Translated material
August 1991: Myths and Reality
Vladimir Kara-Murza: 22 years ago, Muscovites woke a caterpillar clang. Once per hour, the statement of the State Extraordinary Regulation Committee was read, and the Swan Lake was shown on TV. For more than two decades, historians argue about the nature of the events of that August, and we continue this dispute today, 22 years later. The theme of our conversation: "August 1991 - myths and reality."
Our guest is a lawyer Yuri Ivanov , a deputy of the State Duma of several convocations from the Communist Party faction and lawyer Vladimir Kryuchkov at the GKChP process; Dmitry Kataev , member of the political council of the Moscow Solidarity, in those days - former deputy of the Moscow City Council, and Alexander Drozdov , executive director of the Presidential Center of Boris Yeltsin.
Alexander, how did you perceive those events?
Alexander Drozdov: On the 19th, I was not in Moscow, I was on vacation for a week, and I found out about this on the roof of the house in the village. I learned from the neighbor, the late journalist "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Ilya Grcher. Of course, it surprised me. Something was in the air, but it broke through unexpectedly. I got into the car and drove to Moscow. Only having arrived at the White House and putting the car, I found that I did not take a single document with me in a hurry, and at the same time I drove through the checkpoints, through some filters on the Dmitrovskoye Shosse.
Yuri Ivanov: I found this event in the former Belgrade Hotel, where I, as a lawyer, talked with the head of one of the companies that was in my legal services. Two Belgrade buildings were crowded with the guys from the Caucasus, and I watched how they quickly organized with the help of Khasbulatov. If we talk about myths and reality, then the largest myth is the story that the Gkchpastists were going to take a communist revenge. At this point, the 6th article of the Constitution had already overturned the Communist Party, the presidents of Russia and the USSR reigned, these presidents gained their staff, and the Gkchpists did not want any communist revenge. The reason for their speech was a message that a new union agreement on the SSG would be signed on the 20th. This agreement was developed in Novo-Ogarsky by Gorbachev’s assistants-Shakhnazarov, Chernyaev, Revenko and others. Neither the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, nor among the deputies of the Supreme Council of Russia, this text was prepared in the conditions of complete conspiracy and was published only on August 15 in Moscow News, and on the 16th-in Izvestia. And when the GKCHPIS read this text of the contract on the 16th, they saw that the Soviet Union remained only a day before the arrival of Gorbachev. And there was a need to try to stop the adoption of this contract.
Alexander Drozdov: But the most paradoxical is that Yeltsin also opposed the Union Treaty? Isn't it?
Yuri Ivanov: Absolutely not so. They agreed with Gorbachev and Nazarbayev in Novo-Ogarsevo two weeks before that this agreement will be signed.
Dmitry Kataev: Somewhere a month before these events in the district newspaper, which the Oktyabrsky district council was going to publish, then the most democratic and advanced, I prepared a feuilleton for him, in which there were words: "General Pugashov on a white horse enters the district council." Let me remind you that Pugo and Makashov - these were two heroes of the most extremely communist sense. In the morning of the 19th, at 6 a.m., the deputy Zaslavsky called me, who was then a confidant, and says: "In Russia, a coup." Then Schleifman called me, one of our active people in the Oktyabrsky district, and we agreed to go to the center with him. Schleifman came to me with a complete Avoska Batonov, he began to stock up on. We went to the center with him, I went to the Echo of Moscow. And it was not clear how serious it was. I come to the "echo of Moscow", everything is calm there, but the radio does not work. I was then a deputy of the Moscow City Council, and we began to call one of the leaders of Echo to those who could do something. Then the deputies who were members of the media commission in the Moscow City Council also went up, also took up this, and I went to the Moscow City Council.
In the Moscow Council, Yeltsin’s performance, leaflets were already propagated. I took a pack and went to the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky. A huge crowd immediately surrounded me, I had to ask a few guys nearby to make a chain around me, and I distributed these leaflets. I distributed quite a lot. Then he went to the Manezh, stood on the parapet of the transition, and somewhere there was a thought: I was a good target ... The people gathered again, I said something, read this performance of Yeltsin, distributed leaflets. And he went with the remains of leaflets to the tanks. It is amazing that there was no guard, I calmly laid these leaflets on the tanks and went to the very bridge.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: What then was a military coup, if the freedom of action was not limited?
