Washington D.C., August 19, 2011 -The
hardline coup d’etat 20 years ago today in Moscow surprised
its plotters with unexpected resistance from Soviet
president Mikhail Gorbachev, from Russian democratic
opposition forces, and from the international community
including the Bush administration, according to documents
posted today by the National Security Archive at George
Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).
The documents include the most
complete account of the coup by a Gorbachev insider, the
British ambassador’s immediate skeptical analysis of the
plot, the Russian Supreme Soviet’s debate as the coup
dissipated on August 21, and telcons of President Bush’s
talks during the coup with foreign leaders including
Gorbachev and Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
The posting marks the 20th
anniversary of the August 19, 1991 announcement by the
so-called Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), as
USSR state television replaced regular programming with the
ominous chords of “Swan Lake,” that Gorbachev was allegedly
sick and the Committee was taking power in the country. The
coup pre-empted the scheduled August 20 signing of the new
Union Treaty, intended to create a new decentralized and
democratic Union. The plotters, led by KGB Chairman
Vladimir Kryuchkov and Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov,
held Gorbachev under house arrest at his dacha in Foros,
Crimea; but as the diary of Gorbachev aide Anatoly Chernyaev
shows, Gorbachev refused to cooperate with the coup plotters
and demanded that he return to Moscow and face the Supreme
Soviet.
However, already on August 19,
demonstrators surrounded the tanks sent by the coup plotters
to guard the White House – the building of the
democratically elected Russian Parliament. The freshly
elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin assumed leadership
of the opposition and demanded that Gorbachev be reinstalled
as the lawful President of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin
standing on a tank (actually an armored personnel carrier)
outside the White House became the symbol of the Russian
democratic revolution, which prevented the right-wing
takeover, but also led directly to the collapse of the
Union. In effect, the coup plotters speeded up the outcome
they were trying to prevent.
The Chernyaev diary provides the most
complete account of the Foros experience of the Gorbachev
circle; excerpts have appeared in Foreign Policy (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/21/three_days_in_foros)
while the Archive has published the full text. The August
20 telegram from British Ambassador Rodric Braithwaite
describes the indecisiveness of the coup plotters and
prescribes a policy of the strongest possible support for
Gorbachev. The memoranda of telephone conversations with
foreign leaders from the Bush Library show that the Bush
administration was carefully following the developments in
Moscow and projecting clear support for Gorbachev.
The final document published in
today’s posting – for the first time anywhere – brings the
reader into the halls of the legendary Russian White House,
to the extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the
Russian Federation at the exact moment of the triumph of the
democratic resistance to the coup. The discussions show the
resoluteness of the democratic opposition and the decisive
role of the Soviet army, in which key units ultimately
disobeyed orders and sided with the democratic forces.
Document 1. “Three Days in Foros,” excerpt from Anatoly
Chernyaev Diary.
[Source: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, Donated Manuscript, on
file at the National Security Archive, translated by Anna
Melyakova]
Document 2. Rodric Braithwaite, “Moscow, August 19:
The First Day of the Coup,” Telegram of 20 August 1991.
[Source: Rodric Braithwaite, Correspondence, 1988 to 1993,
Donated Manuscript, on file at the National Security
Archive]
Document 3. George Bush-Felipe Gonzalez Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 19, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 4. George Bush-Vaclav Havel Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 19, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 5. George Bush-Jozsef Antall Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 19, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 6. George Bush-Boris Yeltsin Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 20, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 7. George Bush-Boris Yeltsin Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 21, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 8. George Bush-Mikhail Gorbachev Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation, August 21, 1991.
[Source; Bush Presidential Library, NSArchive foia
1999-0303-F]
Document 9. Transcript of the First Extraordinary
Session of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation,
August 21, 1991.
[Source: State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF),
Fond 10026, Translated by Matthew McGorrin]
