A Chronology of Events has been provided at the conclusion of the volume with a timetable of developments during the coup, day by day, hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute. This will help to guide the reader who is interested in sequential coverage of the events of the three days and will serve as a point of ready reference.[36]
I
Saving the Old Country
In the early morning of August 19, 1991, eight high-ranking Soviet officials made an announcement that stunned the country and the world: President Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned due to illness, and his government had been taken over by a State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP). The committee included Vice President Gennadii Yanaev (who was named Acting President); KGB head Vladimir Kriuchkov; Defense Minister Dmitrii Yazov; Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Pugo; Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov; Oleg Baklanov, First Deputy Chairman of the National Defense Council and leader of the military-industrial complex; Vasilii Starodubtsev, chairman of the Peasants’ Union; and Aleksandr Tiziakov, President of the USSR Association of State Enterprises and Industrial Groups in Production, Construction, Transportation, and Communications.
Through their proclamations and appeals, their one and only press conference, and their subsequent interviews with interrogators, the members of the Emergency Committee articulated their version of the events leading up to and during the August crisis.
1
Proclamations and Decrees of the State Committee for the State of Emergency, August 19, 1991
On the first day of the coup, the members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency issued several documents justifying their actions and explaining their policies. The following texts were transmitted by the TASS news agency and read repeatedly over the Soviet Union’s central broadcast facilities beginning the morning of August 19.
Document 1: Decree of the Vice President of the USSR
In connection with Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev’s inability, for health reasons, to carry out the responsibilities of the President of the USSR, and in accordance with Article 127(7) of the USSR Constitution, responsibilities of the USSR President have been transferred to the USSR Vice President, Gennadii Yanaev, beginning August 19, 1991.
Document 2: Appeal to the Soviet People
Compatriots,
Citizens of the Soviet Union,
We are addressing you at a grave, critical hour for the destinies of our Fatherland and our peoples. A mortal danger looms large over our great Motherland.
The policy of reforms, launched at Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s initiative and designed to ensure the country’s dynamic development and the democratization of social life, has, for a number of reasons, run into a dead end. Lack of faith, apathy, and despair have replaced the original enthusiasm and hopes. Authorities at all levels have lost the population’s trust. In public life, political games have replaced concern for the fate of the Fatherland and the citizen. An attitude of malicious contempt toward all state institutions is being imposed. The country has in effect become ungovernable.
Taking advantage of the liberties that have been granted, and trampling on the first shoots of democracy, extremist forces have emerged, embarking on a course toward liquidating the Soviet Union, ruining the state, and seizing power at any cost. They trampled on the results of the nationwide referendum on the unity of the Fatherland.[37] The cynical exploitation of national feelings serves merely as a cover for satisfying personal ambition. Political adventurers are worried neither by the misfortunes that their peoples are experiencing today nor by those in the future. Creating an atmosphere of moral and political terror, and seeking to hide behind the shield of the people’s trust, they forget that the ties being condemned and severed by them were established on the basis of far broader popular support, which, furthermore, has stood the test of many centuries of history. Today, those who are working toward the overthrow of the constitutional system should be brought to account before mothers and fathers for the deaths of the hundreds of victims of interethnic conflicts. The broken destinies of more than half a million refugees are on their conscience. They are to blame for the loss of tranquility and joy of tens of millions of Soviet people, who only yesterday lived in a united family, but today find themselves living as outcasts in their own home.
People must decide what kind of social system should be established, but attempts are being made to deprive the people of this choice.
Instead of showing concern for the security and well-being of every citizen and all society, persons who have come to positions of power frequently use it for interests alien to the people, as a means for unscrupulous self-assertion. Torrents of words and piles of declarations and promises only underline the scanty and meager nature of their practical deeds. The inflation of authority, which is the most terrifying type of inflation, is destroying our state and society. Every citizen is feeling increasing uncertainty about tomorrow and deep concern about the future of his or her children.
The crisis of power has had a catastrophic effect on the economy. The chaotic, elemental descent along the slippery slope toward a market economy has led to an explosion of egotism at all levels—regional, institutional, collective, and personal. The war of laws[38] and the promotion of centrifugal forces have caused the disintegration of a unified economic system that it has taken decades to create. The result is a sharp decline in the standard of living for the majority of the Soviet people and the spread of speculation and black marketeering. It is high time people were told the truth: if urgent and decisive measures are not adopted to stabilize the economy, hunger and another spiral of impoverishment are imminent in the near future, and from there it is but a single step to mass manifestations of elemental discontent, with devastating consequences. Only irresponsible people can put their hopes in some kind of aid from abroad. No handouts can solve our problems. Our rescue is in our own hands. The time has come to measure the influence of each individual or organization by its real contribution to the development of our economy.
For many years, we have been hearing incantations from all sides about this or that politician’s commitment to the interests of the individual, his rights, and his social protection. In fact, what has happened is that the individual has been humiliated, his actual rights and opportunities have been constrained, and he has been driven to despair. Right before our eyes, all the democratic institutions, created on the basis of the will of the people, are losing their authority. All of this is the result of the systematic activity of those who, in gross violation of the Fundamental Law of [the Constitution] the USSR, are, in fact, carrying out an unconstitutional coup d’état, pursuing the goal of unrestrained personal dictatorship. The prefectures, mayoralties, and other unlawful structures have been increasingly usurping the power of the popularly elected soviets.
36
Accounts of the coup and its aftermath may be found in the following English-language sources: James H. Billington,
Russian-language sources on the coup are as follows:
37
On March 17, 1991, a nationwide referendum was held on the future of the Union. The majority of citizens voted for the preservation of the USSR.
38
“War of laws” is the phrase used to characterize the jurisdictional disputes that followed upon unilateral declarations by some republics and even lower political units that in the event of a conflict between Union legislation and local law, the latter should prevail.