Who led the GKChP in 1991. The secrets of the GKChP over the years have acquired a large number of versions

August coup
Mass demonstrations in Moscow against August coup 1991
	The planned transformation of the USSR into the Union of Sovereign States with the initial participation of only the RSFSR and the Kazakh SSR./p>
The main goal:	Stop the collapse of the USSR and prevent its transformation into a confederation.
	The failure of the putsch. The political victory of Boris Yeltsin, the failure to sign a new Union Treaty between the republics of the USSR, a significant weakening of the position of the CPSU, the formation of the State Council, consisting of the President of the USSR and the heads of the Union republics.
Organizers:	USSR State Emergency Committee
Driving forces:	GKChP Political support in the RSFSR: Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union Russia Communist Party of the RSFSR Union republics that supported the GKChP: Azerbaijan Azerbaijan SSR Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic Byelorussian SSR International support for the GKChP: Iraq Iraq Libya Libya Serbia Serbia Sudan Sudan Flag of Palestine PLO
Enemies:	RSFSR: Russia Defenders of the White House Russia Supreme Council of the RSFSR Russia Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Russia Administration of the President of the RSFSR Russia Lensoviet and its defenders Republics who rejected the acts of the State Emergency Committee: Latvia Latvian SSR Lithuania Lithuanian SSR Moldova Moldavian SSR Estonia Estonian SSR International condemnation of the State Emergency Committee: Flag of the EU European Parliament United States of America USA
Dead:
Injured:	unknown
Arrested:

August coup- an attempt to remove M. S. Gorbachev from the post of president of the USSR and change his course, undertaken by the self-proclaimed State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) - a group of conservative-minded conspirators from the leadership of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the government of the USSR, the army and the KGB on August 19, 1991, which led to radical changes in the political situation in the country.

The actions of the GKChP were accompanied by the declaration of a state of emergency for 6 months, the entry of troops into Moscow, the reassignment of local authorities to the military commandants appointed by the GKChP, the introduction of strict censorship in the media and the ban on a number of them, the abolition of a number constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. The leadership of the RSFSR (President B. N. Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) and some other republics, and later also the legal leadership of the USSR: President M. S. Gorbachev and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR qualified the actions of the State Emergency Committee as a coup d'état.

The goal of the putschists

The main goal of the putschists was to prevent the liquidation of the USSR, which, in their opinion, was to begin on August 20 during the first stage of the signing of a new union treaty, turning the USSR into a confederation - the Union of Sovereign States. On August 20, the agreement was to be signed by representatives of the RSFSR and the Kazakh SSR, the rest of the future components of the commonwealth during five meetings, until October 22.

In one of the first statements of the State Emergency Committee, distributed by Soviet radio stations and central television, the following goals were indicated, for the implementation of which a state of emergency was introduced in the country:

It is worth noting that in the event of the signing of a new agreement and the abolition of the existing management structure of the USSR, members of the GKChP could lose their top government positions.
According to sociological research Fund "Public Opinion", held in 1993, the majority (29% of respondents) stated that the purpose of the GKChP was to seize power, and for this they wanted to "overthrow Gorbachev" and "prevent Yeltsin from power" (29%). 18% express the idea that the members of the State Emergency Committee wanted to change the political structure of society: “to preserve Soviet Union"," to return back the former, socialist system, "and for this," to establish a military dictatorship.
In 2006, the former chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Vladimir Kryuchkov, stated that the GKChP did not aim to seize power:

Timing choice

The members of the State Emergency Committee chose the moment when the President was away - on vacation in the state residence "Foros" in the Crimea, and announced his temporary removal from power for health reasons.

Forces of the State Emergency Committee

Active members and supporters of the State Emergency Committee

• Achalov Vladislav Alekseevich (1945-2011) - Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR
• Baklanov Oleg Dmitrievich (b. 1932) - First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Defense Council
• Boldin Valery Ivanovich (1935-2006) - Chief of Staff of the President of the USSR
• Varennikov Valentin Ivanovich (1923-2009) - Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces - Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR
• Generalov Vyacheslav Vladimirovich (b. 1946) - head of security of the residence of the President of the USSR in Foros
• Kryuchkov Vladimir Alexandrovich (1924-2007) - Chairman of the KGB of the USSR
• Lukyanov Anatoly Ivanovich (b. 1932) - Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
• Pavlov Valentin Sergeevich (1937-2003) - Prime Minister of the USSR
• Plekhanov Yuri Sergeevich (1930-2002) - Head of the Security Service of the KGB of the USSR
• Pugo Boris Karlovich (1937-1991) - Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR
• Starodubtsev Vasily Alexandrovich (b. 1931) - Chairman of the Peasant Union of the USSR
• Tizyakov Alexander Ivanovich (b. 1926) - President of the Association state enterprises and objects of industry, construction, transport and communications of the USSR
• Shenin Oleg Semenovich (1937-2009) - member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU
• Yazov Dmitry Timofeevich (b. 1923) - Minister of Defense of the USSR
• Yanaev Gennady Ivanovich (1937-2010) - Vice-President of the USSR

Power and information support of the State Emergency Committee

• The GKChP relied on the forces of the KGB (Alpha), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Division named after Dzerzhinsky) and the Moscow Region (Tula Airborne Division, Tamanskaya Motorized Rifle Division, Kantemirovskaya Division). In total, about 4 thousand military personnel, 362 tanks, 427 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles were brought into Moscow. Additional units of the Airborne Forces were deployed in the vicinity of Leningrad, Tallinn, Tbilisi, and Riga.

The troops of the Airborne Forces were commanded by Generals P. S. Grachev and his deputy A. I. Lebed. At the same time, Grachev maintained a telephone connection with both Yazov and Yeltsin. However, the GKChP did not have full control over your powers; so, on the very first day, parts of the Taman division went over to the side of the defenders of the White House. From the tank of this division, Yeltsin delivered his famous message to the assembled supporters.

• Informational support for the State Emergency Committee was provided by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting of the USSR (for three days news releases invariably included exposure of various acts of corruption and violations of the law committed as part of the “reformist course”), the State Committee for the State of Emergency also enlisted the support of the Central Committee of the CPSU, but these institutions were unable to exert a noticeable influence on the situation in the capital, and the committee could not mobilize that part of society that shared the views of the members of the State Emergency Committee.

Leader of the State Emergency Committee

Despite the fact that G. I. Yanaev was the nominal head of the GKChP, according to a number of experts (for example, the former deputy of the Leningrad City Council, political scientist and polytechnologist Alexei Musakov), the real soul of the conspiracy was V. A. Kryuchkov. The leading role of Kryuchkov is repeatedly mentioned in the materials official investigation conducted by the KGB of the USSR in September 1991.

Despite this, according to the President of Russia Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin:

Opponents of the State Emergency Committee

GKChP resistance led political leadership Russian Federation (President B. N. Yeltsin, Vice President A. V. Rutskoi, Prime Minister I. S. Silaev, Acting Chairman of the Supreme Council R. I. Khasbulatov).
In an address to the citizens of Russia, Boris Yeltsin on August 19, describing the actions of the State Emergency Committee as a coup d'état, said:

Khasbulatov was on the side of Yeltsin, although 10 years later, in an interview with Radio Liberty, he said that, like the State Emergency Committee, he was dissatisfied with the draft of the new Union Treaty:

As for the content of the new Union Treaty, besides Afanasiev and someone else, I myself was terribly dissatisfied with this content. Yeltsin and I argued a lot - should we go to the meeting on August 20? And, finally, I convinced Yeltsin, saying that if we don't even go there, if we don't form a delegation, it will be perceived as our desire to destroy the Union. There was a referendum, after all, in March on the unity of the Union. Sixty-three percent, I think, or 61 percent of the population, were in favor of maintaining the Union. I say: "You and I have no right ...". Therefore, I say: "Let's go, make up a delegation, and there we will motivatedly state our comments on the future Union Treaty."

White House defenders

By call Russian authorities, masses of Muscovites gathered at the House of Soviets of the Russian Federation ("White House"), among whom were representatives of various social groups - from the democratically minded public, student youth, intellectuals to veterans of the Afghan war.

According to the leader of the Democratic Union party, Valeria Novodvorskaya, despite the fact that she was kept in a pre-trial detention center during the putsch, members of her party took an active part in street actions against the State Emergency Committee in Moscow.

Some of the participants in the defense of the House of Soviets, who were part of the Living Ring detachment on August 20, 1991, formed the social and political organization of the same name, the Living Ring Union (leader K. Truevtsev).

