OP #281: TEN YEARS AFTER THE BREAKUP: KENNAN INSTITUTE MEETING REPORTS, 1991–2001 Vol. VIII No. 18 1991 provoked. A dissident historian, having The Soviet Coup: Impressions of an Eyewitness talked a few minutes with a lieutenant atop a Kennan Institute Research Associate Mark H. tank, noted with relief, “These guys won’t be Teeter flew into Moscow on August 18th and shooting anyone.” One soldier calmly woke up the next morning to news of a coup. This reprimanded a television reporter with a report was transmitted by him via electronic mail statement of the obvious which everyone from the Institute’s Moscow representational needed to hear: “Hey, I’m human too.” One office. sensed that this was not Prague, not 1968. The events in Moscow of 19–21 August It shortly became clear that the center 1991 were clearly historic. As they began to of events would not be the Kremlin, but unfold, however, one soon came to wonder rather the Russian Federation’s administra- how the clamor, confusion, contradictory tive center, an ungainly white building in the information, and seemingly hourly changes Krasnaia Presnia district. A march down of tide could ever be turned into the kind of Kalinin Prospekt to this newly-christened bound-volume history, neat and compact, White House drew more and more adherents that we pass to succeeding generations. This along the way, but their motives were will surely happen, of course, and there is evidently various. A number of people were little doubt that the accounts of the Carrs, clearly Yeltsin supporters as such, chanting Paleologues, and Trotskys of this August will the Russian President’s name in unison every emerge a good deal sooner after the fact than few minutes. Others felt their democratic did the chronicles of 1917. In the meantime, a principles had little to do with Boris Yeltsin chance foreign observer of some of the events and marched silently, simply voting with can perhaps best be content to pass along a few their feet. Still others apparently joined for notes and impressions from the past week, the spectacle, spontaneity, or pure civil offering the odd tile toward what will later disobedience of it. A young woman with a emerge as a comprehensible mosaic. bullhorn urged bystanders to come along, Moscow, Monday, 19 August. The and a legless man in a wheelchair appeared sudden announcement of the assumption of in the ranks. power by a State Committee on the Extraor- The spectrum of people around the White dinary Situation in the USSR caught virtually House became broader and broader: Siberian everyone off guard—as it was clearly in- Cossacks, Afghanistan veterans, businessmen, tended to. The fabled other shoe had indeed anarcho-syndicalists, and Moscow street punks finally dropped, and apparently hard, but had for their own reasons, and surely for the first there was no practical information as to what time, found a common symbol and a common that actually meant for the daily life of the cause. Makeshift barricades were already up city. On the far north side of town, at least, around the White House by midday. Asked how there were no visible changes from the day they knew this was the right tactic, some barrier before: no troops, no sounds of gunfire, no builders replied, “Vilnius taught us.” obvious beginnings of a civil conflict of any Tuesday, 20 August. The curiosities and sort. Outside one’s window children could be anomalies which accompany any great seen playing in courtyards, a fact which public event continued to pile up. As seemed at once incongruous and reassuring. Monday’s spontaneous barricades were being The subway seemed to function reinforced, a stone’s throw away at the World normally as well, taking one smoothly to the Trade Center foreign professionals and casual center of town—where all was clearly not visitors could chat over espresso and shop for normal. Near the Kremlin the first sight of souvenirs in apparently total isolation from tanks and armored personnel carriers quickly the hectic activity down the street. Despite brought home what the term Extraordinary the transparent sham of “legality” proffered Situation could actually mean: brute force. by the Committee in its press conference of Yet the troops manning the vehicles were not Monday afternoon, many Muscovites voiced brutes. When local citizens approached them sympathy for the enterprise. One former to pose by turns plaintive and challenging university instructor, who had at some risk questions (“Officer, do you have a con- permitted classroom discussion of Aleksandr science?”), the young soldiers were not Solzhenitsyn in the mid-1970’s, could speak 1 now of the inevitability and even necessity of from foreign-currency stores in order to the takeover; the goal of “bringing about ensure that the events underway would be order” could be welcomed by a country documented. On Wednesday morning it was