The president entered. I introduced myself and he immediately took me into an adjacent empty conference room. (I was to visit this room once again a day later.)
The conversation was very brief. “What were Kriuchkov’s aims. What were the instructions to the Committee?” I answered with total frankness, giving a brief description of the meeting on the nineteenth. “What a scoundrel. I trusted him most of all, him and Iazov. You yourself know that.” I nodded in agreement.
The president looked splendid: lively, energetic, with bright eyes and no signs of fatigue. This was the second time I saw him up close. The first time was 24 January 1989 when Kriuchkov presented me to the president before my appointment. At that time Gorbachev had been somewhat gloomy and distant. The president ordered me to summon all the vice-chairmen of the KGB and announce that I was to become acting chairman.
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A three- to five-minute private session with the president does have special significance in this world. In passing through the “black walnut room” I saw convivial, even tender smiles and symbolic clasping of hands from all corners. Just in case. . . .
Outside, the golden domes of Great Ivan’s bell tower had grown dim. We headed toward Lubianka Square where a crowd had gathered with obvious ill intent toward the KGB. We drove around the crowd with some difficulty and plunged into the KGB complex through a side street. (The usual shopping frenzy continued uninterrupted by the Children’s World department store.)
I gathered the vice-chairmen and announced the president’s decision. Immediately the group broke out in controlled but happy smiles. I distinctly remember G.F. Titov’s open and honest face. He had been on vacation and took no part in any of the events. The sole issue on the day’s agenda was the classic Russian one—what’s to be done? It was absolutely clear that the old order was finished and something new had to be taken up. But the “absolutely clear” ended at this point. We decided to gather the KGB leadership on the next day, 23 August, to discuss the issues for the Collegium session. A Collegium meeting had to be held as soon as possible. There was nothing left to say and we broke up. (A line from a poem by Esenin ran through my head: “Before this throng of the departing //I can’t conceal my sorrow.”) It was to reappear again and again during those days.
My office is a hell of ringing telephones. The officer in charge of quarters reports that the crowd outside is about to storm the building. They are writing offensive graffiti on the walls and have surrounded the Dzerzhinskii monument [founder of the Cheka, the secret police].
“What are we to do?”
“No gunfire under any conditions! Lock all the gates and doors, check the gratings. We’ll call city hall for help and ask them to send the police.” (An instance of humiliation that is to last two days.) We get in touch with the police but they are in no hurry to help us. V.I. Kravtsev calls from the Attorney General’s office: “We are sending a team of inspectors to search Kriuchkov’s office.”
“Good, send them.” Next comes a call from the office of the Attorney General of the Russian Federation: “We are sending a team of inspectors to conduct a search of Kriuchkov’s office. Molchanov from Central Television will come with the team.”
“You are welcome to send them but people from the Soviet Attorney General’s office are already on their way here.”
“That’s all right, we’ll come to terms with them.”
Within ten minutes my office is filled with some fifteen servants of the justice system among whom I recall only Stepankov, the attorney general of the
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Russian Federation. To my surprise both groups come to an immediate understanding, find witnesses (young women from the secretariat) and surge into Kriuchkov’s office. Another group sets off to search Kriuchkov’s dacha where his wife has been weeping all morning. Yet another group sets off to search Kriuchkov’s apartment.
The phone rings. It is M.S. Gorbachev: “I have signed the edict appointing you acting chairman of the KGB. Take charge.”
I note the time—it is 1500 hours. To the constant reports (“they’re smashing windows . . .” “we can’t get in touch with the police . . .” “they’re about to topple the monument”) there is an added flood of congratulations on my appointment. Just in case. Life is becoming increasingly unbearable, but there is no time to think about it. My office windows look out into an inner courtyard and the noise of the crowd is heard dimly. How familiar the situation is. How horrible that it is taking place not in Tehran where some ten years ago I sat besieged, commanding the defenders, hearing the roar of the mob, the ring of shattering glass, the blows on the doors, gunshots . . . Horrible that it is happening here on Lubianka Square and that here, as in Teheran, there is no help coming.
But I am wrong. Two deputies of the Russian Federation appear in my office. It is their task to quiet the crowd should it turn violent. I write down their names with sincere gratitude—Leonid Borisovich Gurevich and Il’ia Mstislavovich Konstantinov. They have brought reason into the totally irrational world of my office.
There is a report that free vodka is being distributed from a truck in Serov Lane [near the headquarters]. But this has to be totally in the realm of fantasy—vodka is a valuable commodity and anyone would be happy to pay for it. Nevertheless, I have it checked. It turns out there is no distribution. (There is disappointment in the voice.) Things gradually clear up. There is no violent crowd on the square but rather a political rally which is discussing how to remove the monument. S.B. Stankevich [leader of a democratic faction] is in charge and the police are quietly maintaining order.
Slowly the white heat drops to a cherry red. Using the underground passageway I go to G.B. Ageev’s office in the old building. The windows of his fifth-floor office look out on the square. At the request of the organizers of the rally we have turned on the building’s projectors (“Don’t assault us. See how conscientious we are.”), but the square remains poorly illuminated. The crowd leaves a sizable empty circle around the monument. It is hard to estimate but there are several tens of thousands. People speechify, others shout slogans while two enormous self-propelled cranes take the measure of the monument. An ambulance drives onto the square but only to better illuminate the public execution of the founder of the secret police [Cheka], the first
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Chekist. A public execution is not a new phenomenon for Russia. Though the scale is much grander with a monument, television will put things in the right perspective. It will be even more intriguing because the monument does not change its facial expression. Everything occurring is meaningless to it, and is simply the vanity of those who have not yet dissolved in eternal darkness. When you are executing a living person it is a different matter. In Iran they understood the difference well.
I force myself to watch. Do I feel anguish? No. Everything going on is the natural reckoning for near-sightedness, limitless power, for the self-indulgence of the leaders, for our sheep-like, mindless nature. The end of an era. But also the beginning of another era. The cranes rev up; the crowd bellows. There is the pop of hundreds of flashbulbs and “Iron Felix” firmly suspended by the neck hangs over the square while under the cast iron greatcoat the iron legs give a death shudder. You gave up your first earthly life for the wrong reasons, Mr. Felix Ed-mundovich, sir. Now posthumously you answer for the sins of your progeny.