Another socio-political association that was formed near the Council House during the days of the coup is the "Social-Patriotic Association of Volunteers - Defenders of the White House in Support of Democratic Reforms - Detachment" Russia "".

Among the defenders of the White House were Mstislav Rostropovich, Andrei Makarevich, Konstantin Kinchev, Margarita Terekhova, the future terrorist Basayev and the head of the Yukos company Mikhail Khodorkovsky

background

• On June 17, Gorbachev and the leaders of nine republics agreed on a draft Union Treaty. The project itself caused a sharply negative reaction from the security officials from the USSR Cabinet of Ministers: Yazov (Army), Pugo (MVD) and Kryuchkov (KGB).
• July 20 - Russian President Yeltsin issued a decree on departization, that is, on the prohibition of the activities of party committees at enterprises and institutions.
• On July 29, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the President of Kazakhstan, N.A. Nazarbayev, met confidentially in Novo-Ogaryovo. They scheduled the signing of a new Union Treaty for 20 August.
• On August 2, Gorbachev announced in a televised address that the signing of the Union Treaty was scheduled for August 20. On August 3, this appeal was published in the Pravda newspaper.
• On August 4, Gorbachev went to rest in his residence near the village of Foros in the Crimea.
• August 17 - Kryuchkov, Pavlov, Yazov, Baklanov, Shenin and Gorbachev's assistant Boldin meet at the ABC facility - a closed guest residence of the KGB at the address: Academician Varga Street, possession 1. Decisions are made to introduce a state of emergency from August 19, form the State Emergency Committee, demand from Gorbachev to sign the relevant decrees or resign and transfer powers to Vice President Gennady Yanaev, detain Yeltsin at the Chkalovsky airfield upon arrival from Kazakhstan for a conversation with Yazov, then proceed depending on the results of the negotiations.

The beginning of the coup

• On August 18, at 8 o'clock in the morning, Yazov informs his deputies Grachev and Kalinin about the imminent introduction of a state of emergency.
• 13:02. Baklanov, Shenin, Boldin, General V. I. Varennikov and the head of the security of the President of the USSR Yuri Plekhanov take off from the Chkalovsky airfield on a military aircraft TU-154 (tail number 85605), assigned to the Minister of Defense Yazov, to the Crimea for negotiations with Gorbachev, in order to obtain his consent to the introduction of a state of emergency. At about 5 p.m. they meet with Gorbachev. Gorbachev refuses to give them his consent.

• At the same time (at 16:32), all types of communications were turned off at the presidential dacha, including the channel that provided control of the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR.
• August 19, at 4 o'clock in the morning, the Sevastopol regiment of the KGB troops of the USSR blocks the presidential dacha in Foros. By order of the Chief of Staff of the USSR Air Defense Forces, Colonel-General Maltsev, two tractors blocked the runway on which the President's flying equipment is located - the Tu-134 aircraft and the Mi-8 helicopter.

G. Yanaev's version

• According to GKChP member Gennady Yanaev, on August 16, at one of the special facilities of the KGB of the USSR in Moscow, a meeting was held between the Minister of Defense of the USSR Yazov and the Chairman of the KGB Kryuchkov, at which the situation in the country was discussed. On August 17, a meeting was held at the same facility in the same composition, to which Chairman of the USSR Government Valentin Pavlov was also invited. It was decided to send a group of members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU to Foros in order to demand that Mikhail Gorbachev immediately introduce a state of emergency and not sign a new Union Treaty without an additional referendum. On August 18, at about 20:00, at the invitation of Kryuchkov, Yanaev arrived in the Kremlin, where a meeting was held with a group of Politburo members who had returned from Foros from Gorbachev. Yanaev was asked to head the GKChP. After a long discussion, he agreed only at about 1:00 am on 19 August.

White House defenders

August 19

• At 6 o'clock in the morning means mass media The USSR announces the introduction of a state of emergency in the country and the inability of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev to perform his functions "for health reasons" and the transfer of all power into the hands of the State Emergency Committee. At the same time, troops were sent to Moscow.
• At night, Alpha advanced to Yeltsin's dacha in Arkhangelskoye, but did not block the president and was not instructed to take any action against him. Meanwhile, Yeltsin urgently mobilized all his supporters in the upper echelon of power, the most prominent of which were R. I. Khasbulatov, A. A. Sobchak, G. E. Burbulis, M. N. Poltoranin, S. M. Shakhrai, V. N. Yaroshenko. The coalition drafted and faxed out an appeal "To the citizens of Russia." B. N. Yeltsin signed a decree "On the illegality of the actions of the State Emergency Committee." Ekho Moskvy became the mouthpiece of the opponents of the putsch.
• B. N. Yeltsin's condemnation of the State Emergency Committee during a speech from a tank of the Taman division at the White House. The President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin arrives at 9 o'clock in " White House”(Supreme Council of the RSFSR) and organizes a center of resistance to the actions of the State Emergency Committee. Resistance takes the form of rallies that gather in Moscow near the White House on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment and in Leningrad on St. Isaac's Square near the Mariinsky Palace. Barricades are erected in Moscow, leaflets are distributed. Directly at the White House is the armored vehicles of the Ryazan regiment of the Tula airborne division under the command of Major General AI Lebed] and the Taman division. At 12 o'clock from the tank, B. N. Yeltsin addresses those gathered at the rally, where he calls the incident a coup d'état. From among the protesters, unarmed detachments of militia are created under the command of deputy K. I. Kobets. Afghan veterans and employees of the private security company "Alex" take an active part in the militia. Yeltsin prepares space for retreat by sending his emissaries to Paris and Sverdlovsk with the right to organize a government in exile.
• Evening press conference of the State Emergency Committee. V.S. Pavlov, who developed a hypertensive crisis, was absent from it. The members of the GKChP were visibly nervous; the whole world went around the footage of G. Yanaev's shaking hands. Journalist T. A. Malkina openly called what was happening a “coup”, the words of the members of the State Emergency Committee were more like excuses (G. Yanaev: “Gorbachev deserves all respect”).

At 23:00, a company of paratroopers of the Tula Airborne Division on 10 BRDM arrived in the vicinity of the House of Soviets. Together with the fighters, the deputy commander of the Airborne Forces, Major General A. I. Lebed, arrived.

The plot in the program "Time"

• In the evening edition of the Vremya program, the Central Television of the USSR unexpectedly broadcasts a story prepared by its correspondent Sergei Medvedev about the situation near the White House, into which Yeltsin finds himself, reading out the Decree “On the illegality of the actions of the State Emergency Committee” signed the day before. In conclusion, there is a comment by S. Medvedev, in which he directly expresses doubts about the possibility of this story being aired. Nevertheless, the story was seen by a huge audience of television viewers throughout the country, it contrasted sharply with the rest of the content of the program (with stories in support of the actions of the State Emergency Committee) and made it possible to doubt the actions of the State Emergency Committee.
• The author of the plot, Sergei Medvedev, explains his exit as follows:

It is worth noting that in 1995, Sergei Medvedev became the press secretary of President Boris Yeltsin and held this post until 1996.

August 20

• By order of the State Emergency Committee, officers of the Ministry of Defense, the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs V. A. Achalov, V. F. Grushko, G. E. Ageev, B. V. Gromov, A. I. Lebed, V. F. Karpukhin, V. I. Varennikov and B.P. Beskov carried out preparations for the previously unplanned seizure of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR by units of law enforcement agencies. According to experts, the capture plan they developed was irreproachable from a military point of view. Units were assigned to carry out the operation. total strength about 15 thousand people. However, the generals responsible for preparing the assault began to have doubts about the expediency. Alexander Lebed goes over to the side of the White House defenders. The commanders of Alfa and Vympel, Karpukhin and Beskov, ask KGB Deputy Chairman Ageev to cancel the operation. The assault was cancelled.
• In connection with the hospitalization of V. Pavlov, the temporary leadership of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was entrusted to V. Kh. Doguzhiev, who did not make any public statements during the putsch.
• Russia creates an interim republican ministry of defense. Konstantin Kobets is appointed Minister of Defense.
• At 12:00, a rally sanctioned by the city authorities of Moscow begins near the House of Soviets. It was attended by several tens of thousands of people. The organizers of the meeting - the movement "Democratic Russia" and the Soviets labor collectives Moscow and Moscow region. The official slogan of the rally is "For law and order"
• At 15:00 on the first channel of the Central Television of the USSR in the program "Time", in the conditions of strict censorship on other channels, an unexpected story was released, later described as follows by the famous journalist E. A. Kiselev:

