Interview by Boris Kagarlitsky
VLADIMIR KONDRATOV is a Socialist Party deputy to the Moscow City Soviet. During the coup of August 19-21 he was a member of a special committee formed to organise the defence of the City Soviet building; his particular responsibility was to monitor and analyse developments in the coup. In this interview for Green Left Weekly by BORIS KAGARLITSKY, Kondratov advances compelling arguments indicating that Russian President Boris Yeltsin had prior knowledge of the August 19 coup attempt and made use of it for his own purposes.
Commentators in the Moscow press during the past few days have noted that the coup was obviously prepared well in advance. Would you agree with them?
At first sight, this seems beyond question. Let's just recall the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the departure of Yakovlev from the Politburo. Then around the end of October or the beginning of November, there were strange troop movements in Moscow in the guise of a military parade.
This was like a rehearsal for the seizure of the strategically important administrative buildings — the Central Telegraph Office, the Moscow City Soviet, and the "White House" [the Russian parliament building]. Gorbachev at this time was in Spain, then in France, and was preparing to go to Germany, but he unexpectedly returned to Moscow.
Next we saw the extraordinary sitting of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, Shevardnadze's statement on the coming reaction, the extraordinary sitting of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation, the charge of financial manipulations levelled against the Russian government — the case of the 140 billion — and the attempt to remove Yeltsin by parliamentary means. Finally, there was Pavlov's savage price reform.
Despite this long preparation, the coup of August 19 was astonishingly unlike a real coup, or at least, a violent coup involving the seizure of power. Let's start by going through the various stages in order.
First of all Vice-President Yanayev, in a gross violation of the law, introduced a state of emergency "in particular localities", and formed the Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP). The president of the USSR was supposed to be sick and unable to perform his duties.
It was obvious that Yeltsin, as president of the Russian
Federation, would be totally opposed to the scheme. No attempts were even made to reach agreement with Yeltsin on the introduction of the state of emergency, and in the event that he didn't agree, to isolate him. All of the means of communication between the White House and the rest of the world were left in perfect working order. This wasn't because they didn't know how to isolate it — they simply didn't want to.
At nine o'clock on the first day, August 19, the Russian leadership, the three top people, signed an "Appeal to the Citizens of Russia", in which the introduction of the state of emergency and the founding of the GKChP were termed a coup d'etat and described as a betrayal of the homeland.
After this, everything was clear. You would have expected the military forces in the city to quickly blockade the White House and arrest the signatories. Logically, they would have quickly cut all forms of communication between the White House and the outside world, then occupied the White House and placed it under guard. None of this would have been particularly difficult, but it wasn't done. Obviously, they didn't want to.
The situation with the Moscow city administration was similar. Here the strange circumstances are endless. After the declaration by Yeltsin at nine o'clock and the analogous declaration by Luzhkov at 12, the position of the remaining democrats could be told in advance. But there was not even an attempt to arrest them. The communications continued to work.
Just as before, the only city into which troops were brought was Moscow. The only buildings that were placed under guard were those of Central Television, the Central Telegraph Office, and TASS. The printing works weren't placed under guard. Troops were patrolling the streets, but the Toman and Kantemirov divisions were brought into Moscow without any ammunition and with orders to take up their positions and wait. They weren't in a position to show serious resistance if force were used to put an end to the state of emergency.
So in other words, instead of "seizing power", the GKChP was preparing to hold a press conference?
Yes. Now let's turn our attention to the make-up of the GKChP. Kryuchkov was head of the KGB, and before that head of the intelligence division of the KGB. He was the planner and director of more than one coup in other countries. In particular, he was the direct organiser of the coup in Poland in 1981. Was this professional really so incompetent that in organising a coup in his own country he ignored such elementary aspects as communications and placing opponents under arrest?
All the same, there were arrests.
The people arrested were functionaries who didn't actually exercise power, and also the "scandalous" leaders of the radicals: Gdlyan, Kamlatov and Urazhtsev. The last of these was held for only two hours.
