THE LAST DAY OF THE AUGUST 1991 SOVIET COUP

THE RUSSIA DELEGATION 

BRINGS MIKHAIL GORBACHEV 

HOME TO MOSCOW 

THE SOVIET DELEGATION 

IS ACED OUT 

Russia Vice-President ALEKSANDR RUTSKOI 
(center left, with dark hair and moustache) and 
 Russian Prime Minister IVAN SILAYEV 
(center right, with white hair) 
at the Congress of People's Deputies of 
the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic 
July 1991 

On Wednesday, August 21, 1991, a delegation of Russian leaders including Vice-President Aleksandr Rutskoi and Prime Minister Ivan Silayev flew to Foros in the Crimea, where Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was said to have been held against his will since Sunday, August 18th.  A delegation of Soviet leaders flew in a separate plane.  Gorbachev rejected them as implicated in the coup against him, and flew back to Moscow with the Russian delegation instead.  His arrival in the early hours of August 22nd definitively ended the coup, but Gorbachev was soon to find he had stepped back into a very different political world. 

More to come in  RUSSIA REDUX 

WHY THE AUGUST COUP? THE UNION TREATY WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN SIGNED TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO TODAY

DAY THREE OF 

THE 1991 AUGUST COUP 

August 20, 1991 

NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV 
President of Kazakhstan 
Photographed in 1997 
In office in 1991, and still in office today 

From RUSSIA REDUX, Chapter Eight: 

Gorbachev has described the coup plotters "as 'egotistical careerists' who decided to act against him when it became clear that there would be no place for them in the new order."  The new order was to be brought into being by the signing of the Union Treaty on August 20, 1991; it "would have reshaped the Soviet Union as a loose confederation of sovereign states and resulted in a major government shake-up."  So it was not just some abstract concerns about intergovernmental structures which drove the conspirators, according to their patron, but the detailed knowledge about kto kogo -- who was going to do what to whom. 

For Gorbachev was convinced, afterwards, that his conversations with the top republican leaders at Novo-Ogarëvo were bugged, and what they contained was dynamite.  Gorbachev has been releasing this dynamite in pieces.  In an early version he revealed that: 

Yeltsin, Nazarbayev, and I already had an understanding that once the Union Treaty had been signed, and without waiting for the new constitution, we would move toward new organs of power and new elections.  We were thinking in terms of agreeing this [sic] with other republic leaders too.  Thus, new people would have come to the fore. 

Yeltsin of Russia, Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, had reached an understanding. 

And so some of the "old people," people Gorbachev had appointed,  organized the coup -- the GKChPists, including Vladimir Kryuchkov (the KGB) and Dmitry Yazov (Ministry of Defense) and Boris Pugo (Ministry of the Interior).  

But they did not seize Boris Yeltsin. 

THE 1991 AUGUST COUP, DAY TWO

THE COUP BECOMES PUBLIC 

THE TANKS ENTER MOSCOW 

BORIS YELTSIN STANDS ON ONE 

August 19, 1991 

DMITRY YAZOV 

SOVIET ARMY MARSHAL 

USSR DEFENSE MINISTER, August 1991 

Photographed in 2005, after his membership in the failed GKChP coup attempt led to eighteen months in prison, and after the Presidential (Putin) award of the Order of Merit, November 2004 

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AFTER THE FIRST DAY OF THE AUGUST COUP IN THE USSR

DAY ONE 

GORBACHEV 

IN FOROS 

August 18, 1991 

BORIS YELTSIN (l.) and  

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV (r.) 

Shake Hands at Yeltsin's First Inauguration 

as Russia's First President 

July 10, 1991 

Some background to the coup that helped precipitate the breakup of the Soviet Union: 

As of June 12, 1991, Russia had a popularly elected president, for the first time in its history.  As the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, though, Russia was one part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which had its own president, Mikhail Gorbachev, who, however, had not sought, and did not have, a popular mandate.  Gorbachev did attend, and speak at, Yeltsin's inauguration on July 10 (above). 

After the election, Yeltsin set about building up his Moscow as a power base and Russia as a sovereign entity, claiming resources the "Center" had hitherto controlled.  In August he made a tour of Tyumen', a major oil and gas province of Russia.  The day the coup began, Sunday, August 18, he was back in the Moscow region.  Gorbachev was vacationing in Foros.  It was there that the State Committee for the State of Emergency, or coup plotters, did or did not arrest the head of the Soviet state and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  In any event, they announced that Mikhail Sergeyevich (Gorbachev) was ill. 

Day One. 

"TRUST BUT VERIFY": RONALD REAGAN, MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, AND MAN, DOG, & VET

"TRUST BUT VERIFY"

MAN, DOG, AND VETERINARIAN

Ronald Reagan used to bedevil Mikhail Gorbachev by quoting what he called an old Russian proverb, "Trust but Verify." A similar attitude seems to be indicated here; the patient at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital is sitting quietly to be examined, but his legs are splayed and his ears are up.