I then worked in "Vesti". Vesti was taken off the air. We sit, watch the first channel (...) And the announcer appears in the frame, and suddenly starts reading messages news agencies: President Bush condemns the putschists, British Prime Minister John Major condemns, the world community is outraged - and in the end: Yeltsin outlawed the State Emergency Committee, the Russian prosecutor, then Stepankov, initiates a criminal case. We are shocked. And I imagine how many people, including participants in the events, who at that moment caught the slightest hint of which way the situation had swayed, ran to the White House to Yeltsin to sign their loyalty and loyalty. On the third day, in the evening, I meet Tanechka Sopova, who then worked in the Main Information Office of Central Television, well, hugs, kisses. I say: “Tatyan, what happened to you?” - “And I'm a bad boy, says Tanya. I was the responsible graduate." That is, she collected a folder, picked up news. And there was an order: to go and coordinate everything. “I go in,” he says, “once, and there the whole synclite sits and some people who are completely unfamiliar. They are discussing what to broadcast at 21 o'clock in the Vremya program. And here I am, little, poking around with my papers. She really is such a tiny woman. “They tell me in plain text where I should go with my three-hour news:“ Type it yourself! ”- well, I went and typeset it.”

According to Kiselyov, Tatyana Sopova is "a little woman, because of whom, perhaps, the coup in August 1991 failed."

August 21

• On the night of August 21, tank units controlled by the State Emergency Committee carry out maneuvers in the area of ​​the White House (the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR). There are clashes between supporters of Boris Yeltsin and a military convoy in a tunnel under Novy Arbat. (see Incident in the tunnel on the Garden Ring)
• Alpha Group is not ordered to storm the White House.
• At 3 o'clock in the morning, Air Force Commander Yevgeny Shaposhnikov suggested that Yazov withdraw his troops from Moscow and that the GKChP "be declared illegal and dispersed." At 5 o'clock in the morning, a meeting of the collegium of the USSR Ministry of Defense was held, at which the commanders-in-chief of the Navy and the Strategic Missile Forces supported Shaposhnikov's proposal. Yazov gives the order to withdraw troops from Moscow.
• On the afternoon of August 21, the session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR begins under the chairmanship of Khasbulatov, which almost immediately accepts statements condemning the GKChP. Vice-President of the RSFSR Alexander Rutskoi and Prime Minister Ivan Silaev fly to Foros to see Gorbachev. On another plane, some members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency take off to Crimea for negotiations with Gorbachev, but he refuses to accept them.
• A delegation of the State Emergency Committee arrived at the presidential dacha in Crimea. M. S. Gorbachev refused to accept it and demanded to restore contact with outside world. In the evening, M. S. Gorbachev contacted Moscow, canceled all orders of the State Emergency Committee, removed its members from government posts and appointed new heads of the USSR law enforcement agencies.

August 22

• Mikhail Gorbachev returns from Foros to Moscow together with Rutskoi and Silaev on a Tu-134 plane. Members of the GKChP were arrested.
• Mourning for the dead has been declared in Moscow. A mass rally was held on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment in Moscow, during which the demonstrators carried out a huge panel of the Russian tricolor; At the rally, the President of the RSFSR announced that a decision had been made to make the white-azure-red banner the new state flag of Russia. (In honor of this event, in 1994, the date of August 22 was chosen to celebrate the Day of the State Flag of Russia.)
• The new state flag of Russia (tricolor) was installed for the first time on the top point of the Council House building.
• The White House defenders are supported by rock bands (Time Machine, Cruise, Shah, Metal Corrosion, Mongol Shuudan), which will organize the Rock on the Barricades concert on August 22.

August 23

At night, by order of the Moscow City Council, with a massive gathering of protesters, the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square was dismantled.

Live Yeltsin, in the presence of Gorbachev, signs a decree on the suspension of the Communist Party of the RSFSR

Further developments

On the night of August 23, by order of the Moscow City Council, with a massive gathering of protesters, the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square was dismantled.

Live, Yeltsin, in the presence of Gorbachev, signs a decree on the suspension of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. The next day, Gorbachev announces the resignation of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The statement in this regard stated:

Secretariat, Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU did not oppose coup d'état. The Central Committee failed to take a resolute position of condemnation and opposition, did not rouse the communists to fight against the violation of constitutional legality. Among the conspirators were members of the party leadership, a number of party committees and the media supported the actions of state criminals. This put the communists in a false position. Many members of the party refused to cooperate with the conspirators, condemned the coup and joined the fight against it. No one has the moral right to indiscriminately accuse all communists, and I, as the President, consider myself obliged to protect them as citizens from unfounded accusations. In this situation, the Central Committee of the CPSU must take a difficult but honest decision to dissolve itself. The fate of the republican communist parties and local party organizations will be determined by them themselves. I do not consider it possible for myself to continue to perform the functions of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and I am resigning the relevant powers. I believe that democratically minded communists, who have remained faithful to constitutional legality and the course for the renewal of society, will come out in favor of creating a new basis a party capable, together with all progressive forces, of actively engaging in the continuation of fundamental democratic reforms in the interests of working people.

Opposition to the putschists in Leningrad

Despite the fact that the main events took place in Moscow, the confrontation between the State Emergency Committee and democratic forces in the regions, especially in Leningrad, also played an important role.

On the morning of August 19, the city radio and television broadcast: Appeal of the State Emergency Committee to the Soviet people, a statement by Anatoly Lukyanov in his support, and after them - an appeal by Colonel-General V.N. Samsonov, commander of the Leningrad Military District, whom the State Emergency Committee appointed the military commandant of Leningrad. In it, Samsonov announced the introduction of a state of emergency and special measures in the city and adjacent territories, which included:

• a ban on holding meetings, street processions, strikes, as well as any mass events(including sports and entertainment);
• prohibition of dismissal of workers and employees own will;
• a ban on the use of duplicating equipment, as well as radio and television transmitting equipment, the seizure of sound recording, amplifying technical means;
• establishing control over the media;
• introduction of special rules for the use of communications;
• traffic restriction Vehicle and conducting their inspection;

And other measures.

General Samsonov also announced the creation of an emergency committee in the city, which, in particular, included the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU Gidaspov.

The building of the Lensoviet (Mariinsky Palace), in which the democratic faction was the strongest, on August 19 turned into a headquarters for countering the putsch, and St. Isaac's Square in front of it - into a permanent spontaneous rally. Megaphones were installed on the square, transmitting the latest reports on events and speeches from the meeting of the Presidium of the Leningrad City Council, which opened at 10 o'clock. The square and the streets adjacent to the palace, as well as the streets near the television center, were covered with barricades.

Mayor A. A. Sobchak arrived in Moscow the day before to participate as part of the Russian delegation in the planned signing of a new Union Treaty. Together with B. N. Yeltsin and other leaders of the democratic resistance, he compiled the text of the Address to the Citizens of Russia, and at about 2 p.m. he flew to Leningrad. Immediately upon arrival, he did not go to the Mariinsky Palace, as expected, but to the headquarters of General Samsonov, where he persuaded the latter to refrain from sending troops into the city. Then he spoke at an emergency session of the Lensoviet, which opened at 16:30, and later addressed the townspeople on television (August 19, 1991, Leningrad television was the only one in the USSR that managed to air a program directed against the putschists). Together with Sobchak in the studio were the chairman of the Leningrad City Council Alexander Belyaev, the chairman of the Regional Council Yuri Yarov and vice-mayor Vyacheslav Shcherbakov. They ended their speech with a call to the townspeople: to come out on the morning of August 20 to Palace Square for a protest rally.

On August 20, at 5 am, the Vitebsk division of the Airborne Forces of the KGB of the USSR and the Pskov division of the USSR Ministry of Defense made their way to Leningrad, but they did not enter the city, but were stopped near Siverskaya (70 km from the city). The movement of military units in the vicinity and pulling them up to the city continued on the night of August 21 (Radio Baltika regularly reported about them), but in the end V. N. Samsonov kept his word given to A. A. Sobchak, and they were brought into the city did not.

At the rally on August 20 on Palace Square, which was attended by about 400 thousand people, along with the leaders of the city A. Belyaev, V. Shcherbakov and A. Sobchak, many prominent figures in politics and culture (People's Deputies M. E. Salye) condemned the GKChP and Yu. Yu. Boldyrev, poet and composer A. A. Dolsky, academician D. S. Likhachev and others).

