Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=08/17/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=RUSSIA / COUP ATTEMPT, PART 4 OF 4

NUMBER=5-49964

BYLINE=LARRY JAMES

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

/// EDS: SEE ALSO 5-49961 Russian Coup Attempt (Part 3 of 4), 5-49953 Russia / Coup Attempt (part 2 of 4), 5-49944 Russia Coup Attempt PT 1 ///

INTRO: On August 18, 1991, eight high-ranking Soviet officials placed Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest and took control of the government of the U-S-S-R. Less than 72 hours later, their coup had collapsed, but it would change the course of history in a way that no one could have foreseen. Our Moscow Bureau has been talking with some of the people directly involved in those tumultuous days. Now, /// OPT /// in the last of a series of reports, /// END OPT /// we look at how Russia has changed since those fateful days 10 years ago. Here is Moscow correspondent Larry James.

/// MUSIC FROM SWAN LAKE IN FULL THEN UNDER ///

TEXT: To this day there are quite a few in Russia who admit their pulse quickens when they hear the music from Swan Lake. For it was a televised version of that ballet that pre-empted other programming on Russian T-V when hard-line communists tried to crush the democratic reforms sweeping across the Soviet Union.

They did not succeed.

Led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, pro-democracy advocates rallied to resist the coup.

/// ANONYMOUS ECHO MOSKVY REPORTER FADE AND HOLD UNDER ///

This commentary by an anonymous man was broadcast on Echo Moskvy radio when it was becoming clear the coup attempt was failing.

/// ANONYMOUS COMMENTARY BACK UP FULL THEN FADE UNDER TRANSLATION ///

Let us not forget those who were not afraid. Let's not forget those who gave their lives. Let's not forget those people (in the military) who stood up to defend democracy and refused to follow criminal orders. I am sure none of us will forget these places where we stood to the very end. So let's meet (next year) on these same streets and squares and build barricades of flowers on the places where there are real barricades now. Let us not forget those who were not afraid.

It was a heady (euphoric) time.

The coup had failed. The reactionaries could not stop the changes sweeping across their country.

Now, ten years on Russians are looking at how far they've come.

Vasily Starodubtsev was one of the eight members of the Emergency Committee that tried to seize power to prevent the Soviet state from disintegrating. He believes the past ten years have been a disaster.

/// STARODUBTSEV ACT IN RUSSIAN THEN FADE FOR TRANSLATION ///

There has not been a single year (since the coup) where the situation has been good. The army has been destroyed. Medical care is non-existent. The country has been torn to pieces.

/// END ACT ///

Businessman Sergei Bradchikov was one of those manning the barricades in defiance of Mr. Starodubtsev and Emergency Committee. He agrees many things have gotten worse in Russia over the past 10 years and he says that is disappointing. But, he says, some good has come of it.

/// BRADCHIKOV ACT IN RUSSIAN THEN FADE FOR TRANSLATION ///

In principle (the new leadership) just robbed the whole country. But actually we hadn't had anything before anyway. I don't regret what happened in 1991. If it were to happen again, I would do just the same again. I don't regret it. The simple fact that I am here giving you this interview (shows some of the good). I couldn't have done it under the Soviet system. We probably couldn't have even met. I would have been arrested right here.

/// END ACT ///

Sergei Evdokimov commanded the elite Tamanskaya armored division that the Emergency Committee ordered into the streets of Moscow. But rather than moving to confine Boris Yeltsin and his anti-communist forces in the Russian White House, he turned his tanks around to defend them from the coup leaders. It was a huge risk. Yet he says he would take it again.

/// EVDOKIMOV ACT IN RUSSIAN THEN FADE FOR TRANSLATION ///

No matter if Gorbachev or Yeltsin were good or bad, the Emergency Committee was illegal. They started their "rule" based on lies, saying that Gorbachev is incapable of fulfilling his duties. I would do the same if it happened now. Besides, I realized that something should have been changed in the country, that something was going wrong.

/// END ACT ///

/// SWAN LAKE, BEGIN SNEAK ///

By August 22, 1991 it was all over. The coup had failed and Boris Yeltsin had emerged with the real power. On August 23rd he suspended all activities of the Russian Communist Party. The next day Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president Boris Yeltsin had defended against the coup plotters, resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party, demanded the party's central committee be dissolved and banned the party from the Armed Forces, the KGB and the police. Those actions, along with declarations of independence by a half dozen Soviet Republics spelled the end. Although official dissolution of the Soviet Union did not take place until December 25, 1991, as of August 22nd the U-S-S-R existed in name only. (Signed)

/// SWAN LAKE UP FULL AS DESIRED ///

NEB/LDJ/KL/KBK