One of a Series

"Pets & Their People"

"The Seventies"

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE RUSSIAN WINTER I

WHITE HOUSE

KREMLIN

KREMLIN

GOVERNMENT HOUSE

GOVERNMENT HOUSE ("THE WHITE HOUSE")

MOSCOW (right), AT TWILIGHT

The beginnings of some musings re Prime Minister, President, President, Prime Minister, Russia/The USSR:

Once upon a time, just a bit over two decades ago now, when there still was a Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin got himself elected first (in 1990) to chair the Russian parliament, and then (in 1991) to occupy the newly established office of President of a "Russia" still a constituent republic of the USSR. The white marble building above came already with the first post, and soon it was being called "The White House." After winning a popular election for President, Yeltsin finagled an office in the Kremlin too. Twenty years ago yesterday, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was deprived of both his Office and his office in the Kremlin.

The White House went back to being the Government House, home of the Russian government, headed by the prime minister, while the Kremlin was the bailiwick of the Russian, rather than the Soviet, president.

Vladimir Putin has been both, twice (prime minister both before and after he was president). The trouble seems to have started when he decided he preferred the latter to the former, the Kremlin to the "White House" which was not the president's house.

For the last almost four years, his man, Dmitry Medvedev, has been president. Strange how quickly commentators have accepted the rationale for Putin's giving up the presidency after two terms: because the constitution forbade it! This is not some ancient document; it was only a decade old when the time came to set up the Tandem, and surely has been otherwise honored in the breach.

Nonetheless, we catch a glimpse of the value of the presidency, the name and not just the power he was thought to have anyway, to Vladimir Putin. For it seems to have been the announcement on September 24 of this year that Putin and not Medvedev would run for president this coming March 4 that really tore it -- tore away the strategic ambiguity of the Tandem, and tore away any possible chance of projecting "modernizing" desires on Medvedev. An earlier change of the length of the term of president contributed to the sense of "Enough!" -- for now there lay in prospect not just two more four-year terms, but two more six-year terms for President Putin.

The Duma elections which had helped make Putin in 1999 backfired this December 4 -- too much fraud findable by an already motivated part of the populace, and -- just in time for the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union -- a massing of some sizable numbers of the citizenry in real mitings again, protest mitings.

THE END. OF THE PARTY. TWENTY YEARS AGO. AND THE ROLE OF BORIS YELTSIN.

THE SUPREME SOVIET 

OF THE USSR 

SUSPENDS ALL ACTIVITIES OF 

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF 

THE SOVIET UNION (CPSU) 

August 29, 1991 

BORIS YELTSIN IN HIS SEAT AT 

THE 28TH (AND LAST) CONGRESS OF 

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION 

(CPSU), MOSCOW, JULY 1990 

YELTSIN WALKING OUT OF THE PARTY, here 

Twenty years ago today, the USSR Supreme Soviet, then the highest government authority in the then Soviet Union, voted to suspend the activities of the previously ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union "pending an investigation of its role" in the August coup. 

As the New York Times report on the subject noted, "The fate of the party was already sealed before Parliament's vote. Individual republics had closed its offices and seized its vast properties and funds and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had quit as its General Secretary and had called on the leadership to step down." 

"Individual republics" -- yes, but, the individual republic that mattered was that of the RSFSR, or Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, whose duly elected president was Boris Yeltsin.

On July 20, 1991, Yeltsin had signed a "departization" decree "aimed against Party activity (officially, all parties' activities) in government organizations and state enterprises on Russian soil" (to quote myself in SIC TRANSIT, Chapter 8, "Endgame").

On July 30, 1991, after his meeting with American president George Bush in the Kremlin, Boris Yeltsin was happy to interpret his actions and intentions to those of us waiting to listen. [See here and here.] 

To continue quoting "Endgame," "Gorbachev, facing another hostile Central Committee meeting shortly, should thank him [Yeltsin] for opening a second front and providing a diversionary action, he gloated. The decree, due to come into effect on August 4th, had stirred up a storm of protest and condemnation from CPSU and Russian Communist Party bodies.  Its timing may have been chosen, as Yeltsin alleged, to draw conservative ire away from Gorbachev at a crucial juncture, but its main thrust continued the battle to break the Party's power from within. ... However weakened the Party might have been already, through Gorbachev's initiatives and subsequent internal hemorrhaging, it still had a grip on the Soviet polity and economy that enabled it to stifle real reform.  Yeltsin's decree was intended to cut off its tentacles in the government offices and workplaces of the Russian Republic, his domain, more than a month before Gorbachev was finally moved to take action against its head -- after the coup." 