The free radio stations Baltika and Open City continued to broadcast in the city.

Victims

• Architect of the design and construction cooperative "Kommunar" Ilya Krichevsky
• Participant of the war in Afghanistan, forklift driver Dmitry Komar
• Economist of the Ikom joint venture, son of Rear Admiral Vladimir Usov

All three died on the night of August 21 during an incident in a tunnel on the Garden Ring. On August 24, 1991, by decrees of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev, all three were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union "for courage and civic prowess shown in the defense of democracy and the constitutional order of the USSR."

Suicide of the leaders of the USSR

The Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1990-1991), a member of the State Emergency Committee B.K. Pugo, committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol when he learned that a group had come to him to arrest him.
According to the founder of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, on August 22, 1991, he personally participated in the operation to arrest Pugo together with Viktor Ivanenko, Director General of the Federal Security Agency of the RSFSR:

Three shell casings were found at the site of Pugo's death. Grigory Yavlinsky, referring to these investigations, says that the last shot was fired by Pugo's wife, Valentina Ivanovna, who also shot herself and died three days later without regaining consciousness.
August 24, 1991 at 21:50 in office room No. 19 "a" in building 1 of the Moscow Kremlin, the duty security officer Koroteev discovered the corpse of Marshal of the Soviet Union Akhromeev Sergey Fedorovich, who worked as an adviser to the President of the USSR. According to the version of the investigation, the marshal committed suicide, leaving suicide note, in which he explained his action as follows:

At about five in the morning on August 26, 1991, N. E. Kruchina, the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the CPSU, under unclear circumstances, fell from the balcony of the fifth floor of his apartment in Pletnev Lane and crashed to death. According to the data cited by the journalists of the Moscow News newspaper, Kruchina left a suicide note on the table, in which he wrote the following:

According to the journalists of Moskovskiye Novosti, Kruchina left a thick folder with documents containing detailed information about illegal commercial activities The CPSU and the KGB, including the creation of offshore enterprises with party money outside the USSR last years. An interesting fact: on October 6 of the same year, Georgy Pavlov, 81-year-old Georgy Pavlov, the 81-year-old Georgy Pavlov, falls from the window of his apartment.

Symbolism

The symbol of victory over the putschists was the Russian tricolor, which was widely used by the forces opposing the GKChP. After the defeat of the State Emergency Committee, by a resolution of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR of August 22, 1991, the white-blue-red historical flag of Russia was recognized as the official national flag of the RSFSR.

Another symbol of the coup was the ballet "Swan Lake", which was shown on television between breaking news releases. In the mass consciousness, the putsch was associated with the Chilean putsch by Pinochet. So Anatoly Alexandrovich Sobchak called the GKChP a junta, and Yazov tried to distance himself from this image, saying: "I will not be a Pinochet."

August coup in culture

• In 1991, the Pilot studio filmed the short animated film Putsch.
• Alexander Prokhanov's novel "The Last Soldier of the Empire" was completely devoted to the August events of 1991.
• 2011 - on the 20th anniversary of the putsch on Channel One came out documentary"Tomorrow will be different."
• 2011 - on the 20th anniversary of the putsch, the Rossiya channel aired the documentary film August 1991. Versions".

The theory of Gorbachev's participation in the activities of the State Emergency Committee

It has been suggested that M. S. Gorbachev himself was in collusion with the GKChP, who knew about the conservative lobby in the Kremlin leadership. So, A. E. Khinshtein in the book “Yeltsin. Kremlin. Medical history" writes:

However, Khinshtein does not indicate the source of this information. On February 1, 2006, in an interview with the Rossiya TV channel, Boris Yeltsin stated that Gorbachev's participation in the State Emergency Committee was documented.

Role of Alpha

Alpha did not trust the GKChP because of the "betrayal" of the KGB leadership after the events in the Baltic states, when one of its fighters died. Therefore, "Alpha" hesitated, actually maintaining neutrality. In an interview, the then commander of Alpha stated that they could easily have captured the White House. But, according to him, no orders were received from above. Otherwise, the White House building would have been seized.

Former leader Presidential Security Service Alexander Korzhakov, in his memoir Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn to Dusk, claims that early morning On August 19, 1991, special forces of the USSR KGB group "Alpha", numbering about 50 people, arrived at Yeltsin's dacha in Arkhangelskoye and guarded near the highway, but did not take any action when Yeltsin's cortege left the dacha towards Moscow. Already after the departure of the president, at about 11 o'clock, according to Korzhakov, armed men approached the gates of the dacha, led by a man who introduced himself as a lieutenant colonel of the Airborne Forces, who stated that they allegedly arrived on behalf of the Minister of Defense to strengthen the security of the village. However, one of Yeltsin's security officers recognized him as an Alpha officer who taught at KGB courses. Yeltsin's guards invited the Alpha fighters to dine in the dining room. After lunch, the commandos sat in their bus for several hours, and then left.

According to the BBC radio, during the three days of the coup, Alpha carried out only one order: on August 21 at 08.30, Karpukhin called the commander of the Alpha department, Anatoly Savelyev, ordering him to go with people to Demyan Bedny Street, where the radio transmitting center and “shut down the Ekho Moskvy radio station” because it “transmits disinformation.” At 10.40 the station was silent for several hours.

Opinions of event participants

In 2008, Mikhail Gorbachev commented on the August 1991 situation as follows:

A member of the State Emergency Committee, Marshal Dmitry Yazov in 2001 spoke about the impossibility of managing public opinion in 1991:

Alexander Rutskoy:

Meaning

The August putsch was one of those events that marked the end of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR and, according to popular belief, gave impetus to democratic change in Russia. In Russia itself, changes took place that contributed to the expansion of its sovereignty.

On the other hand, supporters of the preservation of the Soviet Union argue that a mess began in the country associated with the inconsistent policy of the then authorities.

Curious facts

• On the seventh anniversary of the events, in 1998, none of the representatives of the Russian authorities took part in the mourning events dedicated to the memory of the dead. By that time, over seven years, the number of supporters of the GKChP in Russia, according to the Institute of the Sociology of Parliamentarism, had increased from 17% to 25%.

• According to polls by the Sociological Opinion Foundation in 2001, 61 percent of the respondents could not name a single member of the GKChP. Only 16 percent were able to name at least one surname correctly. 4 percent remembered the head of the State Emergency Committee Gennady Yanaev.

• In 2005 for a meeting former members events on the Gorbaty Bridge and the event at the Vagankovsky cemetery in memory of those killed in the incident in the tunnel on the Garden Ring, only about 60 people came. The then leader of the Union of Right Forces, Nikita Belykh, said at the mourning event:

• In 2006, according to a sociological survey by the Public Opinion Foundation, 67 percent of Russian residents (including 58 percent of young people) found it difficult to give any assessment - about the benefits or harms of the State Emergency Committee.

• In 2009, the Moscow mayor's office and the government of St. Petersburg completely banned the procession and rally dedicated to the anniversary of August 1991, motivating this in Moscow by the fact that for its sake it would be necessary to block the streets and thereby create inconvenience to Muscovites, and in St. Petersburg - by the fact that these measures will interfere with the work on the pipeline.

It was a crude and cynical deception. There was betrayal. There was a cold-blooded desire for blood to be shed. A lot of things happened in those August days of 1991.
But all this was not done by the State Emergency Committee.
But there was no coup.
What happened in those days?

Gorbachev ordered his subordinates to restore order in the country. He, as a "democrat", was out of his hands. The usual game - he is a good investigator, all his ministers are evil. The leadership of the country (almost all except for Gorbachev) had to, through emergency measures, stop the country from collapse, to which it was obviously heading.

When the GKChP began to carry out the actions agreed upon and entrusted to them, Yeltsin declared them traitors and putschists. And after him, the whole world repeated it. And what about Gorbachev? And he simply did not pick up the phone in Foros. The stories about "blocking" Gorbachev at the dacha in Foros by the "putschists" are complete nonsense. In the August days of 1991, one of the St. Petersburg journalists ... got through to the General Secretary's dacha on a regular phone.

Gorbachev betrayed his subordinates. He deceived them. And together with the "putschists" who were confused EXACTLY for this reason, he betrayed and deceived his people.