which was, in fact, rapidly descending into by no means clear how much longer it would economic and social chaos. Meanwhile, the take to resolve the issue of the coup. By the phones continued to work, the busses ran, afternoon, however, the atmosphere around and cab drivers haggled over fares even as the White House had grown considerably the most astounding rumors of troop move- brighter. Among other things, there had been ments and martial law spread around the a report that all eight Committee members city. One had the recurring sense that this had been arrested trying to make their way to was either a nightmare or a movie; it couldn’t Vnukovo airport. While this was later proved be real. untrue, people wanted to believe the story, The White House and its immediate many no doubt did, and it fit the spirit of the environs were alternately described as under afternoon on the north side of the building— control and in imminent peril during the shortly to be named the Square of Russian evening and night of the 20th. The sole local Freedom—perfectly. The worst, one wanted non-government radio station, Radio Echo to assume, had passed. In the early evening, Moscow, miraculously stayed on the air with both Radio Echo and Russian (as much of the night, running no small risk of opposed to Central) Television back on the sudden and violent interruption by special air, one could believe that it had. Adrenaline forces after the Committee had twice pro- was still pumping, but deep sighs, laughter, claimed it anathema. People phoned around and the first congratulations could be heard. the city passing news gleaned from Echo, The terms coup d’etat, attempted coup which regularly broadcast live reports by d’etat, putsch, plot, counter-revolution, tragic correspondents and commanders in the events, revolution, victory of democracy, White House itself. Odd as it sounds, the overthrow of Communism, and end of the heroic little station had to beg the indulgence USSR have all been used this week, each of its listeners for tolerance of some appar- probably with some justice. In any event, ently necessary, if incongruous, music virtually everyone in Moscow seems to agree interludes. that the end of last week represented the As the night progressed, with reports beginning of something altogether new here. that there would, then would not, then again Not all in this new era has been appealing. would be a storming of the White House, one The “revolution against monuments” has wondered several things by turns: Does seemed needlessly hurried and even physically anyone during any revolution actually know dangerous at times. The continuing emergence what is really going on? Would this night of self-proclaimed “heroes”—Aleksandr come to represent the first day of a new civil Iakovlev’s explicit warning notwithstanding— war or perhaps the last day of one which had is unpleasant to behold. The closing of Pravda been going on for seventy-four years? and certain other publications which acqui- The first report of casualties came at esced in or openly supported the Extraordi- 12:30 a.m. At 1:15 Radio Echo Moscow nary Committee has struck some people as a suddenly went off the air. Bolshevik remedy to a Bolshevik problem. The Wednesday, 21 August. There had prospects of widespread witch-hunting and a indeed been fatalities, as even the ever- new life for the practice of denunciation have subservient state television admitted, citing been and remain very real concerns. Finally, of hooliganism and alcohol as the causes in a course, the desperate economic shortages and report as cynical as any ever broadcast by unsolved social problems of this country Soviet media. Flowers soon appeared on the remain as desperate and unsolved as they blood-stained pavement near the American were on August 18th. embassy where three “hooligans” and Still and all, one cannot but feel that a “drunks” had died among the tanks. The great and lasting Good has been wrought White House had not been approached in the here—and at a price that could easily have end, and calls went our for new groups of been, in terms of human life, far more tragic people to take the places of some who had (as in Sumgait, Tbilisi, Vilnius, and else- worked the night defense shift. Various anti- where). Perhaps the most notable aspect of Committee groups asked for assistance from the Good one senses at hand is evident in all comers, including even requests for film expressions of a new freedom—not granted 2 from above but won independently by be more terrible than tanks.” He insisted that people themselves, individually and together. an economic confederation must and would This self-liberation, echoed in phrases like “I eventually come into existence, although he stood up to them for the first time,” “Now I stressed no republic should be forced to join can look my grandchildren in the eye,” and it.