Alexander Drozdov: I think that the organizers least took into account the spontaneity and sincerity of the actions of Muscovites. We understand that the fate of Russia in those days was decided in three cities-in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, in some others. It seems to me that the return moral blow was absolutely not calculated. The fact that we moved around the city that I entered the city without a single document-the next day it began to acquire completely different contours, and especially on the night from the 20th to the 21st in the White House, which was really scary and turning point. When we heard that the special forces of Alpha and Vympel were going to storm this building, it became uneasy. The authorities are not taken without blood, but here it turned out to be small. Three people are a tragedy, but when it comes to millions, it is statistics, and it is not cynicism, so the story is arranged. In those days, even the watch, the country looked into the face of a great story and into the abyss.
Yuri Ivanov: If we talk about danger, there were simply no ammunition in the tanks. As for the introduction of technology - what came from Kryuchkov and his colleagues? The Democrats had a very high level of trust. And on March 28, they carried out the anti-Gorbachev demonstration, anti-government and brought about 100-120 thousand people to the streets of Moscow, led this demonstration of Gdlyan, Ivanov, Koryagin, Kalugin ... Then, at the direction of Gorbachev, technicians, tanks and armored personnel carriers were placed on the garden ring. The people walked and spread. From the point of view of the GKCHPI, the introduction of technology was of a fake character. But when it was decided to withdraw this technique, and it went, in the Arbat zone, on the old Arbat, at this point they blocked the movement with a trolley and attacked this armored vehicle, began to throw it with bottles and combustible mixtures on top. It was on the night on the 21st. The driver of the front armored personnel carrier (his surname Bulychev) had burned hands and face. I tried to drag him as a witness to be interrogated, but as soon as I went to the military unit and began to ask me to be connected with him, at first they said that he was being treated, and then the tankers of this part were quickly scattered outside the reach.
Three people who died there died in different ways. One of them-a mustache-was the son of the admiral, this is a guy who tried to take a man from under the wheels, and the tank moved. The second of them is a mosquito - a former Afghan, from the Moscow Region, with a mount in his hand, he jumped onto an armored personnel carrier and began to hit the door, and when he opened this door, there was an Uzbek, a soldier, his last name was Sainhajaev. He saw that a man with a mount arose in the opening, and he killed him with one shot from a machine gun. By the way, then the examination noted the average degree of intoxication from Komar. The third-Krichevsky-was an educated, cultural guy, he, in my opinion, had an architectural education, he was in the group where the bottles of tankers were thrown, tankers tweaks of armored personnel carriers with a usz, they could not pass, and then the sergeant jumped out, gave a fan line, and one of the bullets hit Krichevsky. I do not set out my speculations, but I just set out the text of the decision. On the one hand, they were recognized as heroes, but the investigation did not impose their death to anyone from the State Emergency Committee.
Dmitry Kataev: I am ready to believe what you say, but a very deep gap between the fact that there were no ammunition in the tanks ... True, such rumors have already walked on the second day.
Yuri Ivanov: Yes, this is established by the investigation, these are not rumors.
Dmitry Kataev: I'm talking about what we knew. When I heard about this coup, I had the first thought: how, again? Well, no! And when I had already come to the White House on the 19th evening, General Gromov, in my opinion, instructed us how to behave. There is no need to stand close to the walls, because the glass from the first shot or salvo can sprinkle, how to go to tanks, what to do with them, that is, everything was in all seriousness. The fact that this is a big game, that we are talking about serious things, no one had doubts. Then I stood there in a cordon with Gleb Yakunin, and somewhere in the middle of the night the messengers from the garden ring ran to us and say: "Let's go there soon, there will now be a lynch over the soldiers!" We ran with him to the garden, but halfway we were met by other envoys and said that everything had already calmed down. And we returned to the place.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Alexander, when did you realize that the coup will fail?
Dmitry Kataev: On the night of the 20th to the 21st, when we became aware that Alpha refused to storm the White House. Because such professionals either carry out the order, and then everything turns out or refuse - and then everything collapses.
