The August Coup

Abstract

The assertive ‘new conservatism’ thrust itself suddenly on public consciousness in mid-November 1990. On 13 November Gorbachev attended a meeting of soldiers who were also elected deputies. The meeting as reported was emotionally charged, and there were claims that its atmosphere was more hostile towards the President than the media suggested. Gorbachev’s remarks were a cautious defence of his policies — though he indicated a retreat from the plans for a professional army — and Colonel Alksnis then declared that the President ‘had left himself without armed forces’.¹ Three days later in the Supreme Soviet Gorbachev made a Presidential statement which (even as printed text) seemed remarkably calm and bland. The deputies, who had just returned from hearing their constituents’ complaints, were angrier than they had ever been in the Soviet period — about the economy, about non-compliance with law, about ethnic violence and secessionism — and they demanded action and a ‘firm hand’ from the President.² More radical again than others, it was Alksnis who gave Gorbachev a month’s grace before Soyuz would move no confidence in him.³ Soyuz had already singled out the Foreign Minister, E. A. Shevardnadze, for attack, and it now widened the campaign to include V. V. Bakatin (the Minister of Internal Affairs) and A. N. Yakovlev.⁴

Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see;

And yet salt water blinds them not so much

But they can see a sort of traitors here.

Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,

I find myself a traitor with the rest;

For I have given here my soul’s consent

To undeck the pompous body of a King;

(Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act IV, Scene I)