GORBACHEV RESIGNS AS GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION, August 24, 1991

GORBACHEV 

GIVES UP ON 

THE PARTY 

LOOKING OUT ON THE KREMLIN 

THROUGH A WINDOW 

IN THE PALACE OF CONGRESSES 

ON A RAINY DAY 

DURING THE TIME OF THE 

28TH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU 

MOSCOW, JULY 1990 

Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), was still planning in the summer of 1991 to hold a 29th Congress.  Even after the coup that targeted him collapsed and he was able to return to Moscow, he did not immediately see the need for changes.  He pleaded with Boris Yeltsin not to suspend the activities of the Party in Russia (Yeltsin's bailiwick).  On August 24 he got it, and resigned as General Secretary. 

More on the story here and here and here and here. 

"RUSSIA REDUX" 

BORIS YELTSIN INAUGURATED AS RUSSIA'S FIRST POPULARLY ELECTED PRESIDENT, TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY

THE FIRST INAUGURATION 

OF THE FIRST 

POPULARLY ELECTED 

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT 

July 10, 1991 

BORIS YELTSIN, 

to the left of the photograph, 

with the head of 

the Russian parliament, 

RUSLAN KHASBULATOV, 

to his right, 

stands during the ceremony 

of his first inauguration 

Another photograph from the inauguration, with Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands with Yeltsin, is here. 

the personalized invitation 

A LOOK BACK AT THE PROTESTS THAT HELPED BRING DOWN THE OLD REGIME IN MOSCOW: Part III

A LOOK BACK

AT THE PROTESTS

THAT HELPED

BRING DOWN

THE OLD REGIME

IN MOSCOW

Part III

"AS THE VERBIAGE GOES UP,

THE TRUST OF THE PEOPLE GOES DOWN"

-- charted against the Gorbachev years --

Gorbachev being known as a great talker

in Manezh Square in front of the Kremlin,

Moscow, summer 1990

Part I is here

Part II, here

"RUSSIA REDUX"

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV TURNS EIGHTY

FOUR SCORE

&

ONE ORDER OF

ST. ANDREW

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

b. March 2, 1931

Addressing the media, March 2000

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has bestowed the Order of St. Andrew, the country's highest award, on the last leader of the USSR, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Former Soviet President Gorbachev, according to the BBC, is "to receive the actual decoration later."

Gorbachev does already have a Nobel Peace Prize.

More Gorbachev here

and here

and here

and here

and here

GORBACHEV GIVES UP THE GENERAL SECRETARYSHIP OF THE CPSU, August 24, 1991

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

GIVES UP THE PARTY LEADERSHIP 

August 24, 1991

UNDER A GIANT 

PORTRAIT OF LENIN, 

GORBACHEV PRESIDES 

OVER THE 28TH & LAST CONGRESS 

OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY 

OF THE SOVIET UNION (CPSU) 

(July 1990) 

Thirteen months later, after a coup involving some of his own men, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the party he had led for almost six-and-a-half years. Four months later he resigned as president of the USSR.  

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV TAKES POWER IN THE SOVIET UNION, March 11, 1985

MARCH 11, 1985

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

TAKES POWER

IN THE SOVIET UNION

IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT

IT IS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS TODAY

SINCE MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

CAME TO POWER IN THE SOVIET UNION.

HERE HE IS SHAKING HANDS

WITH HIS NEMESIS,

BORIS YELTSIN,

AT YELTSIN'S INAUGURATION

AS THE FIRST POPULARLY-ELECTED

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (July 10, 1991).

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV b. March 2, 1931

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

b. March 2, 1931

Privolnoye (Russia), USSR

GORBACHEV (second from left)

PRESIDING OVER THE

28th (& LAST)

CONGRESS

OF

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF

THE SOVIET UNION

1990

There he [Gorbachev] sat, bang in the center of the ruling dais. A mammoth multistory red head and shoulders of Lenin painted on gray accordion-fold drapes hovered behind him. His almost-peers, men who were comrades from the Politburo or leaders of the communist parties of the Soviet republics, spread out to his right and left on the dais. Behind them sat the supporting row of staff, and on the third of the three tiers, a daring if small array of telecommunications and computer equipment on a stray table. Gorbachev was used to the Palace of Congresses, and used to presiding in it. When he had invented the Congress of People's Deputies, the new super-parliament, it too, like the Party Congresses, was allotted these very same premises for its sessions. Mikhail Gorbachev conjured up these new gatherings, and Mikhail Gorbachev presided over them.

There he sat, lord of the realm twice over: President and General Secretary, General Secretary and President. And there, directly in front of him, at the wide podium, with his back to his President and his General Secretary, Boris Yeltsin revealed that he was jumping ship....

-- from RUSSIA REDUX

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE

b. January 25, 1928

LEADER OF GEORGIA,

SOVIET & POST-SOVIET

FOREIGN MINISTER FOR & WITH GORBACHEV

RESIGNED & RE-HIRED

FIGHTER VS. CORRUPTION

&

BROUGHT DOWN FOR IT

IN THE ROSE REVOLUTION

More on Shevardnadze in Soviet politics

in "Pivot" (RUSSIA REDUX Chapter One)

&

in U.S.-Soviet relations

in "Moscow & the Gulf War"

(an excerpt from RUSSIA REDUX Chapter Three)