Yuri Ivanov: I can say that Alpha received no order. They were sent to the Ageev reconnaissance, the First Deputy Minister of the KGB, Karpukhin, the head of the Alpha group, went there. They looked at what kind of people there, what the situation. A lot of rumors are sophisticated on this episode. In what my opponent says, I have no doubt in, and I myself came there, and there were a lot of honest and decent people, anti -Soviets came. Yes, there people went there, they gave flowers to tankers. Yes, they probably prepared for the assault, showed some personal courage. My fate was so that two years later I defended Rutskiy, Rutskaya arrested Kryuchkov, and I remember October 1993, when I come to the Supreme Council, the light was disconnected there, the sewage is turned off, the stench, everything is cordoned off with barbed wire, people trying to free the parliament, beaten. There was no props there, there really the third entrance was littered with corpses, there was really Colonel Svirsky, whose knees and eyes were wound, and the same thing was with the editor of one of the Marchenko newspapers. I kept these examinations for a long time and transferred to newspapers. We are talking about the GKChP and the October situation, and I believe that the word "propulsion" to a certain extent is applicable by 1991.
Alexander Drozdov: No, it was just everything in a peaceful, pacifist manner, what's the Speakero? So it happened.
Dmitry Kataev: This is not a props. No matter how we relate to the State Emergency Committee, thank God that they were scolded, we did not want to, showed selflessness, without spilling a lot of blood. Why did they not do this is another question, but the fact that the 19th, 20th and night on the 21st none of those who defended the White House knew how serious it would be, what they would go to.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: If you take a union agreement as a reference point, which more affected the collapse of the Union-events on August 19 or Belovezhskaya Pushcha?
Alexander Drozdov: The collapse of the great country was prepared much earlier. Yuri Pavlovich spoke about the 6th article, here, in this series, I would put the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, because, it seems to me, this event greatly alerted the republican organizations. Because, in fact, the Soviet Union gathered as necessary, but was designed ideologically, almost theocratic, since the ideological program was built to the rank of religion, under the auspices of the CPSU, and there was no place for the Communist Party of Russia - and suddenly it appears. And the desire to scatter in different directions with its party cash desks appeared much earlier, until August 19. August 19 - it was such an open final, and what would follow - it was unclear. Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a result. It is enough to open a collection of documents dedicated to the collapse of the USSR, which was prepared by Sergey Shakhrai - there this parade of sovereignty began much earlier than August and Blovee. And for that matter, the objective reason is the emergence of such an institution as a congress of people's deputies of the USSR.
For the first time in 1988-89, the question of national sovereignty was raised, the pioneers were not even Baltic states, but Georgians. So Blovee is a kind of logical result. If you look in the context of time, from my point of view, 1991-the completion of a 70-year period, which began with the voluntary refusal of the Russian person from the world in which he lived. He abandoned God, from the sovereign, voluntarily chose a system that had been in the country for 70 years. And in 1991, unexpectedly for himself, he turned out to be, from my point of view, the second time in the twentieth century worthy of his great country. The first is a victory in the Second World War.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Dmitry Ivanovich, who stopped the Gkchpists, kept them from violence and entailed to Foros, to bow to the disgraced leader?
Dmitry Kataev: I think, first of all, the resistance of Muscovites. After the failure of this putsch, two of its main participants either committed suicide or committed to them.
Yuri Ivanov: Pugo committed suicide, this has already been established. There were several people. In general, I must say that suicides for an event of such a scale was not enough. In Prague, with the same change in power, there were about 80 suicides.
Dmitry Kataev: Well, now, and now let's see whether it is a props or not.
Yuri Ivanov: Well, this is the attitude of people. Marshal Akhromeev goes to the Kremlin, he is stopped by a crowd of funny young people who begin to rock the car. He opens the glass, not understanding what is happening, and they begin to spit into it, into the person who passed the front. If we talk about mythology, I agree that Belovezhskaya Pushcha was the last act. This is a point, and how it was made is different. Since 1989, there has been no party, everything has gone to the presidential structures, the country has been developing according to market norms, laws on economic self -alignment have been adopted regarding the Baltic states. God knows what, colossal shift! And the Party -Claim stopped grabbing the Partminomy. If they had cottages in the suburbs, a buckshot bucks, today they have castles and at home in Italy, yachts, planes, villas and so on. That is, the level of corruption and theft today is simply not comparable with the previous one.
