The reformers saw clearly that Gorby was addicted to the insane logic of Soviet rule in which anything becomes permissible in order to stay in power. Gorby’s faith in socialism led him to press on with those reforms that could end only in the dissolution of the empire. The danger was whether the streets would run with blood.
In June 1991 Gorby was informed by American authorities that there was a plot to oust him, which involved his top ministers. Gorby’s response was to give the coup-minded ministers a tongue-lashing.
He pressed on, seemingly contemptuous of the dangers. He dotted the i’s on the new Union Treaty that would shepherd the former Soviet Union into an absurd federation of independent republics with a single president and army. In a way, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had already begun as each republic had attained a certain autonomy. And when Yeltsin became president of the Russian republic in 1990 and left the Communist Party, he became Gorby’s most significant opponent. On the eve of signing this treaty, which the hard-liners feared would radically reshape their world without them at the center, the coupsters made their move against Gorby.
The coupsters had everything going for them. At their fingertips was the institutional knowledge of seventy years of maestro performances of ruthlessly crushing any and all opposition with brutal, organized efficiency. It was the one job that their predecessors had always aced, staying in power by any means necessary. It was truly the fruit of the system. But the Soviet history of staggering incompetence had finally caught up to them.
WHAT HAPPENED: OPERATION “COUP WHO?”
Gorby, desperate to pull off his balancing act, surrounded himself with his betrayers. In August he took a vacation to his luxurious villa in the Crimea. He had perfectly isolated himself at a time when he was about to destroy the power base of the hard-liners he was trying to coax toward democracy.
The coupsters finally made their decision to get rid of Gorby while meeting at a KGB safe house in a scene more like a drunken picnic than a devious plotters’ den. They had met before many times to grouse about their Gorby problems but now, with the Union Treaty to be signed the next day, it was time to act and for many of them to start drinking. They arranged to “handle” Gorby, but like the central planning for the glorious Communist future, which never required much doing, everything else was left hazy and vague.
The coup, in official Soviet tradition, started with a lie. The official Soviet News Agency TASS reported on the morning of August 19, 1991, that Gorbachev had resigned due to an undisclosed illness and that a “state of emergency” committee had assumed power. In fact, Gorby had been confined to his luxury dacha quite easily, as one of the coupsters, Boldin, was his chief of staff. Another coupster told him, according to Gorby, “we’ll do all the dirty work for you,” hoping perhaps that Gorby would acquiesce and join them in overthrowing himself. He told them to go to hell. The hard-liners had finally acted, but no one had thought to neutralize Boris Yeltsin. Perhaps the coupsters were confused because Yeltsin seemed to be Gorby’s enemy, and Gorby was their enemy. They didn’t realize that the enemy of your enemy can also be your enemy. They also didn’t realize how many enemies they actually had. Within hours of the announcement that Gorby had been replaced, Yeltsin evaded the feeble attempt to trap him and made it to the Russian “White House,” the seat of power of the Russian republic, where he climbed atop a tank and boldly denounced the coup. Then he disappeared inside to organize the defense.
Down the road at the Kremlin, Vice President Yaneyev had to be bullied into signing the emergency decree giving him power by the rest of the emergency committee. He was a heavy drinker and seemed to be drunk that morning, which perhaps explained his surprising reluctance to sign a decree giving himself massive powers with a stroke of the pen, a chance that most dictators would give up a corner of their empire to win.
At the Russian White House, in the early afternoon, the first human chains were created as protesters grasped hands and faced down a column of small tanks clanking down one of the main avenues. People linked arms and barred the way. The tanks ground to a halt, obviously awaiting orders, as the hatches popped open and the young faces of the drivers appeared. Furious arguments ensued as angry citizens argued with the drivers, who seemed lackadaisical and inclined to neither argue nor attack.
The big battle tanks of the elite Taman Guard rolled in by the afternoon. They had been sent to attack the White House, but led by a general more sympathetic to Gorby than the coupsters; they swung their turrets around and positioned themselves to defend the White House instead. The huge tanks made a fearsome sound when they moved, chewing up the pavement, spewing exhaust, and lurching like bull elephants. The tank drivers, wearing padded leather helmets that made them look like 1920s footballers, chatted and smoked as people leisurely began to gather outside the building.
World War II veteran and one-time Russian ambassador to Canada, Yakovlev was plucked from this faraway post and made into Gorbachev’s intellectual sidekick and chief advisor. Together they tried to reform the Soviet Union in order to save it. His full-throated promotion of democratic reform earned him the impressively cross-cultural nickname of “The Godfather of Glasnost.” But as Gorby placated the hard-liners, the two friends parted ways, leading Yakovlev to bolt from the Communist Party just before the coup after warning Gorby that trouble was brewing. Later, they kissed and made up, and Yakovlev continued to push for democracy and press freedoms in Russia. His achievements were so widely recognized that on his death in 2005 politicians across the political spectrum in Russia praised him for pushing the country forward.
Slowly, barricades formed in front of the tanks. One man in a suit carried a briefcase in one hand and a long, thin steel rod in the other to add to the barricade. It was a measured and steady effort. People stood staring at the tanks, waiting for them to move, but they didn’t. As the afternoon wore on more people sauntered in, although for most of the day the crowd behind the barricades around the White House seemed to be less than a thousand people. A few determined troopers could have sacked the place in fifteen minutes. It was a fantastic sight, though — dozens of tanks seemingly held off by a few hundred people.
The rest of the city didn’t seem to be paying attention. Many people were apathetic, as if a coup happened every summer. Life went on as usual. At the Kremlin, where the party still held sway, the limousines came and went. The ceremonial guards stood outside Lenin’s tomb, as they had for the last sixty-seven years. Just another day in the USSR.
That evening at around 5:00, desperate to reignite the stalled revolt, the coupsters made their TV debut at a press conference. Missing was Valentin Pavlov, who was too drunk to show up and stayed in bed where he remained for most of the coup. Holding a press conference is usually wrong for a coup. Properly done, a coup communicates with slashing violence and ruthless efficiency. Cramming vague explanations down the throats of testy journalists is the role of elected officials, not revolutionaries. Taking questions instead of shooting questioners revealed their inherent weakness.