Jubilee notes

The following is only disparate thoughts and memories. From time to time, consciousness returns to this heroic three-day-which means that there is something in it, for something it is all important.

1. Of course, it is convenient to accept the famous GKChP press conference, the shaking hands of Yanaev and the question of Tatyana Malkina: "Do you realize that you have made a coup d'etat?"

I see the salt here in the fact that for an intelligent person already, and for others, soon after us, it became clear that the Gekachepists were not aware of this with the maximum obviousness. For they did not believe that they were performing a coup. This distinguishes them from Pinochet, and perhaps this is what sets the difference between the result of their undertaking from the result of the venture of the Chilean general. In fact, a military coup implies a sharp and complete destruction of political opponents: in the very first hours they are arrested, and they are eliminated by political structures. In other words, during a normal military coup, political opponents of the rebels simply remove from the chessboard.

On August 19, 1991, nothing like this really was undertaken: Yeltsin and his supporters had complete freedom of action all this day, which they could fully use. It is clear that the goal of the GKChP was only a serious change in the equilibrium point between political forces. As it is implemented, they must think, they intended to enter into negotiations with their opponents from new positions - from the standpoint of strength. Whereas, after the overthrow of Alende, Allende did not talk with any communists otherwise than "having removed the skin from them down." This is the difference.

2. A. B. Chubais rather emotionally talked about how Sobchak behaved that day. On August 19, he found him in Moscow. The St. Petersburg mayor immediately sat on the plane, arrived in Pulkovo and went straight from there to the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District. There he climbed into the office of the district commander Gene.-regiment. V.M. Samsonova, shook his hand and, not letting go of this general's hand, circling Samsonov, sat in his chair. "Report!" - the mayor commanded. “Ta -Ta -Ta ...” - the general got into the usual template, “in the city - calmly ... On the basis of the Decree of the GKChP, I compiled an order to introduce a state of emergency in Leningrad ...” - “Where is this Decree of the GKChP?” - "Here he is." - "Take it in your hands. Now read aloud." Samsonov obediently read out the document. “So,” Sobchak began in response, “an article of such and such a Constitution of the USSR says that the emergency mode is introduced in the following cases: natural disasters, epidemics, epizootics. Do we have a natural disaster?” - "There is no way." - "Epidemic?" - "There is no way." - "Epizootics?" (Gene.-regiment. Samsonov does not understand the meaning of this word too well, but just in case, he also says "no"). “In this case,” Sobchak summarizes, “the publication of this decree of the GKChP according to the article of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR is a criminal offense. As well as its execution. Everything is clear to you, comrade colonel general?” - "So for sure."

In general, the party was played - the military in St. Petersburg never performed. “This is the whole of Sobchak with his absolute fussy,” Chubais summed up.

And Samsonov’s order, more precisely, a certain “from the military commandant of Leningrad” with an indefinite legal status, voiced on TV, forever entered my memory with the lack of a prescribing part, that is, I order the words that are ordinary for such a document, I order after the word. There was only a reference to the base in it - a decree of the GKChP - and a very strange educational program: a story about how a state of emergency in general can be. Not in this particular case, but in general.

3. Actually, the technical side of the drama of the state was in a split among officials: some obeyed the Russian leadership, others to the Union, who was in confrontation with him. In those August days, in fact, there was a struggle for the loyalty of some part - and the State Committee forces lost this struggle.

It is important not to forget at what level by the beginning of 91 was actually handling in the USSR. Say, tax services, for historical reasons, were to Russian subordination and did not indulge in the union budget with their prey in it. The Russian leadership almost consciously produced monetary obligations for which the union was forced to pay. Of course, through emissions.

In general, when I hear that Yeltsin, who won in August, destroyed the USSR in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the episode from the summer of 1990, who spoke in front of a rather extensive unfamiliar audience (who consisted of both the local and the Moscow -Poter public), the Minister of Education of Belarus, was not embarrassed, not hesitating, saying that, they say, they say that, they say, they say, “Gorbachev,“ Gorbachev, “Gorbachev,” We prescribe this and that, however, here, in Minsk, we will not execute this decree. " Once again: all this happened not in Lithuania, but in Belarus, and not in December 91, but in August 90! What the hell is the USSR!

4. It was also remembered that the word "communist" was completely absent in the appeal of the GKChP. This, however, did not affect anything - the audience clearly interpreted what was happening as a communist coup.

5. Another completely caricature moment - so to speak, about the properties of power. Almost on the 22nd, it turned out that no one actually blocked Gorbachev in Foros. 19 came to him and turned off the special communications - that’s all. The seizure of the telephone tube turned out to be enough for the head of state with a 250 millionth population and nuclear missiles to be eliminated at all. Smirily sat surrounded by a platoon of personal guards for three days, watched the BBC and waited for the guests. It is clear that the person who has set himself so is the president of the telephone tube.

6. And yet it was a pity for Gorbachev, when Yeltsin at the congress publicly forced him to read out all kinds of pieces of paper unpleasant for the president of the USSR-somehow not even reproaching the triumph Yeltsin, who certainly deserved this fun, but simply sorry for such a special, almost shameful pity for the outgoing nature, even if this nature was not particularly pretty. I then caught the gloss of this emotion in myself-fully sympathizing with the changes, nevertheless I experienced some underlying sadness from the fact that a huge system of relations created by generations, taking with it, all associated life experience, someone's plans, hopes and hope.

7. Khodorkovsky in November 2002 told about these days in such lapidar words: “In the days of the coup, I was in the White House. A pause. It was quite scary, because the corridors ran many frightened and completely untrained people with weapons. A pause. To be honest, it was a feeling that the White House will be taken by storm, they will be arrested and sent to prison. Somewhere deep down it was the feeling that it would be right.

8. And finally, it is worth fixing a rather general modus of the attitude to those events, characteristic of those who then supported Yeltsin, stood around the White House, participated in the unprecedented-mass rallies of those times, etc. Briefly, it is formulated by the phrase: "We were divorced." There are several options here-someone will talk about the allegedly taking place of imitation of the confrontation, someone will say that the crooks then forced him, poor fellow, to fork out his sincere support. I remember that I was once struck by such a person heard from the lips of a person who makes a good time to conduct training training skills in reflection. And this professional reflector does not occur to the fact that the slave, who received freedom for a short time and failed to dispose of this freedom correctly, will then say that he really had no freedom that this freedom was seeming, imitating. However, these realities do not cancel these executives of the subconscious.