the intersection of Kalininsky Prospekt (now Novy Arbat Street) and the Garden Ring (Tchaikovsky Street), clogged with armored vehicles of infantry fighting vehicles, three civilians died during maneuvering: Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky.
03.00. Air Force Commander Yevgeny Shaposhnikov suggests that Yazov withdraw troops from Moscow and that the State Emergency Committee “be declared illegal and dispersed.”
05.00. A meeting of the board of the USSR Ministry of Defense was held, at which the commanders-in-chief of the Navy and Strategic Missile Forces supported Shaposhnikov’s proposal. Yazov gives the order to withdraw troops from Moscow.
11.00. An emergency session of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR has opened. There was one issue on the agenda - the political situation in the RSFSR, “which developed as a result of the coup d’etat.”
At 14.18, the Il-62 with members of the State Emergency Committee on board flew to Crimea to visit Gorbachev. The plane took off a few minutes before the arrival of a group of 50 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, which was tasked with arresting the members of the committee.
Gorbachev refused to accept them and demanded that contact with the outside world be restored.
On another plane at 16.52, Vice-President of the RSFSR Alexander Rutskoy and Prime Minister Ivan Silaev flew to Foros to see Gorbachev.
White House Defenders
22:00. Yeltsin signed a decree on the annulment of all decisions of the State Emergency Committee and on a number of reshuffles in the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.
01:30. The Tu-134 plane with Rutsky, Silaev and Gorbachev landed in Moscow at Vnukovo-2.
Most members of the State Emergency Committee were arrested.
Moscow declared mourning for the victims.
The winners' rally at the White House began at 12.00. In the middle of the day, Yeltsin, Silaev and Khasbulatov spoke at it. During the rally, demonstrators brought out a huge banner of the Russian tricolor; The President of the RSFSR announced that a decision had been made to make the white-azure-red banner the new state flag of Russia.
The new state flag of Russia (tricolor) was installed for the first time at the top of the building of the House of Soviets.
On the night of August 23, by order of the Moscow City Council, amid a massive gathering of protesters, the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square was dismantled.
DOCUMENTS of the State Emergency Committee
Vice President of the USSR
Due to the impossibility for health reasons, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev assumed the duties of President of the USSR on the basis of Article 1277 of the USSR Constitution on August 19, 1991.
Vice President of the USSR
G. I. YANAEV
From the Appeal
to the Soviet people
State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR
...The crisis of power has had a catastrophic effect on the economy. The chaotic, spontaneous slide towards the market caused an explosion of egoism - regional, departmental, group and personal. The war of laws and the encouragement of centrifugal tendencies resulted in the destruction of a single national economic mechanism that had been developing for decades. The result was a sharp drop in the standard of living of the vast majority of Soviet people, and the flourishing of speculation and the shadow economy. It’s high time to tell people the truth: if urgent measures are not taken to stabilize the economy, then in the very near future famine and a new round of impoverishment are inevitable, from which one step away from mass manifestations of spontaneous discontent with devastating consequences...
From Resolution No. 1
State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR
6. Citizens, institutions and organizations must immediately hand over all types of firearms, ammunition, explosives, military equipment and equipment illegally held in them. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR must ensure strict compliance with this requirement. In cases of refusal, they must be forcibly confiscated, with violators subject to strict criminal and administrative liability.
From Resolution No. 2
State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR
1. Temporarily limit the list of central, Moscow city and regional socio-political publications to the following newspapers: “Trud”, “Rabochaya Tribuna”, “Izvestia”, “Pravda”, “Krasnaya Zvezda”, “Soviet Russia”, “Moskovskaya Pravda” , “Lenin’s Banner”, “Rural Life”.
"BAD BOY"
August 20, the second day of the coup, nerves are at their limit. Everyone who has a radio listens to the radio. Those who have a TV do not miss a single news broadcast. I then worked at Vesti. Vesti was taken off the air. We sit and watch channel one. At three o'clock there is a regular episode that no one has watched before. And then everyone stuck. And the announcer appears in the frame, and suddenly begins to read messages from news agencies: President Bush condemns the putschists, British Prime Minister John Major condemns, the world community is outraged - and at the end: Yeltsin declared the State Emergency Committee outlawed, the Russian prosecutor, then Stepankov, initiates criminal proceedings case. We are shocked. And I imagine how many people, including participants in the events who at that moment caught the slightest hint of which way the situation was swinging, ran to the White House to Yeltsin to sign their allegiance and loyalty. On the third day, in the evening, I meet Tanechka Sopova, who was then working in the Main Information Editorial Office of Central Television, well, hugs, kisses. I say: “Tatyan, what happened with you?” “And this is me, the Bad Boy,” says Tanya. “I was the responsible graduate.” That is, she was collecting a folder, selecting news.
