August 19 marks 32 years since the beginning of the August putsch in the USSR. TASS has prepared a dossier dedicated to these events.
From August 19 to 21, 1991, a political crisis erupted in the Soviet Union, sparked by an attempt by a group of members of the upper echelons of power to prevent the signing of a new union treaty which they claimed meant the abolition of the USSR as a state. The State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKTchP) was created, the members of which imposed a state of emergency in the country and tried to remove Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev from power.
The situation in the USSR in 1991
In the 1980s, the USSR encountered economic difficulties. Soviet national policy is reflected in the formation of independent national elites within the Union and the autonomous republics. On the initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) (since March 1990, President of the USSR), the role of the Communist Party, which ensured the unity of the state system Soviet, was significantly weakened (in 1990 the CPSU was completely separated from the state). Since 1988, the “sovereignty parade” began, during which the authorities of the Union republics proclaimed the supremacy of republican laws over Union laws. In 1990,
In 1990-1991, the confrontation between Mikhail Gorbachev and the leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), Boris Yeltsin, raged.
On March 17, 1991, the Soviet Union organizes a referendum on the maintenance of the USSR. Nine of the fifteen republics of the Union took part (the authorities of Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Estonia refused to take part). 80% of Soviet citizens took part in the plebiscite; 76.4% of voters were in favor of maintaining the USSR and 21.7% against.
At the initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev, a new draft Union Treaty has been drawn up. From April 23 to July 23, 1991, negotiations took place between Gorbachev and the presidents of the nine republics of the Union. In July 1991, the negotiators approved the draft treaty as a whole and planned for its signature at the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR in September-October 1991.
On July 29-30, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev held secret meetings with RSFSR Chairman Boris Yeltsin and his counterpart from Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, during which they agreed to postpone the signing of the document to the 20 August. This decision is motivated by fears that the people’s deputies will vote against the treaty, which provides for the creation of a de facto confederal state in which most powers are transferred to the republics.
Events of August 17 and 18, 1991
From August 5 , 1991, the President of the USSR was on leave at his residence in Foros, on the coast of Crimea.
On August 17, 1991, a meeting was held in one of the KGB buildings in the southwest of Moscow, with the participation of the Prime Minister of the USSR, Valentin Pavlov, representatives of the KGB and the party leadership. At this meeting, it was decided that it was necessary to declare a state of emergency in the country, to form a State Committee for a State of Emergency in the USSR and to prevent the signing of a new union treaty. To authorize these measures, it was decided to send a delegation to Mikhail Gorbachev. She left for the Crimea on August 18. According to Mikhail Gorbachev’s testimony, he did not agree to the measures proposed to him, describing them as an “adventure”. On the same day, he isolated himself at his residence in Foros, where government communications were completely cut off.
Events of August 19
On August 19, 1991, at 06:00 Moscow time, a “Statement of the Soviet leadership” was read on the USSR Central Radio and Television. It indicates that the powers of the President of the USSR have been transferred to Gennady Yanaev, that the GKTchP has been created, that its decisions are “binding for all authorities” and all citizens, and that the state of emergency has imposed “in certain regions of the USSR for a period of six months”.
The GKTchP decides to immediately dissolve all “unconstitutional structures of power and administration, paramilitary formations” and to annul their decisions, to suspend the activities of political parties, public organizations and mass movements. Gatherings, demonstrations and strikes are prohibited. State control over the media is established (however, some of them do not follow the instructions of the GKTchP). Television broadcasts have been temporarily restricted, the Swan Lake ballet airs that morning.
To implement the state of emergency, troops are deployed in Moscow, around Leningrad, Tallinn, Tbilisi and Riga. According to Igor Prostiakov, director of the cabinet of ministers of the USSR, about 4,000 soldiers equipped with armored vehicles entered the capital. In the Baltic republics, troops and police took control of a number of government buildings and media outlets.
RSFSR Chairman Boris Yeltsin refused to obey the GKTchP, said its actions constituted an “unconstitutional coup by the reactionary right”, and declared GKTchP decrees invalid in the RSFSR. Yeltsin’s decrees require that all Soviet executive bodies in Russia, including the Defense Ministry, the KGB, and the Interior Ministry, be subordinate to him.