The GKChP had no plans for arrests or executions. Therefore, nothing was done. The Gorbachev government was waiting for instructions from him, but instead of these instructions, a communication vacuum formed. And on the part of the Russian media, propaganda of the ongoing “coup” began.

Remember WHERE the unfortunate revolutionaries flew at the end? Where were they arrested? Gorbachev's in Foros.

To understand the level of "seriousness of intentions" of the State Emergency Committee, it is enough to say that on August 19, 1991, the head of the KGB, Kryuchkov, held a meeting with the heads of departments. At which he spoke about the introduction of the state of emergency and ... the formation of brigades of security officers to harvest potatoes.

Betrayal. Deception. Blood.

"Revolution" always needs blood, it needs heroes. The GKChP was not going to shoot. They didn't know what to do at all. Now they don’t like to talk about the fact that the future bright characters of Russian history of the 90s, paratroopers officers Pavel Grachev and Alexander Lebed, who guarded Yeltsin during the days of the “putsch”, were sent there ... by the “putschists”. The paratroopers simply changed their commander and ceased to be subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Defense, passing under the command of the Yeltsin Minister of Defense. And with this replacement, they signed the death warrant to the country to which they swore allegiance.

Can they be blamed now for what they did then?

But those who directed the bloody performance just lacked blood. It definitely had to be shed. How to create the crimes of the "bloody regime", in conditions when the regime itself was even afraid to think about a tough scenario of action? Remember the three guys who died in those days at the Garden Ring in Moscow? General Varennikov, one of the members of the GKChP, later said: “There were young people on both sides of the barricades. They pushed her to a provocation: to make an ambush one and a half kilometers from the White House, on the Garden Ring. American and other film and television reporters were planted there in advance to film an episode that no one knew about, neither the police, nor, of course, the troops who were patrolling and were ambushed.

The mobile patrol was attacked by a crowd deliberately provoked by provocateurs. First, the road was blocked by buses and trolleybuses. What for? This patrol was not going anywhere and had no "special" task. He PATROLED the streets of the capital. He didn't shoot at anyone, he didn't crush anyone. Just drove by.

Then Molotov cocktails flew into the combat vehicles, the guys who jumped on the armor began to close the viewing slots. Blind drivers of the combat vehicle could run over people. But that was what was needed. One of the demonstrators even opened the hatch. In response, strictly according to the charter, fire was opened.

And around IN ADVANCE gathered, as if KNOWING more than everyone else, foreign correspondents. You need to understand - this Russian tragedy was specially staged and made to discredit and further collapse of our Motherland - the USSR.

An important fact: all the soldiers and officers of the patrol, who were later tried on the fact of the death of people, were acquitted. Nobody was convicted.
Even more interesting is this fact. All members of the GKChP, all "putschists" were amnestied. And very quickly. In 1994, only one courageous General Varennikov appeared before the court, who refused the amnesty and demanded that he be tried. In the end, he was acquitted by the court.

And now remember that an attempted coup d'état, treason against the Motherland are the gravest crimes.

And the "putschists" were judged precisely under such difficult articles. The same Varennikov said at the trial: "... I have been charged with treason to the Motherland in order to seize power, deliberately damaging state security and the country's defense capability." http://yeltsincenter.ru/books/delo-gkchp

Why such incommensurability of punishment with the “committed crime”?

Because there was no coup.

And the last thing I want to say. There was no coup not only in 1991. He was not there in August 1917. There was no "Kornilov rebellion". What happened in August 1991 exactly repeated the events of the summer of 1917. Then Kerensky (the head of Russia at that time) ordered his subordinate, commander-in-chief General Kornilov, to send troops to Petrograd and restore order. When Lavr Kornilov began to fulfill his plan, Kerensky himself declared him a traitor and arrested him along with a group of senior officers. Accused of trying to seize power, which in fact never existed even in the thoughts of too honest Russian generals. After that, Kerensky released the Bolsheviks from prisons and distributed weapons to those who would overthrow him, Kerensky, the "Provisional Government" in two months.

And in August 1991, Gorbachev, having betrayed his country and his subordinates, returned from Foros weak-willed and powerless.

The scenario of August 1991 and 1917 is striking in its similarity.

Order to put things in order. Announcement for this by traitors. The confusion of the military. Their defeat, inevitable - after all, they were not prepared to fight. They were only prepared to follow orders.

And then - the destruction of the country. Decay. Civil War. Yes, it is civilian. The war in Chechnya is Civil War. Citizens of Russia kill citizens of Russia.

So you ask me what I think about August 1991?

What do I feel on this day?

I'm sad. I'm in pain. I'm offended.

Time will pass and Russian history textbooks will finally be written in the interests of Russia itself. The truth will find its way. And the new leaders of Russia will know their history better than the "unfortunate putschists", better than the leaders of the State Emergency Committee.

And the third time, according to the same scenario, foreign screenwriters will not be able to deceive Russia.

Is ignorance of history a trifle?

It's deadly.

Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR - Boris Karlovich Pugo. He will open a long list of strange suicides that will follow the death of the Great Country in succession. Remember the people who were responsible for the finances of the CPSU, who will start jumping from their high balconies onto the asphalt with enviable constancy.

But Pugo will be the first. He and his wife will be found dead in their apartment. Official version The minister killed his wife and then shot himself.

But there are persistent rumors that there were two bullet holes in his head ...

TASS-DOSIER. On August 19-22, 1991, 25 years ago, an attempted coup d'etat took place in the Soviet Union (known as the "August Putsch").

In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was supposed to replace the USSR with a new federation of sovereign states, representatives of the highest Soviet leadership led by the Vice-President of the USSR Gennady Yanaev, the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev was removed from power and a state of emergency was introduced in the country.

The passivity of the conspirators, the active opposition of the authorities of the RSFSR and a number of other union republics, the mass protests of citizens in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities led to the fact that the coup attempt failed.

On the eve of the putsch

August 18, 1991 a number of higher officials The Soviet leadership, headed by Yanaev, visited President Gorbachev, who was in his dacha residence in Foros (Crimea). The purpose of the visit was to try to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty scheduled for August 20.

Yanaev, as well as Oleg Baklanov, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Defense Council, Oleg Shein, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for Organizational and Party Work, Valery Boldin, Head of the USSR Presidential Administration, and Commander-in-Chief ground forces Valentin Varennikov demanded that the president stop the signing of the treaty, create State Committee on the state of emergency in the USSR (GKChP) and introduce a state of emergency in the country. However, Mikhail Gorbachev did not give his consent to these terms.

On the same day, returning to Moscow, Yanaev signed a decree imposing on himself the powers of the President of the USSR from the next day "due to the impossibility" of their execution by Gorbachev "for health reasons", as well as a decree on the establishment of the State Emergency Committee. In addition to Yanaev, the committee included Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov, Ministers of Defense and Internal Affairs Dmitry Yazov and Boris Pugo, Chairman of the Allied State Security Committee (KGB) Vladimir Kryuchkov, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, Chairman of the Peasant Union of the USSR Vasily Starodubtsev, President of the Association of State Enterprises and Objects of Industry, Construction, Transport and Communications of the USSR Alexander Tizyakov.

By its first resolution, the State Emergency Committee introduced a state of emergency "in certain areas" of the USSR on August 19, and also banned mass events and suspended the activities of all political parties and movements, except for the CPSU and the Komsomol.

Chronicle of events August 19-22, 1991

On August 19, 1991, at six o'clock in the morning, the "Statement of the Soviet leadership", adopted by the members of the State Emergency Committee, was read on the radio and Central Television of the USSR, in which it was announced that the president of the USSR was removed from power and a state of emergency was introduced. On the same day in the morning, KGB units blocked Gorbachev at his residence in Foros, the connection was cut off. Troops were brought into Moscow, the environs of Leningrad, Tallinn, Tbilisi and Riga. In the Baltic republics, troops and police took control of a number of buildings of government agencies and the media.

RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin refused to obey the State Emergency Committee and declared its actions "an anti-constitutional coup." In Moscow, several thousand people gathered near the House of Soviets of the RSFSR, and the construction of barricades began. Rallies against the GKChP were also held in Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen and other cities of Russia.

In the evening, the press center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted the first and only press conference of members of the State Emergency Committee, which was broadcast live by the Central Television of the USSR State Radio and Television. Yanaev, Pugo, Baklanov, Starodubtsev and Tizyakov spoke to the journalists. Answering a question about the whereabouts of the President of the USSR, Yanaev replied that Gorbachev was "on vacation and treatment in the Crimea" and expressed the hope that he would soon "be in service, and we would work together."