And there was an order: go and coordinate everything. “I come in,” he says, “once, and the whole synclite is sitting there and some people, complete strangers. They are discussing what to broadcast at 21:00 on the Vremya program. And here I am, little one, poking around with my papers.” She really is such a tiny woman. “They tell me in plain text where I should go with my three-hour news: “Do it yourself!” “Well, I went and made up the layout.”
AND THERE ARE STATISTICS
The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) annually conducts a survey of Russians on how they assess the events of August 1991.
In 1994, a survey showed that 53% of respondents believed that the putsch was suppressed in 1991, 38% called the actions of the State Emergency Committee a tragic event that had disastrous consequences for the country and people.
Five years later - in 1999 - during a similar survey, only 9% of Russians considered the suppression of the Emergency Committee a victory for the “democratic revolution”; 40% of respondents consider the events of those days simply an episode of the struggle for power in the country's top leadership.
A sociological survey conducted by VTsIOM in 2002 showed that the share of Russians who believe that in 1991 the leaders of the State Emergency Committee saved the Motherland, the great USSR, increased one and a half times - from 14 to 21% and one and a half times (from 24 to 17 %) the share of those who believed that on August 19-21, 1991, opponents of the State Emergency Committee were right decreased.
More impressive results were obtained in August 2010 based on the results of voting on the series of programs “The Court of Time”, conducted by N. Svanidze. When asked what the State Emergency Committee of August 1991 was - a putsch or an attempt to avoid the collapse of the country - despite the efforts of N. Svanidze, 93% of TV viewers surveyed answered - it was a desire to preserve the USSR!
MARSHAL YAZOV: WE SERVED THE PEOPLE
DP.RU: In fact, the State Emergency Committee was impromptu; you, as a military leader, should have understood that if the operation was not prepared, the forces would not be pulled together...
Dmitry Yazov: There was no need to pull together any forces, we were not going to kill anyone. The only thing we were going to do was to disrupt the signing of this treaty on the Union of Sovereign States. It was obvious that there would be no state. And since there will be no state, it means that measures had to be taken so that there would be a state. The entire government gathered and decided: we must go to Gorbachev. Everyone went to tell him: are you for the state or not? Let's take action. But someone as weak-willed as Mikhail Sergeevich could not do this. Didn't even listen. We left. Gorbachev made a speech, his son-in-law recorded it on tape, Raisa Maksimovna: “I hid it in such a way, and my daughter hid it in such a way that no one would have found it.” Well, it’s clear where she put this tape, of course, no one would have gotten into it. Who needed it, this film. The state is collapsing, and he expressed his resentment that his communications were cut off and he was not allowed to talk to Bush.
DP.RU: I heard that you yourself allocated a battalion to guard the White House.
Dmitry Yazov: Absolutely correct.
DP.RU: But then they said: the troops went over to Yeltsin’s side. It turns out that everything was wrong?
Dmitry Yazov: Of course not. Shortly before this, Yeltsin was elected president. Arrived in Tula. There Grachev showed him the teachings of the airborne division. Well, not the entire division - the regiment. I liked the teaching, drank well, and Yeltsin thought that Pasha Grachev was his best friend. When a state of emergency was introduced, Yeltsin was indignant, like a coup. But no one arrested him. No one had a hand in it at all. Yeltsin then, in 1993, could have turned off the lights, could have turned off the water, could have shot the Supreme Council... But we didn’t guess, such fools! Yeltsin was in Almaty the day before and then said that the State Emergency Committee delayed the plane’s departure for 4 hours in order to shoot down the plane. Can you imagine how mean it is! The newspapers wrote how he spent those 4 hours. Nazarbayev and I played tennis for 2.5 hours in the rain, then we went to wash... And he: they wanted to shoot me down!!! He arrived at the White House himself and called Pasha Grachev: assign security. Grachev calls me: Yeltsin asks for security. I say: Lebed went with the battalion. So that there really are no provocations.
