August coup in Moscow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
T-80 tanks in front of Red Square during the August coup

During the August coup in Moscow from August 19 to 21, 1991 , a group of functionaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which described itself as the State Committee for the State of Emergency , tried to remove the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and take control of the country bring.

The leaders of the coup attempt were members of a structurally conservative and reactionary junta and communists of the CPSU, in whose eyes the economic transformation was going too far and a right deviation from communism meant its abolition. They also feared that the union treaty newly negotiated by Gorbachev would give the union republics too much power. Although the coup attempt failed after only three days and Gorbachev was reinstated, he destroyed Gorbachev's plans for the continued existence of an, albeit decentralized, state union and accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union .

background

Since 1985, Gorbachev has been pursuing a reform program that was characterized by two key elements: economic and political restructuring, known as perestroika , and opening up to the population , known as glasnost . These reforms attracted opposition and opposition from the left wing of the Communist Party. Resistance to reforms grew as the economic and political situation deteriorated. In July 1991 the open letter “ A word to the people ” by some Communist Party functionaries and writers was published, which was understood as an anti-perestroika manifesto. In addition, there was room for independence movements by non-Russian peoples who now saw the opportunity for more self-determination , which heightened the Soviet regime's fear that some or all of the Union states would fall away from the Soviet Union . After some negotiations, the republics agreed to a new union treaty that would make them independent republics in a federation with a common president, common foreign policy and common armed forces. The treaty was supposed to be signed on August 20, 1991 and strengthen the Union; Communists feared that some smaller member states, especially the three Baltic states ( Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania ) would now strive for complete independence.

Coup

On Monday, August 19, 1991, the day before Gorbachev and a group of heads of the republic were due to sign the union treaty, a group that called itself the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKTschP) tried to seize power in Moscow . All those involved had only reached their positions under Gorbachev. The group included:

Other co-initiators of the coup included:

The group announced that Gorbachev was surprisingly ill and could no longer exercise his political offices. The vice president and coup leader Gennady Janayev was appointed interim president.

Gorbachev himself was on vacation in Foros in the Crimea at the beginning of the coup attempt . He was detained and isolated there from the afternoon of August 18 to August 21 after he refused to consent to the declaration of the state of emergency and the transfer of his powers to the Vice President. He stayed there until the end of the coup three days later.

Large demonstrations against the putschists followed in Moscow and Leningrad . The coup was unsuccessful because the armed forces refused to obey the coup plotters. Dmitri Yasov gave a possible explanation as to why the coup failed when he analyzed the question of what the coup was for and what to shoot at, but did not know the answer himself. The resistance against the coup, led mainly by the President of the Russian republic Boris Yeltsin from the government building, the White House , was successful. During one of these demonstrations, Yeltsin climbed onto a tank; In front of tens of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in front of parliament, he demanded the return of Gorbachev and condemned the attempted coup. He asked the soldiers: “Do not become the blind weapon of the criminal will of adventurers!” This performance, which contrasted so much with Janayev's half-hearted televised address, became one of the most memorable events of the coup and strengthened Yeltsin's position.

A planned attack on the government building by the KGB's paramilitary special unit ALFA failed when members of the unit unanimously refused to obey. A tank unit defected to the government of the Russian Union Republic protected the White House. Confrontations broke out in the adjacent streets, including two demonstrators being run over by a tank and one shot. All in all, there was little violence. Current situation reports were transmitted to the world via Glasnet and the connected mailbox networks .

On August 21, the majority of the troops openly confessed to the demonstrators, the remaining were withdrawn. So the coup failed. Gorbachev returned to Moscow relatively powerless and promised to purge conservative forces from the CPSU. By decree , Yeltsin banned the CPSU on the territory of the Russian republic. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU, but remained President of the Soviet Union. The KGB secret service was abolished in October. The putschists were removed from their offices and imprisoned. Most of them were released from prison from 1992/93. Interior Minister Pugo committed suicide .

episode

After the coup , the Soviet Union finally fell apart . Non-Russian former union republics, one after the other, declared their independence from the USSR. The strengthened Yeltsin took control of the media and key ministries. He gradually dismantled and ousted Gorbachev, who was the highest-ranking officer of the previous superpower until his resignation on December 25, 1991 . At the end of 1991 it was decided to dissolve the Soviet Union. There remained the now 15 sovereign states of the Union. The Russian Federation , under Yeltsin's leadership, became the legal successor to the Soviet Union.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : August coup in Moscow  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Moscow laments ten lost years. In: Handelsblatt . August 16, 2001. Retrieved July 2, 2012 .
  2. ↑ From the Kiev Empire to the collapse of the USSR . In: Federal Agency for Civic Education . February 3, 2004, accessed July 2, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Jörn Grävingholt : Russia's Regions in the Yeltsin Era: Institutional Consolidation and Organization of Power. In: Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies (Ed.): Russia in Europe? Internal developments and international relations - today. Böhlau, / Weimar / Vienna 2000, p. 64 .
  4. ↑ a b J. R. Mettke, C. Neef: Russia remains a great power . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1991 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Wolfram Neidhard: The last battle of the dilettantes . In: n-tv . August 19, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Ludmila Lutz-Auras: “To Stalin, Victory and Fatherland!” Politicization of the collective memory of the Second World War in Russia. Springer VS , 2013, p. 22 .
  7. ↑ August Putsch: The End of the USSR. In: Wiener Zeitung . August 16, 2011.
  8. ↑ Andreas Rüesch: The trembling putschist. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . 19th August 2016.
  9. ↑ Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitry Yazov: Perhaps the State Committee for the State of Emergency was an association of suicides ... , kp.ru, August 16, 2001; Quoted in "Black Wind White Snow".
  10. ↑ Gabriele Hooffacker (Ed.): Who Owns the Internet? (PDF) Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-9805604-3-6 , p. 24.