The first to revise the Union Agreement was raised by the Baltic states, but then a month earlier than Russia, Georgians adopted a declaration of sovereignty. The parties acted synchronously: the republics announced the rule of the republican laws, the war of laws began, against which a complete collapse went. The republics did not carry out planned tasks, the state building stopped working, a mess and a shortage of products occurred. The country turned into a confederation. And after the declarations of independence for the declaration of the sovereignty of Russia, absolutely everyone voted! And then a chain reaction went. Therefore, I will not look for who is more to blame for, Gorbachev or Yeltsin, I will not, I do not want to go to personalities. But I agree with what sounded here - such powerful tectonic gaps passed that made the existence of a union state impossible. On the 20th, Gorbachev was actually going to do what Yeltsin did in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and I regard the GKChP as an attempt to stop this steam locomotive, while they no longer had real power. The development of the country could take a different path, and the Chinese made it simply: Tiananmen, thousands of those killed, the state exists, and no abolition of the sixth article.
Alexander Drozdov: I would like to call this incomplete bourgeois revolution, perhaps not quite bourgeois.
Dmitry Kataev: Colleagues, firstly, in 1986, neither democrats nor liberals were at all in sight as an organization, as a structure. So to say that they are responsible over the years, just funny. In the spring of 1989, when there was a massacre in Tbilisi, after two or three weeks we met with Georgians, and then we already began to create a Moscow association of voters, we wrote some kind of letter to them, sympathetic, and they say to us: what did you not act when it was in Tbilisi? I say: I'm sorry, we were not then, in April 1989, as a structure.
Now I will add a couple of facts about when and how the Soviet Union broke up. Firstly, taxes from the regions ceased to enter the center, and the state rests on them. Second: then or, perhaps, later, the regions ceased to supply food, cordons began to arise at the boundaries of the regions. Third: the Law on Cooperation is, in fact, underground privatization, which almost ended somewhere by 1990-91.
I absolutely agree that the nomenclature wanted property with a capital letter, it has already not satisfied the loaf of sausage from a closed distributor. And the last one: I remind you of a fact that for some reason no one mentions when they talk about Yeltsin that he collapsed the Soviet Union. When does Ukraine celebrate Independence Day? August 24 or 25. What other evidence do you need? And then what happened? As soon as Ukraine announced independence, Yeltsin threatened it with sanctions, and indignation began there. And the next day, Sobchak, on behalf of Yeltsin, went to Kyiv to apologize. That is, Yeltsin did not at all want the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Почему упустили время, не развили успех августа 1991 года? Борис Николаевич ушел в отпуск в сентябре, и так все это как-то на эйфории закончилось.
Александр Дроздов: А что должно было произойти?
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Надо было работать, создавать правительство, бороться с инфляцией...
Александр Дроздов: Так и создавали правительство, и боролись с инфляцией, и решали вопросы, сохраняется ли окончательно советская федерация или нет. Так что я вижу упущении, скорее, в другом. Мне кажется, это связано с непониманием того, кто в действительности двигал эту революцию. Соглашусь, что тогда не было демократов и либералов в сегодняшнем понимании этих явлений, а были люди, воодушевленные антиноменклатурным порывом. А далее, после августа, мы ушли в привычную плоскость – решения хозяйственных, финансовых, в общем, государственно-хозяйственных проблем. А вот этот потенциал общественного порыва, гражданского общества был недоиспользован. И важную роль здесь сыграло и достаточно гуманистическое отношение первого президента России к бывшим соратникам.
Дмитрий Катаев: Репрессий тогда во власти никто не хотел. Они не начались, и слава богу. Я понимаю события 1991 года как одну из антифеодальных революций, не первую и не последнюю.
Александр Дроздов: То есть в каком-то смысле она продолжала февраль 1917 года. И трудно в те дни было это оспорить, потому что весь мир стремится к свободе и бежал от рабства.
Юрий Иванов: Когда была принята конституция, я был депутатом первого созыва, хорошо помню, как писатель Максимов, который при коммунистах уехал за границу, сказал: "Россия получила конституцию полуфашистского государства". Вот мы сегодня живем в государстве совершенно авторитарном. Все слова о демократии и свободе не соответствуют действительности, причем не просто на практике, а они юридически подкреплены полным бесправием парламента, полной невозможностью законодательной власти осуществлять контроль за исполнительной властью, полным унижением судебной власти. Мы получили авторитаризм в голом виде! Мы получили ужасное государство, которое сегодня сотрясается. В нашем государстве есть какая-то относительная свобода, люди могут выходить на улицу, но как только они немного выходят за флажки – их берут и заматывают.
