The meaning of what happened in August 1991 remains somewhat cloudy, though recent accounts have done much to clarify early misunderstanding. What is now established is that the “coup leaders” thought Gorbachev was on their side, gave assurances of this to Yeltsin, and when Gorbachev pulled the rug from under them, essentially panicked, since they had absolutely no plan for a seizure of power. They were not prepared to arrest Yeltsin and his key supporters, suppress the “democrats,” or seize anything. Without either a plan or the will, the entire effort collapsed.
In the confusion of those days, many democrats—no quotation marks this time—condemned the events of August 19-21, 1991, particularly the declaration of martial law. Western governments and media promoted an understanding of these events as an attempted coup. Perched on a tank outside the Russian parliament, bellowing with a bullhorn, Yeltsin was portrayed by the media as successfully rallying the masses against the unjust usurpers. The coup mythology served to blame the Soviet collapse on the “diehards” in the KGB and CPSU, instead of Gorbachev, and to bolster Boris Yeltsin’s image as a hero of democracy.
The research of the last ten years by U.S. historians casts grave doubts on such a History Channel version of August 1991.587 A coup is the unlawful, forcible overthrow of a constitutionally legitimate government, but the SCSE did not try to overthrow the USSR government. The SCSE was the government.
Western media characterized SCSE leaders as cowardly bunglers. Though many blunders occurred in August 1991, the SCSE leaders did not have any prior reputation as weaklings and fools. SCSE leaders had authorized deadly force and used force effectively on several previous occasions. Dunlop called them “serious…men with ruthless intentions”588 In 1956, Kryuchkov, the foremost SCSE leader, had served in the Soviet Embassy in Hungary with Andropov putting down the counterrevolution.589 Moreover, though the SCSE had essentially declared martial law, this was not a bolt out of the blue; Gorbachev had authorized planning for martial law several times in the year before the August events.590
John Dunlop, considered the leading U.S. expert on the “coup,”591 asserted support for the SCSE was substantial. Yeltsin’s own team believed that 70 percent of all local officials in the Russian republic, Communist and non-Communist, did not support Yeltsin.592 Two-thirds of regional Communist Party committees openly expressed support for SCSE, while one-third took a “wait and see” attitude.593 In the outer republics only Moldava, Kyrgystan, and the Baltic states showed big opposition to the SCSE. Polls conducted in the weeks before August 19 by the USSR Academy of Social Science at the Party Central Committee, admittedly a source with an anti-Yeltsin bias, showed huge majorities in favor of the integrity of the USSR and the preservation of state controls over enterprises.594
Gorbachev’s version—that he had no complicity in the August 1991 events—lacks credibility. Supreme Soviet Chairman Anatoly Lukyanov said that Gorbachev had agreed to the action program of the SCSE provided the Supreme Soviet sanctioned it. Historian Anthony D’Agostino concluded that Lukyanov’s assertion “cannot be so easily dismissed.” Similarly, William Odom said “Gorbachev’s complicity cannot be entirely discounted.”595 John Dunlop found “too many flaws in Gorbachev’s account to absolve him.” Those who have studied the August events most exhaustively have affirmed the likelihood of Gorbachev’s involvement the most strenuously. Amy Knight, a U.S. researcher and expert on the KGB associated with the Congressional Research Service and John Hopkins University, concluded that Gorbachev was trying to make the KGB his scapegoat. She said Gorbachev reasoned that, if the SCSE succeeded in assuming control and stopping the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he could feign getting well and take charge. If it did not succeed, he could come to Moscow and arrest everyone. In either case he would have clean hands.596 Jerry Hough asserted “the possibility cannot be totally dismissed” that Gorbachev created the impression that he desired a coup.”597 According to Hough, the SCSE leaders “thought that Gorbachev would eventually legitimate what they had done and they did not want casualties that would complicate the process of reconciliation.”598 Moreover, Gorbachev had powerful motives for choreographing this odd, arm’s length complicity. His democratic, peace-loving reputation among his Western allies would suffer if he were seen as the initiator of martial law.
After the August crisis, Gorbachev tried to provoke the military to intervene on his behalf against Yeltsin. Soviet Air Marshal Shaposhnikov said that in early November 1991 Gorbachev suggested to him that a military coup was “the best of all possible variants.”599 In December 1991, Gorbachev made an open but futile appeal to the military for support against Yeltsin.600 Such behavior suggested that he was fully capable of complicity in the August events.
Far from being a coup, the SCSE was a declaration of emergency by the existing Soviet government, albeit one with only the implicit approval of the Soviet President. Why did Gorbachev lead the SCSE to believe that he favored a declaration of a state of emergency and then reverse himself? In the end, Gorbachev’s opposition undermined the SCSE’s state of emergency. The evidence suggests his fear of the impact on his relationships with the West made him turn against the SCSE.601 By August 1991, only the West solidly supported Gorbachev. In the USSR his popular support was hovering near single digits. When governments in the West refused to recognize the SCSE, Gorbachev got cold feet and reversed himself.
Could the SCSE have succeeded in establishing its legitimacy and reversing the state’s disintegration? In the short run, it almost did succeed in legitimating itself. William Odom, a military analyst, declared: “I am inclined to the view the outcome of the coup was a close call.”602 Could the SCSE have reversed the collapse? Were matters too hopeless by August 1991? The main leaders of SCSE were Communists who wanted to turn the clock of perestroika back to 1985-87.603 Gorbachev’s political beliefs by 1991 were fundamentally different from theirs. Even if he had joined the SCSE, soon they would have parted ways. No success against the collapse of socialism and the breakup of the Union state was imaginable unless Communists reasserted control of the runaway media, ousted Yeltsin and the “democrats,” and reversed Gorbachev’s economic policies. By August 1991, at least in some regions of the USSR, such actions would have required force and risked civil war—a course few had the stomach for. Stopping the secession of the Baltics, the one region where separatism arguably had majority support, would have required force. Such actions would have set ablaze separatist feelings for generations to come. That would likely have been too high a price to pay for anyone committed to the right of nations to self-determination. Had the SCSE acted decisively and had it called upon the army and the workers for support, a peaceful restoration of authority might have occurred. The SCSE might then have permitted the secession of the Baltics but renegotiated a new Union Treaty with the other republics that preserved the all-Union state. Also the SCSE might have launched an anti-crisis economic program that restored central planning and remedied the hardships of Soviet workers and consumers.