The events in the Soviet Union provoked reactions all over the world. The leaders of Libya Muammar Gaddafi, Palestine Yasser Arafat, Serbia Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq Saddam Hussein spoke out in support of the GKChP. In particular, Gaddafi called the coup attempt "a job well done."

In turn, leaders European states- British Prime Minister John Major, French President Francois Mitterrand, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Spanish Prime Minister Filipe Gonzalez and a number of others condemned the putschists. US President George W. Bush issued a statement in which he demanded the return of the President of the USSR to power and supported Yeltsin's actions to restore order.

IN union republics most of the leaders initially occupied wait and see attitude in relation to the events in Moscow, but subsequently declared the unconstitutionality of the actions of the State Emergency Committee. In Latvia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, it was announced that they were ready to start a strike if the putschists came to power. All acts of the State Emergency Committee were recognized as illegal on the territory of the republics. Among those who supported the actions of the organizers of the coup attempt were the first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of Azerbaijan and Ukraine Ayaz Mutalibov and Stanislav Gurenko, as well as the chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus Nikolai Dementei.

The leadership of a number of Russian regions also supported the actions of the State Emergency Committee (Ryazan Region, Krasnodar Territory, etc.). The head of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiev, speaking on August 20 at a meeting of the presidential council of the republic, said that the committee's orders should be carried out in the region.

On August 20, 150,000 people took part in a rally against the GKChP in Moscow, and 300,000 people joined a similar protest in Leningrad.

On the same day, Yeltsin took over the powers of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Russia and created the Ministry of Defense of the RSFSR. A curfew was introduced in Moscow. The defenders of the White House (House of Soviets of the RSFSR) expected a night assault on the building, which became the headquarters of the opponents of the State Emergency Committee.

On the night of August 21, during a clash between opponents of the State Emergency Committee and troops in the center of Moscow, three protesters were killed - Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky. These were the only human casualties during the entire coup attempt. Later, on August 24, 1991, by Gorbachev's decrees, all three were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union "for courage and civic prowess shown in the defense of democracy and the constitutional order of the USSR."

Early in the morning of August 21, Yazov ordered the withdrawal of troops from the capital. The delegation of the State Emergency Committee went to Foros to Gorbachev, but he refused to negotiate. Yanaev, who headed the GKChP, signed a decree on the dissolution of the committee and the invalidity of all decisions it had previously made. In turn, Yeltsin issued a decree on the abolition of the orders of the State Emergency Committee, and the RSFSR Prosecutor Valentin Stepankov ordered the arrest of its members.

On the night of August 22, the plane with Gorbachev and the vice-president of the RSFSR Alexander Rutskoi and the Prime Minister of the RSFSR Ivan Silaev, who accompanied him, landed at the Vnukovo-2 airport near Moscow. On the same day, the main members of the GKChP were arrested - Yanaev, Kryuchkov, Yazov. The Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Boris Pugo committed suicide. In Moscow, at the White House (House of Soviets of the RSFSR), a mass "rally of winners" was held. On it, Yeltsin announced the decision to make the historical white-blue-red canvas the state flag of Russia. The corresponding resolution was signed by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.

Subsequent events in 1991

August 23, 1991 Yeltsin by his decree suspended the activities Communist Party RSFSR, which supported the State Emergency Committee, on the territory of Russia. On August 24, Gorbachev's statement on resignation was published. Secretary General Central Committee of the CPSU. The text of the document also contained an appeal to the members of the Central Committee about the need for self-dissolution of the party. On November 6, by Yeltsin's decree, the activities of the CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR on the territory of Russia were banned, all organizational structures disbanded, party property transferred to state ownership.

December 8 at the estate of Viskuli ( Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Belarus) heads of the RSFSR, Belarusian and Ukrainian SSR signed an agreement on the termination of the existence of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 25, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted a law renaming the republic into Russian Federation. In the evening of the same day, Gorbachev spoke live on Central Television with a statement about his resignation from the presidency of the USSR.

On December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a declaration according to which the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law in connection with the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

DUSHANBE, August 19 - Sputnik. Twenty-five years ago, an attempted coup d'etat took place in the USSR: a self-proclaimed authority was created in Moscow - the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), which lasted until August 21, 1991.

On the night of August 18-19, 1991, representatives of the top leadership of the USSR, who disagreed with the reform policy of the country's President Mikhail Gorbachev and the draft of the new Union Treaty, created the USSR State Emergency Committee.

The main goal of the putschists was to prevent the liquidation of the USSR, which, in their opinion, was to begin on August 20 at the time of the signing of the Union Treaty. According to the treaty, the USSR was to be transformed into a federation. The new federal state was supposed to be called the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics, with the former abbreviation - the USSR.

The GKChP included Vice President of the USSR Gennady Yanaev, Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Boris Pugo, Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov, Chairman of the Committee for State Security (KGB) of the USSR Vladimir Kryuchkov, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, Chairman Vasily Starodubtsev of the Peasants' Union of the USSR, Alexander Tizyakov, President of the Association of State Enterprises and Objects of Industry, Construction, Transport and Communications of the USSR.

They were actively supported by Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces Valentin Varennikov, Chief of Staff of the President of the USSR Valery Boldin, member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Oleg Shenin, Head of the Security of the President of the USSR Vyacheslav Generalov, Head of the Security Directorate of the KGB of the USSR Yuri Plekhanov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Anatoly Lukyanov and some others.

The GKChP relied on the forces of the KGB (the Alpha group), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the Dzerzhinsky division) and the Ministry of Defense (the Tula airborne division, the Taman motorized rifle division, the Kantemirovskaya tank division).

The State Radio and Television provided informational support to the putschists. The nominal head of the conspirators was the vice-president of the USSR Gennady Yanaev.

On August 19, 1991, the day before the signing of the new Union Treaty, the media broadcast the "Statement of the Soviet leadership", which stated that due to the impossibility for health reasons of Gorbachev's performance of the duties of the President of the USSR, in accordance with Article 127.7 of the Constitution of the USSR, the powers of the President USSR transferred to Vice-President Gennady Yanaev, a state of emergency is introduced in certain areas of the USSR for a period of six months from four o'clock Moscow time on August 19, 1991, and the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP USSR) is formed to govern the country.

GKChP Resolution No. 1 ordered the suspension of the activities of political parties, public organizations, forbade the holding of rallies, street processions. Decree No. 2 prohibited the publication of all newspapers, except for the newspapers Trud, Rabochaya Tribuna, Izvestiya, Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda, Soviet Russia, Moskovskaya Pravda, Leninskoe Znamya, Rural Life ".

Almost all TV programs have stopped broadcasting.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who at that time was on vacation in the Crimea, was isolated at a government dacha in the Crimean village of Foros.

On the morning of August 19, troops and military equipment occupied key points on the highways leading to the center of Moscow and surrounded the area adjacent to the Kremlin. Several dozen tanks came close to the House of the Supreme Council and the Government of the RSFSR on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment (White House).

In total, about four thousand military personnel, 362 tanks, 427 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) were brought to Moscow. Additional units of the Airborne Forces (VDV) were deployed in the vicinity of Leningrad, Tallinn, Tbilisi, and Riga.

The response was mass demonstrations and protest rallies in Moscow, Leningrad and a number of other cities in the country.

The resistance to the putschists was led by the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin and the leadership of Russia. Yeltsin signed Decrees No. 59 and No. 61, where the creation of the GKChP was qualified as an attempted coup d'état; Union executive authorities, including law enforcement agencies, were reassigned to the President of the RSFSR.

The House of Soviets of the RSFSR (White House) became the center of resistance to the GKChP. At the call of the Russian authorities, masses of Muscovites gathered at the White House, among whom were representatives of various social groups from the democratically inclined public, students, intellectuals to veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

On the very first day, a tank company of the Taman division went over to the side of the White House defenders.

Boris Yeltsin, standing on a tank, read out an "Appeal to the Citizens of Russia", in which he called the actions of the GKChP "a reactionary, anti-constitutional coup" and called on the country's citizens "to give a worthy answer to the putschists and demand that the country be returned to normal constitutional development." The appeal was signed by the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Ivan Silaev, acting. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov.

On the evening of August 19, a press conference of members of the State Emergency Committee was shown on television. Valentin Pavlov, who developed a hypertensive crisis, was absent from it. The members of the GKChP were visibly nervous; the whole world went around the footage of Gennady Yanaev's shaking hands.

