Translated material
Feast-yard
In the opposition
Feast-yard
August 20, 2012 Alexander Podrabinek
Free Russia Day is a strange holiday. Once he was almost official. On August 19, which was inconceivably far from us, which were unimaginally from us, was celebrated as the beginning of the end of the communist regime in the USSR. Was it really so actually - the question is controversial, and in the sense of the beginning, and in the sense of the end. However, it was gratifying people to realize that the communist regime collapsed and this happy event has a reference point.
Those who went to the Government’s house in August 1991 did not know very clearly what they wanted; They imagined even worse how to achieve this; But they all knew for sure that they did not want to live as before. The vast majority of people in the country clearly expressed their aversion to a one -party communist system. It was so obvious to everyone that the State Emergency Committee did not dare to use military power and quietly surrendered his position, in time frightened by the possible consequences.
On August 19, then it became a holiday because it turned out to be rare in Russian history, when society defeated power. By the standards of the 20th century, it won almost bloodless, but those three who became the victim of the rebellion - Ilya Krichevsky, Dmitry Komar and Vladimir Usov, the best part of Russian society still remembers. On August 19, flowers were brought to a memorable sign established at the site of their death. This year - almost exclusively white.
It would seem that on August 19, as a day of liberation from communism and dictatorship, the CPSU had every chance of becoming the main national holiday of the new Russia. What is compared with him on June 12 - the day of the adoption of the declaration of state sovereignty of Russia - or November 4 is the Day of National Unity, dedicated to the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow, which, as historians say, actually had to be the next day? All these new holidays, artificial and far-fetched, are not so much attached to events as they are designed for a certain socio-political effect.
On August 19, it would become a real holiday for Russia if the State Committee for Enterprise were crushed to the end and the country cleared of communist filth. Alas, this did not happen. The leaders of the State Emergency Committee were deposed and expelled from the political Olympus, but they remained to live. He was intercepted by dexterous politicians from the party-Komsomol, military and Chekist nomenclature, who put on time democratic clothes and represented before Russian society in the image of the builders of the new democratic Russia. Some of them even claimed the role of victims-someone was transferred from the Politburo and removed from the post of secretary of the party committee, someone was expelled from the CPSU and expelled from the General Prosecutor's Office. Offended apparatchiks from yesterday’s nomenclature, having appreciated the possibilities that opened before them, firmly sucked in the state feeder and gradually created a strong clan, which could only get into their own - in spirit, in views, in biography. The former first secretary of the CPSU regional committee Boris Yeltsin, and when it became is no longer possible, transferred power to the reliable successor - KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin.
All this time, society was comforted by fairy tales about the difficulties of the political struggle and the need for all kinds of compromises with political crooks, made bets on one -day crooks playing the role of oppositionists, and gradually gave civilian freedom conquered in August 1991.
That is why on August 19, not so many people in Russia celebrate the holiday. This holiday has long been orphaned - it is an alien to the authorities, alien to society. He only for those who remember and believe that the people who have entered the streets can win.