That's not all. Questions crop up at every step. No-one dreamt up a diagnosis for Gorbachev's illness. Was this coup really planned painstakingly in advance? Did they even seize power at all? To all appearances, no. Did they imagine they exercised it? People like Pavlov, Pugo and Kryuchkov couldn't be so naive.
If the behaviour of the "junta" suggests anything, it's that the measures involved in the state of emergency were agreed in advance, at least with Gorbachev. We're even entitled to ask: was the introduction of the state of emergency agreed with Yeltsin or with his circle?
The official version has it that the Democrats were victorious thanks to the heroism of Muscovites and their leaders.
It wasn't so simple. It was only between 11 and 12 a.m. on August 19 that security forces of the Russian Interior Ministry arrived to guard the White House. They were followed by cadets from the Ryazan college. Enough of these forces arrived to allow the defence of the White House to be organised, and it's a huge building. Yeltsin's decree and his appeal were distributed throughout the city without any hindrances. The mood of the population was one of categorical support for the White House.
Under these conditions, any self-respecting government would withdraw to its bunker (communications there weren't cut off, and if they had been, they would have been cut off from the White House too), organise its defence, and direct the liberating forces to seize and hold the radio stations. In the space of one or at most two days the coup, is crushed. If the people are on the side of the government, the army will go over to the people.
Instead of this, Yeltsin used his forces for the defence of a gigantic building, and personally issued his decrees to the people, under the muzzles of enemy snipers. Is the man an idiot? Or did he need a large headquarters for what he was doing, and was he sure that no-one would try to arrest him or otherwise get rid of him?
Meanwhile, around the White House barricades were being thrown up, mainly out of concrete traffic barriers, steel pipes, and steel reinforcing rods. A number of tanks, without ammunition and with the barrels of their guns covered, were stationed inside the barricades near the White House; I personally counted five tanks and one armoured personnel carrier, though people said there were 10. Troops armed with automatic rifles were on the ground floor.
The streets leading to the White House were blocked by trucks and
buses, and by barricades put together out of park benches, reinforcing rods and anything else that was available. Muscovites were being called on to come and defend the White House. They had no weapons, and milled about on the streets behind the barricades. At various stages during those days the number of people present varied between 15,000 and 60,000.
The scenario for an attack was well known. It had been employed first in Tbilisi, then in Baku and Lithuania. First gas would be released, then the crowds would be crushed. The barricades wouldn't have stopped tanks; most of them had been built so ineptly that armoured personnel carriers would have got through. In Afghanistan these machines coped with much more serious obstacles.
The people who were inside the street barricades but outside the barricades directly in front of the White House would have had no way out except to try to climb over the latter. Panic would have broken out, since the barricades were like metallic hedgehogs. Some had been built on the edge of a concrete pit.
People would have been mutilated as a whole crowd of them tried to get over the barricades. Most, however, would have made it through to the White House. A large number of people would have been concentrated there in the space surrounding the building. The tanks which were there, and which didn't have ammunition, would have had to be used as cover and as battering rams. However, they would not have been able to move without crushing people.
Once the tanks had broken through the inner ring of barricades, the assault would have been continued by airborne troops, who would have cut through the crowd without waiting for it to disperse. The armed people inside the building would not have been able to use their weapons to repel the attack without firing into the mass of people outside.
Why were people summoned to the White House in these circumstances? Was it absolute, criminal immorality, calling on people to bar the way into the building with their corpses, or was it confidence that there wouldn't be an assault?
If there was this confidence, what was it based on? On the belief that the soldiers supported Yeltsin and wouldn't fire on the people, or on the belief that the order to attack would not be issued? The first supposition would have been ill founded. The troops could easily have been provoked to a brutal assault, if agents of the coup leaders had known how to set a few tanks alight so that the crews perished. Both Yeltsin and especially, Rutskoy would have been aware of this.
Throughout all three days of this strange coup, I don't think the sense of some behind-the-scenes manoeuvre ever left me. There were a lot of other deputies and activists involved in the defence of the Moscow Soviet and the White House who felt the same way. The
people who had come to defend the White House were ready for heroic deeds, but the people they were defending didn't deserve this heroism. We felt we were being manipulated.
All right, so the official version doesn't hold water. But how do you explain all this?