Volunteer detachments of defenders gathered around the White House to defend the building from the assault of government troops.

On the night of August 21, in an underground transport tunnel at the intersection of Kalininsky Prospekt (now Novy Arbat Street) and Sadovoye Koltso, three civilians died while maneuvering an infantry fighting vehicle - Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky.

Within three days it became clear that the society did not support the performance of the State Emergency Committee.

© Sputnik / Sergey Titov

On the morning of August 21, the withdrawal of troops from Moscow began, at 11:30 an emergency session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR was held. On August 22, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his family returned to Moscow on a Tu-134 plane of the Russian leadership.

All members of the GKChP (with the exception of Boris Pugo, who committed suicide) and the Deputy Minister of Defense, General of the Army Valentin Varennikov, who helped them, as well as a number of other figures (including Anatoly Lukyanov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR) were arrested. They were charged under Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (treason).

On February 23, 1994, members of the GKChP were released from prison under an amnesty declared by the State Duma.

© Sputnik / Yuri Abramochkin

Members of the State Emergency Committee declared a state of emergency in the country, and troops were sent to Moscow. The main goal of the putschists was to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union... One of the symbols of the "August coup" was the ballet "Swan Lake", which was shown on TV channels between news releases.

Lenta.ru

17-21 AUGUST 1991

A meeting of future members of the State Emergency Committee took place at the ABC facility, a closed guest residence of the KGB. It was decided to introduce a state of emergency from August 19, form the State Emergency Committee, require Gorbachev to sign the relevant decrees or resign and transfer powers to Vice President Gennady Yanaev, detain Yeltsin at the Chkalovsky airfield upon arrival from Kazakhstan for a conversation with Defense Minister Yazov, proceed further depending on the outcome of the negotiations.

Representatives of the committee flew to the Crimea to negotiate with Gorbachev, who is on vacation in Foros, to secure his consent to the introduction of a state of emergency. Gorbachev refused to give them his consent.

At 4:32 p.m., all types of communications were cut off at the presidential dacha, including the channel that provided control of the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR.

At 04:00, the Sevastopol regiment of the KGB troops of the USSR blocked the presidential dacha in Foros.

From 06.00 All-Union Radio begins to broadcast messages about the introduction of a state of emergency in some regions of the USSR, the decree of the Vice-President of the USSR Yanaev on his assumption of the duties of the President of the USSR in connection with the illness of Gorbachev, the statement of the Soviet leadership on the creation, the appeal of the State Emergency Committee to the Soviet people.

The GKChP included Vice President of the USSR Gennady Yanaev, Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Boris Pugo, Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Kryuchkov, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, Chairman of the Peasants' Union of the USSR Vasily Starodubtsev , President of the Association of State Enterprises and Objects of Industry, Construction, Transport and Communications of the USSR Alexander Tizyakov.

Around 07:00, on the orders of Yazov, the second Tamanskaya motorized rifle division and the fourth Kantemirovskaya tank division began to move towards Moscow. Marching on military equipment, the 51st, 137th and 331st parachute regiments also began to move towards the capital.

09.00. A rally in support of democracy and Yeltsin began at the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky in Moscow.

09.40. Russian President Boris Yeltsin with his associates arrives at the White House (House of Soviets of the RSFSR), in telephone conversation with Kryuchkov, he refuses to recognize the State Emergency Committee.

10.00. The troops occupy their assigned positions in the center of Moscow. Directly at the White House is the armored vehicles of the battalion of the Tula Airborne Division under the command of Major General Alexander Lebed and the Taman Division.

11.45. The first columns of demonstrators arrived at Manezhnaya Square. No measures were taken to disperse the crowd.

12.15. Several thousand citizens gathered at the White House, Boris Yeltsin came out to them. He read from the tank "Appeal to the citizens of Russia", in which he called the actions of the State Emergency Committee "a reactionary, anti-constitutional coup." The appeal was signed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Ivan Silaev and acting. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov.

12.30. Yeltsin issued Decree No. 59, where the creation of the GKChP was qualified as an attempted coup.

At about 2:00 pm, those gathered at the White House began the construction of improvised barricades.

14.30. The session of the Lensoviet adopted an appeal to the President of Russia, refused to recognize the State Emergency Committee and declare a state of emergency.

15.30. Major Yevdokimov's tank company went over to Yeltsin's side - 6 tanks without ammunition.

16.00. Yanaev's decree declares a state of emergency in Moscow.

At around 5:00 pm, Yeltsin issued Decree No. 61, by which the allied executive authorities, including law enforcement agencies, were reassigned to the President of the RSFSR.

At 17:00, a press conference by Yanaev and other members of the State Emergency Committee began at the press center of the Foreign Ministry. Answering the question where the president of the USSR is now, Yanaev said that Gorbachev was “on vacation and treatment in the Crimea. He has been very tired over the years and it takes time for him to recover.”

In Leningrad, thousands of rallies were held on St. Isaac's Square. People gathered for rallies against the GKChP in Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen and other Russian cities.

The radio of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, which had just been created in the White House, broadcast an appeal to citizens in which they were asked to dismantle the barricades in front of the White House so that the faithful Russian leadership The Tamanskaya division could bring its tanks to positions near the building.

05.00. The Vitebsk division of the Airborne Forces of the KGB of the USSR and the Pskov division of the USSR Ministry of Defense made their way to Leningrad, but did not enter the city, but were stopped near Siverskaya (70 km from the city).

10.00. A mass rally on Palace Square in Leningrad gathered about 300,000 people. The military cities promised that the army would not interfere.

At about 11:00 am, the editors of 11 independent newspapers gathered at the editorial office of Moskovskiye Novosti and agreed to publish the Obshchaya Gazeta, urgently registered with the RSFSR Ministry of Press (coming out the next day).

12.00. A rally sanctioned by the city authorities began at the White House (at least 100,000 participants). Rally at the Moscow City Council - about 50 thousand participants.

In connection with the hospitalization of Valentin Pavlov, the temporary leadership of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was entrusted to Vitaly Doguzhiev.

Russia creates an interim republican ministry of defense. Konstantin Kobets is appointed Minister of Defense.

In the evening, the Vremya program announced the introduction of a curfew in the capital from 23.00 to 5.00.

On the night of August 21, in an underground transport tunnel at the intersection of Kalininsky Prospekt (now Novy Arbat Street) and Sadovoye Koltso (Tchaikovsky Street), clogged with armored vehicles, three civilians died during maneuvering: Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky.

03.00. Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Yevgeny Shaposhnikov proposes to Yazov to withdraw troops from Moscow, and to "declare the GKChP illegal and disperse it."

05.00. A meeting of the board of the USSR Ministry of Defense was held, at which the commanders-in-chief of the Navy and the Strategic Missile Forces supported Shaposhnikov's proposal. Yazov orders the withdrawal of troops from Moscow.

11.00. An emergency session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR opened. There was one issue on the agenda - the political situation in the RSFSR, "formed as a result of a coup d'état."

At 14.18 IL-62 with members of the State Emergency Committee on board flew to the Crimea to Gorbachev. The plane took off a few minutes before the arrival of a group of 50 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, which was tasked with arresting members of the committee.

Gorbachev refused to accept them and demanded to restore contact with the outside world.

At 4:52 pm, vice-president of the RSFSR Alexander Rutskoi and Prime Minister Ivan Silaev flew to Foros to Gorbachev on another plane.

White House defenders

22:00. Yeltsin signed a decree on the annulment of all decisions of the State Emergency Committee and on a number of reshuffles in the State Radio and Television.

01:30. The Tu-134 plane with Rutskoi, Silaev and Gorbachev landed in Moscow at Vnukovo-2.

Most members of the GKChP were arrested.

Mourning for the dead has been declared in Moscow.

From 12.00 the rally of the winners near the White House began. In the middle of the day, Yeltsin, Silaev and Khasbulatov spoke at it. During the rally, the demonstrators carried a huge banner of the Russian tricolor; The President of the RSFSR announced that a decision had been made to make the white-azure-red banner the new state flag of Russia.

The new state flag of Russia (tricolor) was installed for the first time on the top point of the building of the House of Soviets.

On the night of August 23, by order of the Moscow City Council, with a massive gathering of protesters, the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square was dismantled.

DOCUMENTS GKChP

Vice President of the USSR

Due to the impossibility for health reasons of Gorbachev's performance of his duties as the President of the USSR, on the basis of Article 1277 of the Constitution of the USSR, he assumed the duties of the President of the USSR from August 19, 1991.