In Moscow, several thousand people gathered in front of the Palace of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (called the “White House” at the time) on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment and began erecting barricades. In the afternoon, Boris Yeltsin, from tank No. 110 of the Taman division, launched an appeal to the demonstrators gathered to oppose the GKTchP. The same day, this speech is broadcast on central television in the news program Vremia. Rallies against the GKTchP are also held in Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen and other Russian cities. The editors of a number of news outlets that had been shut down at the request of the GKTchP published a “joint newspaper”, in which they published material supporting the Russian leadership.
On the evening of August 19, the first and only press conference of GKTchP members was held at the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was broadcast live by the USSR Central Television. Gennady Yanayev, Boris Pugo, Oleg Baklanov, Vasily Starodubtsev and Alexander Tiziakov addressed the journalists. Asked about the state of health of the President of the USSR, Gennady Yanaev said that Gorbachev was “on leave and undergoing treatment in Crimea” and expressed the hope that he would soon be “in the ranks” to “work together “.
Reactions in the USSR and abroad
The events in the Soviet Union sparked reactions around the world. US President George HW Bush issued a statement calling for the return to power of the President of the USSR and supporting Boris Yeltsin. The actions of the GKTchP were condemned by British Prime Minister John Major, French President Francois Mitterrand, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Spanish Prime Minister Filipe Gonzalez and a number of other European leaders. The leaders of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, Palestine, Yasser Arafat, Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, and Iraq, Saddam Hussein, have all expressed their support for the GKTchP.
The events of August 20
On August 20, about 150,000 people took part in a rally against the GKTchP, which was held in Moscow; in Leningrad, around 300,000 people joined in a similar protest action.
On the same day, August 20, RSFSR Chairman Boris Yeltsin “until the constitutional bodies and institutions of state power and administration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are fully restored ”, assumes the powers of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on the territory of Russia, resubordinating the highest command staff of the army.
Events of August 21
On the night of August 21, a group of anti-GKTchP protesters attempted to prevent a military column from passing through the Tchaikovsky Tunnel on the Garden Ring (now Novoarbatsky Tunnel). Three protesters – Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Ussov and Ilia Kritchevsky – were killed. These are the only human losses of the August crisis.
On the morning of August 21, at a meeting of the Board of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the majority of participants supported the need to withdraw troops from Moscow, as well as the withdrawal of the GKTchP minister. After the council meeting, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the withdrawal of troops from the capital.
Gennady Yanayev signs a decree on the dissolution of the GKTchP and the invalidity of all its previous decisions. In turn, RSFSR Chairman Boris Yeltsin issued a decree canceling the orders of the GKTchP, and RSFSR prosecutor Valentin Stepankov ordered the arrest of its members. The USSR Prosecutor General’s Office opens criminal proceedings for an attempted coup.
Return of the President of the USSR to Moscow, arrest of members of the GKTchP
On the night of August 22, Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Moscow. The President of the USSR delivers a speech on central television. In particular, he thanks Boris Yeltsin for having been “at the center of the resistance to the conspiracy” and calls for “moving faster on the path of radical reforms”. Gorbachev annuls all decisions of the GKTchP and dismisses the members and sympathizers of the State Committee.
On August 22, the main members of the GKTchP – Gennady Yanaev, Vladimir Krioutchkov, Dmitri Yazov and Alexander Tiziakov – were arrested. USSR Interior Minister Boris Pougo commits suicide.
The events of 1991 and the breakup of the USSR
The August crisis led to the strengthening of centrifugal tendencies in the USSR, the weakening of the authorities of the Union and the loss of the real levers of influence of Mikhail Gorbachev. After the events of August 1991, the republics of the Union whose leaders had participated in the Novoogariovo negotiations declared their independence (Ukraine on August 24, Azerbaijan on August 30, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on August 31 , and the rest in September-December 1991).
On December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a declaration
n that the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a state and as a subject of international law.
Source: Burkina Information Agency