Re-iterate what perestroika has given to us… it brought freedom and emancipation…we opened up to the world … having stood in opposition to the world, we denied ourselves the opportunity of participating in civilization’s progress at its most critical turning point. We suffered terrible [losses], perhaps our greatest losses, thanks to this.574
The end of the USSR’s “standing in opposition to the world” carried a high price for many. Eastern European socialism disappeared, replaced by new conservative governments cravenly seeking EU and/or NATO membership, leaving a still independent Yugoslavia alone to be hammered by NATO. By 1993-94 the abandoned but heroic Cubans were farming with wooden plows and oxen. In Africa, the continent most wronged by imperialism, the end of Soviet aid meant the extinction of thirty years of hope and struggle for independent development. Debt owed to Western banks soon throttled new states struggling since formal de-colonization in 1960, while AIDS and other diseases and collapsing social safety nets threatened to wipe out whole peoples. With “Don’t displease the Americans” as the new be-all and end-all of Soviet foreign policy, the USSR even spurned such national liberation leaders as Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat. After the 1989 Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, the progressive Najibullah held power until 1992. He then sought refuge in the UN compound. In 1996 when the Taliban seized Kabul its first act was to break into the UN compound and shoot Najibullah, mutilate his body, and hang it for public viewing in the streets of Kabul.
As the Gulf War neared, James Baker, President Bush’s deputy, asked the Soviets to join in a strike on the Iraqi army. Gorbachev replied: “I want to emphasize that we would like to be by your side in any situation.”575 Thus, step-by-step, his concept of an “integrated, interdependent world” and “universal human values” transformed Soviet foreign policy into an outright alliance with imperialism. Gorbachev’s sycophancy reached remarkable depths. In a letter to President George H. W. Bush, Gorbachev even implied that the future direction of the Soviet Union depended on America:
At the same time I get the impression that my friend, the president of the United States, hasn’t come to a final answer on the main question: what kind of Soviet Union does the United States want to see? And until this question is answered we’ll keep stumbling on one or another particular aspect of our relations.576
By August 1991, the deterioration of economic conditions and the unraveling of the Soviet Union had become so advanced and Gorbachev was so lacking in a plan to deal with the crisis that a group of Soviet leaders took a radical step to gain control of events. They formed the State Committee for the State of Emergency (SCSE), known also by its Russian initials GKChP. The state officials who made up the SCSE had exhausted other options aimed at limiting Gorbachev’s power and stopping the erosion of the Soviet state’s authority. As far back as 1988, Ligachev had lost his struggle against Gorbachev in the Politburo. In September and December 1990, the group that comprised the SCSE had criticized Gorbachev. In April 1991, it tried to remove him in a CC vote. In June 1991, it tried to outwit him in parliament.577 In August 1991, Yeltsin’s attempt to re-draft the details of the Union Treaty in order to deny the All-Union institutions revenue-raising powers propelled these men to take matters in their own hands. The SCSE leaders were infuriated by what they believed was Gorbachev’s capitulation to Yeltsin’s re-draft of the treaty.578 Moreover, Yeltsin had also just prohibited the CPSU in the army and had denied the USSR exchequer access to any revenues from the Russian oilfields.579 Gorbachev had even agreed to abolish the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, his own creation. Though the members of the SCSE were ostensibly Gorbachev men, they sprang into action because Yeltsin was winning every struggle with Gorbachev.580
The formation of the SCSE initiated a strange sequence of events. On August 18, in the late afternoon, five high officials: first deputy chairman of the USSR Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, president of the Association of USSR State Industries Alexander Tizyakov, Politburo member Oleg Shenin, commanding general of the ground forces of the Soviet Army Valentin Varennikov, Gorbachev’s chief of staff Valery Boldin, and chief of the presidential personal security guard Yuri Plekhanov confronted Gorbachev in his summer home at Foros on the Black Sea. They proposed that he turn over power to USSR Vice President Gennadii Yanaev who would proclaim martial law and—with state disintegration looming—introduce order. Baklanov said to Gorbachev: “Nothing is required of you. We will do all the dirty work for you.” According to historian Jerry Hough, “Some of the group thought Gorbachev would agree, but he reacted hostilely and aggressively.”581
The single most important SCSE leader was KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov. Besides the previously named, the SCSE’s members were: USSR Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, USSR Defense Minister Dmitrii Yazov, USSR Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Pugo, and Chairman of the USSR Union of Peasants Vasilii Starodubtsev. Other key members were: chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet Anatolii Lukyanov (a Gorbachev ally for years), two first deputy chairmen of the KGB Viktor Grushko and Genii Ageev, and KGB General Vyacheslav Generalov.
At six the next morning on August 19, 1991 the SCSE announced on Soviet television that it had temporarily assumed power because Gorbachev was ill and that Vice President Yanaev would exercise the powers of the president until he returned. The SCSE sent troops and tanks to Moscow, but in every other way the SCSE leaders acted very indecisively. Its statement, the “Appeal to the Soviet People,” published by TASS on August 19, stressed patriotism and the restoration of order. It began, “There have emerged extremist forces which have adopted a course toward liquidation of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the state and the seizure of power at any price.” The document denounced the economic reforms of “adventurers” that resulted in “a sharp drop in the living standards of the overwhelming majority of the population and the flowering of speculation and the shadow economy.” It declared that the prestige of the USSR had been undermined. It vowed to “clean the streets of criminals,” as well as end “the plundering of the people’s wealth.” Labor discipline and law and order would be reestablished. The “Appeal” promised to carry out “a countrywide discussion on a new Union Treaty.”582
On the evening of August 19 the SCSE leaders held a press conference for foreign and Russian journalists. Observers claimed that they seemed nervous, inept, and indecisive. They certainly were indecisive. During the three days in question, SCSE allowed Western news agencies, from CNN to Radio Liberty, to broadcast freely their own interpretation of developments, and even to promote Yeltsin. Top military officers were allowed to telephone and visit politicians in the Russian White House, i.e., the Russian Republic’s parliament building. Meanwhile, Yeltsin and the “democrat” leaders continued to speak to the world and Soviet media, worked to win over the military, and built barricades around the Russian parliament building. SCSE took no action against them all day on August 20. It amazed Western analysts that top military leaders did not participate in any SCSE-directed assault on the Russian parliament at night on August 19 or August 20.583
The pivotal moment of the August events came on the night of August 20-21. The SCSE developed and then abandoned a plan to storm the Russian parliament. Then, on August 21 SCSE leaders Kryuchkov, Yazov, Baklanov, Tizyakov, and Lukyanov flew to Foros to persuade Gorbachev to join them in counteracting Yeltsin and the Russian government. They sought to convince him that the SCSE’s actions so far had shown how little effort would be needed to restore order. Gorbachev would not meet them.584 At 2:30 a.m. on August 22nd Gorbachev returned to Moscow on the presidential plane along with the Russian Republic’s Vice President Rutskoi (Yeltsin’s ally, who had arrived in Foros on another plane), and Kryuchkov. Kryuchkov had agreed to join Gorbachev on the presidential plane, on the basis of a promise he would speak as an equal with Gorbachev.585 On landing, however, Kryuchkov was arrested by Soviet authorities.586 Back in Moscow, Gorbachev resumed formal power, though his real power was fast slipping into the hands of Yeltsin. At 9 a.m. on August 22 the Soviet Ministry of Defense decided to withdraw its troops from Moscow, and the bizarre drama came to an end.