I can't see any way of explaining it unless you accept that there was at least a tacit understanding between the troika of Pavlov, Pugo and Kryuchkov on the one hand, and Gorbachev on the other, that a state of emergency would be declared. Gorbachev wasn't prepared to introduce it himself, but in my view he was prepared to feign illness while others brought it in, and then later on to give it his support.
Most importantly, I think you have to concede some degree of collusion by Yeltsin and his immediate circle with Gorbachev, and possibly with the "troika" as well. At the very least, the "troika" knew all about what was happening. Obviously there were no signed-and-sealed contracts, but there were no serious objections either. It seems most likely that the disagreements that did exist were on points of detail.
There was possibly an agreement that Yeltsin would show a certain resistance to the introduction of the state of emergency, but it was most likely assumed that after personnel changes in the GKChP and the
appointment to it of representatives of Russia, Yeltsin would agree to a compromise, and consequently, to the state of emergency as well. After Yeltsin had expressed his agreement, Gorby would recover his health and agree as well.
What happened, though, was totally different.
I think Yeltsin simply double-crossed them all. The state of emergency was introduced, and the "troika" waited for Yeltsin's reaction. At first everything went as expected. Yeltsin objected, rather too vehemently to be sure, but that could be corrected.
If he were to agree to a state of emergency, there would have to be a very difficult situation, such as would arise as a result of major strikes. But the armed forces, I suspect, were alarmed by the prospect of strikes, and supported the state of emergency.
Intensive discussions took place, as we can see from the fact that communications to the White House weren't shut off. This was evidently the source of the confidence that there wouldn't be a serious assault. More than likely the GKChP was fed with promises that before long Yeltsin would agree and they could settle on a new composition for the committee.
However, the reaction from the population and from the West was too
strong, and Yeltsin decided to play his own game. This evidently occurred on the evening of August 19 or the morning of August 20.
The first to understand what was going on was Pavlov, who decided to fall ill. After that the GKChP, in effect Kryuchkov and Pugo, issued orders to "distant divisions" — in Vitebsk and Minsk — to come to Moscow, this time with their ammunition. They also brought in an airborne regiment and the KGB's anti-terrorist "Alpha" regiment, preparing to storm the White House from the air, using helicopters. They were now deadly serious.
At this point, the people running the White House moved a unit of Interior Ministry troops to the top floor and the roof. But communications weren't cut off. Negotiations continued, in the tone of an ultimatum. The GKChP were sure that the White House was going to fall.
But at precisely this moment, the military betrayed the GKChP. General Grachev stopped the "distant divisions" on the edge of Moscow. The Alpha regiment loaded into their helicopters, and — didn't carry out their orders. The soldiers from Alpha are reputed to have told the pilots something along the lines of, "You do the flying — we'll do the killing."
The "troika" had now lost Moscow, so they rushed to Gorby in the Crimea. There they were sold out once again. The comedy was over.
So who needed all this, and why?
The introduction of a state of emergency, with the participation of Russia, would have been a demonstration of leadership unity and seriousness of purpose. It's indicative that no-one tried to remove Gorbachev from the post of general secretary. Everyone simply forgot about the Communist Party, or made out that they did.
The GKChP's declaration made it quite clear that Communism and socialism were abolished, and that what was to exist henceforth was a "strong regime", a variation on Chile. Make your investments, gentlemen: profits guaranteed!
But what in fact came to pass was the Yeltsin variant. The shock experienced in the West was replaced by euphoria. The nuclear threat had been eliminated, Yeltsin was wildly popular, the Communist Party was dissolved, the people were the victors and heroes. Make your investments, gentlemen: profits guaranteed! Everyone would get their dividends, except for the Communists who didn't succeed in changing their colouring.
The people would not revolt against their idolised president and his policies. The army was rehabilitated as a defender of
democracy. The troika would be dealt with. One of them — Pugo — was dealt with that very morning.
Only two questions remain. First, what was the point of the bloodshed? And second, what's going to happen to us now? If hungry and impoverished people show signs of discontent, are we going to see camps set up for the dissatisfied? And how much more blood is going to be shed?