И международный аспект. Вот хотели американцы и Запад краха Советского Союза или нет? Где живет Горбачев? По некоторым данным, в Ирландии. Где живут дети Ельцина? В Лондоне, по крайней мере, собственность у них там есть. А вот Крючков как жил в трехкомнатной квартире, а сын в двухкомнатной, так они там и остались, то же самое Лукьянов, то же самое Язов. Никто из этих людей не уехал из страны. Это говорит о том, что Горбачев – совершенно чужой нам человек. Ельцин хоть здесь умер, а Горбачев – прилетает только в студию. И факт есть, что в августе 1991 года, как пишут Коржаков и Хасбулатов, Ельцина сажали в бронированную машину, и он должен был стартовать на территорию американского посольства. Об этом что-то невразумительное пишет и Ельцин. Меня интересует уровень контактов и связей Ельцина в эти августовские дни с американцами. Потому что, если американцы гарантировали ему выезд, тогда храбрость становится понятной.
Александр Дроздов: Нам известны контакты Попова с Мэтлоком. Что касается контактов Ельцина – это мифология. И первая реакция Запада на август – полная растерянность. Что бы вам ни рассказывали, американцы такого не прогнозировали и не планировали. Вот для них как раз распад Советского Союза, гигантской ядерной державы, был величайшей угрозой. Три дня думали, признать или нет.
Дмитрий Катаев: Это хороший сценарий для кинофильма, но с точки зрения истории и политики меня мало интересуют контакты Ельцина с американцами, с немцами, с кем-то еще. Всегда есть силы, которые работают на развал государства, заинтересованные в развале, но далеко не всегда государство разваливается. Сколько сил и средств вложил Советский Союз в развал очень многих европейских государств, сколько воевали в Анголе, в Латинской Америке и так далее – ничего не получилось. Почва была подготовлена изнутри – вот что главное, в этом основа, а спусковой крючок всегда найдется. Теперь, я настаиваю, что это не какое-то изолированное событие, а именно один из этапов антифеодальной революции. И то, что вы говорили сейчас в упрек и Ельцину, последних лет, по крайней мере, и нынешней власти, – я с этим абсолютно согласен, но это же уже не революция, это уже контрреволюция, контр-Ельцин.
И будет следующий этап антифеодальной революции, дай бог последний. А почему этот не удался, абсолютно понятно. Даже сейчас мы пользуемся гораздо большей свободой, мы можем обсуждать эти темы, у нас политологи, партии, движения. Ко всему к этому масса претензий, но оно есть. Мы можем худо-бедно на ближайших выборах проголосовать. Ничего подобного не было при Советском Союзе. И потому и уничтожили эту свободу, что мы были к ней совершенно не готовы – в кадровом, теоретическом отношении, моральном, каком хотите. Многие были настроены на помощь государства, патернализм и так далее, и это до сих пор не изжито, и сейчас нам это наследие мешает, пережитки "совковости" у нас очень сильны.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Юрий Павлович, как вы считаете, вся ли правда нам известна сейчас об августе 1991 года?
Юрий Иванов: По каким-то позициям у нас есть согласованное мнение. Что акт подписания Ельциным Беловежской пущи – это конец развала Советского Союза.
Дмитрий Катаев: Это признание реальности.
Юрий Иванов: Признание реальности, но эта реальность создавалась. Для меня мой оппонент – не просто либерал-демократ, а в определенной степени союзник Запада, который был заинтересован в развале Советского Союза. Вся демократическая платформа, вся творческая интеллигенция, огромны были эти ряды, мощная была поддержка. Я согласен, что этот развал произошел более или менее бескровно, потому что в этот момент силовые структуры возглавлялись людьми толерантными, которые не стали пускать кровь своим политическим противникам.
Дмитрий Катаев: А скорее потому, что номенклатура была с этим согласна.
Юрий Иванов: Дальше эта номенклатура начала взращивать свой олигархат, в нем бандитов не меньше, чем номенклатурщиков. Для меня важен вывод. Что такое ГКЧП? Я для себя определил, что это последний крик наиболее честной части горбачевской администрации против развала Союза.
Дмитрий Катаев: Последние судороги.
Юрий Иванов: Судороги – это у либералов сегодня. Но к власти пришел крепкий парень, который слушать либералов не желает.