Vice President of the USSR

G. I. Yanaev

From the Appeal

to the Soviet people

State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR

... The crisis of power had a catastrophic effect on the economy. A chaotic, spontaneous slip to the market caused an explosion of egoism - regional, departmental, group and personal. The war of laws and the encouragement of centrifugal tendencies resulted in the destruction of a single national economic mechanism that had been taking shape over decades. The result was a sharp drop in the standard of living of the vast majority Soviet people, the flourishing of speculation and the shadow economy. It is high time to tell people the truth: if urgent measures are not taken to stabilize the economy, then in the very near future, famine and a new round of impoverishment are inevitable, from which one step to mass manifestations of spontaneous discontent with devastating consequences ...

From Decree No. 1

State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR

6. Citizens, institutions and organizations to immediately hand over all types of firearms, ammunition, explosives, military equipment and equipment illegally located v them. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR shall ensure the strict implementation of this requirement. In cases of refusal - to seize them forcibly with the involvement of violators to strict criminal and administrative responsibility.

From Decree No. 2

State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR

1. Temporarily limit the list of issued central, Moscow city and regional socio-political publications to the following newspapers: Trud, Rabochaya Tribuna, Izvestia, Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda, Soviet Russia, Moskovskaya Pravda , "Lenin's banner", "Rural life".

"BAD BOY"

August 20, the second day of the coup, the nerves are on edge. Everyone who has a radio listens to the radio. Those who have a TV do not miss a single news release. I then worked in "Vesti". Vesti was taken off the air. We sit and watch the first channel. At three o'clock, the usual episode, which no one had watched before. And then everyone stuck. And an announcer appears in the frame, and suddenly begins to read news reports: President Bush condemns the putschists, British Prime Minister John Major condemns, the world community is outraged - and in the end: Yeltsin outlawed the GKChP, the prosecutor of Russia, then there was Stepankov, initiates criminal a business. We are shocked. And I imagine how many people, including participants in the events, who at that moment caught the slightest hint of which way the situation had swayed, ran to the White House to Yeltsin to sign their loyalty and loyalty. On the third day, in the evening, I meet Tanechka Sopova, who then worked in the Main Information Office of Central Television, well, hugs, kisses. I say: “Tatyan, what happened to you?” - “And this is me, Bad Boy,” says Tanya. “I was the responsible graduate.” That is, she collected a folder, picked up news.

And there was an order: to go and coordinate everything. “I go in,” he says, “once, and there the whole synclite sits and some people who are completely unfamiliar. Discuss what to transmit at 21 o'clock in the program "Time". And here I am, little, poking around with my papers. She really is such a tiny woman. “They tell me in plain text where I should go with my three-hour news:“ Type it yourself! - Well, I went and made up.

AND THERE ARE STATISTICS

All-Russian Research Center public opinion(VTsIOM) annually conducts a survey of Russians on how they assess the events of August 1991.

In 1994, a survey showed that 53% of the respondents believed that the coup was suppressed in 1991, 38% called the actions of the State Emergency Committee a tragic event that had disastrous consequences for the country and people.

Five years later - in 1999 - in the course of a similar survey, only 9% of Russians considered the suppression of the GKChP a victory for the "democratic revolution"; 40% of respondents consider the events of those days just an episode of the struggle for power in the country's top leadership.

A sociological survey conducted by VCIOM in 2002 showed that the proportion of Russians who believe that in 1991 the leaders of the State Emergency Committee saved their homeland, the great USSR, increased one and a half times - from 14 to 21% and one and a half times (from 24 to 17 %), the proportion of those who believed that on August 19-21, 1991, the opponents of the State Emergency Committee were right, decreased.

More impressive results were obtained in August 2010 following the results of the voting on the series of programs "Court of Time", conducted by N. Svanidze. When asked what the GKChP of August 1991 was - a coup or an attempt to avoid the collapse of the country - despite the efforts of N. Svanidze, 93% of the surveyed viewers answered - it was a desire to preserve the USSR!

MARSHAL YAZOV: WE SERVED THE PEOPLE

DP.RU: In fact, the State Emergency Committee was impromptu, you, as a military leader, should have understood that if the operation is not prepared, the forces are not pulled together ...

Dmitry Yazov: No forces had to be pulled together, we were not going to kill anyone. The only thing we were going to do was to disrupt the signing of this treaty on the Union of sovereign states. It was obvious that there would be no state. And since there will be no state, it means that measures had to be taken so that the state exists. The whole government got together and decided: we must go to Gorbachev. Everyone went to tell him: are you for the state or not? Let's take action. But such a weak-willed as Mikhail Sergeevich could not do this. Didn't even listen. We left. Gorbachev made a speech, his son-in-law, Raisa Maksimovna, recorded it on tape: “I hid it so, and my daughter hid it so that no one would have found it.” Well, it’s clear where she plugged this tape, of course, no one would climb. Who needed it, this film. The state is falling apart, and he expressed resentment that they cut off his connection, did not allow him to talk with Bush.

DP.RU: I heard that you yourself assigned a battalion to guard the White House.

Dmitry Yazov: Absolutely right.

DP.RU: But then they said: the troops went over to Yeltsin's side. It turns out that everything was not so?

Dmitry Yazov: Of course not. Shortly before that, Yeltsin was elected president. Came to Tula. There Grachev showed him the exercises of the airborne division. Well, not the entire division - the regiment. They liked the teaching, they drank it well, and Yeltsin thought that Pasha Grachev best friend. When the state of emergency was introduced, Yeltsin became indignant, like a coup. But no one arrested him. No one had a hand in it at all. Yeltsin then in 1993 could turn off the light, he could turn off the water, he could shoot the Supreme Council ... But we didn’t guess, such fools! Yeltsin was in Alma-Ata the day before and then said that the State Emergency Committee delayed the plane's departure for 4 hours in order to shoot down the plane. Imagine what a meanness! Newspapers wrote how he spent those 4 hours. We played tennis with Nazarbayev for 2.5 hours in the rain, then we went to wash... And he: they wanted to knock me down!!! I arrived at the White House myself and called Pasha Grachev: he sent out security. Grachev calls me: Yeltsin asks for security. I say: Lebed went with the battalion. So that there really were no provocations.

We organized patrols, there was a company of infantry fighting vehicles... Right here, right on Novy Arbat Avenue, we set up trolleybuses, made a barricade under the bridge. The tanks would pass, but the infantry fighting vehicles would stop. There were drunks: some began to beat with a stick, some threw a tent so that nothing could be seen. Three people died. Who was shooting? Someone shot from the roof. The soldiers did not shoot. Someone was interested. Everything was done in order to have a civil war. And I took and withdrew the troops. I was about to go to Gorbachev, and everyone came running. I say let's go. Arrived - he took such a pose. Didn't accept anyone. We humiliated him!!!

Rutskoi, Bakatin, Silaev flew in on another plane - that, excuse the expression, brethren, who, it seems, hated both the Soviet Union and the Russian people. Well, Rutskoi, the man whom we rescued from captivity, later showed what he was like: for the president, a year later - against the president. Ungrateful people - of course, we did not need gratitude from them, we served the people. Of course, I saw that there would be an arrest now. It cost me nothing to put a brigade on the airfield or to land on another airfield myself, but that would be a civil war. I served the people, and I would have to because they want to arrest me, unleash a war, shoot at the people. Just from a human point of view, it should have been done or not?

DP.RU: War is always bad...

Dmitry Yazov: Yes. And I think - to hell with him, in the end, let them arrest him: there is no corpus delicti. But they arrest him, and immediately the 64th article is treason. But how can you prove treason to me? Yesterday I was a minister, I sent troops to guard the Kremlin, to guard the water intake, to guard the Gokhran. Everything has been saved. Then they looted it. Diamonds, remember, were taken in bags to America ... And how did it all end? Three people gathered - Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich. Did they have the right to liquidate the state? We signed while drunk, overslept, and in the morning the first thing we did was report to Bush… What a shame! Gorbachev: I was not informed. And they didn't report to you because they didn't want you to be president. You made them sovereign - they became sovereign. And you didn't care. Yeltsin literally 3-4 days later kicked him out of the Kremlin and from the dacha, and now he is hanging around the world.

GKChP member Dmitry Yazov: "The Americans put 5 trillion in order to eliminate the Soviet Union." Business Petersburg. August 19, 2011