We organized a patrol, a company of infantry fighting vehicles was marching... Here, right on Novy Arbat Avenue, they placed trolleybuses and made a barricade under the bridge. The tanks would have passed, but the infantry fighting vehicles would have stopped. There are drunk people there: some started beating with sticks, others threw up a tent so that nothing could be seen. Three people died. Who shot? Someone was shooting from the roof. The military did not shoot. Someone was interested. Everything was done to ensure that there was a civil war. And I took and withdrew the troops. I got ready to go to Gorbachev, and everyone came running. I say let's go. When they arrived, he took this pose. Didn't accept anyone. We humiliated him!!!
Rutskoi, Bakatin, Silaev arrived on another plane - those, excuse the expression, brethren who, it seems, hated both the Soviet Union and the Russian people. Well, Rutskoi, the man whom we rescued from captivity, later showed what he was like: for the president, a year later - against the president. Ungrateful people - of course, we didn’t need gratitude from them, we served the people. Of course, I saw that there would be an arrest now. It didn’t cost me anything to land a brigade at an airfield or land at another airfield myself, but it would have been a civil war. I served the people, and I would have to, because they want to arrest me, start a war, shoot at the people. Just from a human point of view, should this have been done or not?
DP.RU: War is always bad...
Dmitry Yazov: Yes. And I think - to hell with him, in the end, let him arrest: there is no evidence of a crime. But they are arrested, and immediately Article 64 is treason. But how can you prove to me treason? Yesterday I was the minister, I sent in troops to guard the Kremlin, to guard the water intake, to protect the Gokhran. Everything was saved. Then they plundered it. Diamonds, remember, were taken in bags to America... And how did it all end? Three people gathered - Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich. Did they have the right to liquidate the state? They signed it while drunk, slept through it, and reported to Bush first thing in the morning... What a shame! Gorbachev: I was not informed. But they didn’t report to you because they didn’t want you to be president. You made them sovereign - they became sovereign. And they didn't care about you. Yeltsin literally 3-4 days later kicked him out of the Kremlin and from the dacha, and now he hangs around the world.
State Emergency Committee member Dmitry Yazov: “The Americans put in 5 trillion in order to liquidate the Soviet Union.” Business Petersburg. August 19, 2011
The State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) - judging by the description of its supporter given below, was already “on the stratum” in August 1991 Not capable of creating a social movement:
“Of course, breaking up a drunken party in front of the White House in August 1991 was not a problem at all.
Hoarse and confused, deaf from hundred, at least telephone conversations with Moscow, already at night I proposed the last option. Due to the fact that the State Emergency Committee did not want to take any adequate measures, the following was proposed: to carefully mix a dozen smarter GB and GRU officers into the crowd near the White House.
Under their clothes they were supposed to have so-called, in the language of filmmakers, bullet refills - small plates with a capsule of movie “blood” and a capsule equipped with an electric detonator...
I played enough of these things when I was a performer of specific equestrian tricks: at a given moment you press the button of a small remote control taped to the palm of your hand, and in the right places your clothes explode and blood splatters. We've seen all this quite often in the movies.
So, a dozen officers, covered in bait, disappear into the crowd. A company of machine gunners launches into the crowd, opening fire with blanks. The crowd sees falling, bloody people, sees with their own eyes how clothes are torn and blood gushes under the blows of bullets. The excitement and wildness of the crowd should have brightened up some of the cinematic quality of the wounds.
Sensing real danger, seeing the “killed”, the crowd would have fled from the “White House” so that it would have stopped only near Volokolamsk. In order to avoid casualties during panic, flight and to prevent the democrats from trampling their own, in a certain place, in a wedge shape, four OMSDON units were placed, which would meet the crowd with a “comb” and divide it into eight streams, in which concentration and pressure would be weakened or completely nullified.
The final part of the plan was for television to respond immediately.
While the special forces would be working with the right people in the building, several television crews would be filming the “dead” coming to life. The next morning - after all the media loyal to the Democrats would have howled about “hundreds of dead people” - the truth about what happened would have been demonstrated on all television channels.
In addition to the physical victory, the very next morning we would have had a colossal moral victory, and the democrats would have looked fooled, and Rus' does not like fools, no matter how you look at it.
The minister liked the plan. We started to implement. They already looked for officers, and then it turned out that all the film studios were closed at night and there was nowhere to get “refills”... And this is at the government level! At the level of the State Committee for the State of Emergency...
The minister, having learned about the situation, quietly cursed, asked to call back and... disappeared. Other members of the State Emergency Committee responded, but, to my great amazement, only by calling their own dachas... For reasons that I cannot explain here, that night I was not able to leave Leningrad for Moscow.”
Nevzorov A.G., Field of Honor, St. Petersburg, “Chance”, 1995, p. 151-152.