Дмитрий Катаев: Произошел бюрократический переворот, который вернул нас в феодализм.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: И нам это поставим многоточие…
Our guest is a lawyer Yuri Ivanov , a deputy of the State Duma of several convocations from the Communist Party faction and lawyer Vladimir Kryuchkov at the GKChP process; Dmitry Kataev , member of the political council of the Moscow Solidarity, in those days - former deputy of the Moscow City Council, and Alexander Drozdov , executive director of the Presidential Center of Boris Yeltsin.
Alexander, how did you perceive those events?
Alexander Drozdov: On the 19th, I was not in Moscow, I was on vacation for a week, and I found out about this on the roof of the house in the village. I learned from the neighbor, the late journalist "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Ilya Grcher. Of course, it surprised me. Something was in the air, but it broke through unexpectedly. I got into the car and drove to Moscow. Only having arrived at the White House and putting the car, I found that I did not take a single document with me in a hurry, and at the same time I drove through the checkpoints, through some filters on the Dmitrovskoye Shosse.
Yuri Ivanov: I found this event in the former Belgrade Hotel, where I, as a lawyer, talked with the head of one of the companies that was in my legal services. Two Belgrade buildings were crowded with the guys from the Caucasus, and I watched how they quickly organized with the help of Khasbulatov. If we talk about myths and reality, then the largest myth is the story that the Gkchpastists were going to take a communist revenge. At this point, the 6th article of the Constitution had already overturned the Communist Party, the presidents of Russia and the USSR reigned, these presidents gained their staff, and the Gkchpists did not want any communist revenge. The reason for their speech was a message that a new union agreement on the SSG would be signed on the 20th. This agreement was developed in Novo-Ogarsky by Gorbachev’s assistants-Shakhnazarov, Chernyaev, Revenko and others. Neither the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, nor among the deputies of the Supreme Council of Russia, this text was prepared in the conditions of complete conspiracy and was published only on August 15 in Moscow News, and on the 16th-in Izvestia. And when the GKCHPIS read this text of the contract on the 16th, they saw that the Soviet Union remained only a day before the arrival of Gorbachev. And there was a need to try to stop the adoption of this contract.
Alexander Drozdov: But the most paradoxical is that Yeltsin also opposed the Union Treaty? Isn't it?
Yuri Ivanov: Absolutely not so. They agreed with Gorbachev and Nazarbayev in Novo-Ogarsevo two weeks before that this agreement will be signed.
Dmitry Kataev: Somewhere a month before these events in the district newspaper, which the Oktyabrsky district council was going to publish, then the most democratic and advanced, I prepared a feuilleton for him, in which there were words: "General Pugashov on a white horse enters the district council." Let me remind you that Pugo and Makashov - these were two heroes of the most extremely communist sense. In the morning of the 19th, at 6 a.m., the deputy Zaslavsky called me, who was then a confidant, and says: "In Russia, a coup." Then Schleifman called me, one of our active people in the Oktyabrsky district, and we agreed to go to the center with him. Schleifman came to me with a complete Avoska Batonov, he began to stock up on. We went to the center with him, I went to the Echo of Moscow. And it was not clear how serious it was. I come to the "echo of Moscow", everything is calm there, but the radio does not work. I was then a deputy of the Moscow City Council, and we began to call one of the leaders of Echo to those who could do something. Then the deputies who were members of the media commission in the Moscow City Council also went up, also took up this, and I went to the Moscow City Council.
In the Moscow Council, Yeltsin’s performance, leaflets were already propagated. I took a pack and went to the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky. A huge crowd immediately surrounded me, I had to ask a few guys nearby to make a chain around me, and I distributed these leaflets. I distributed quite a lot. Then he went to the Manezh, stood on the parapet of the transition, and somewhere there was a thought: I was a good target ... The people gathered again, I said something, read this performance of Yeltsin, distributed leaflets. And he went with the remains of leaflets to the tanks. It is amazing that there was no guard, I calmly laid these leaflets on the tanks and went to the very bridge.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: What then was a military coup, if the freedom of action was not limited?
Alexander Drozdov: I think that the organizers least took into account the spontaneity and sincerity of the actions of Muscovites. We understand that the fate of Russia in those days was decided in three cities-in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, in some others. It seems to me that the return moral blow was absolutely not calculated. The fact that we moved around the city that I entered the city without a single document-the next day it began to acquire completely different contours, and especially on the night from the 20th to the 21st in the White House, which was really scary and turning point. When we heard that the special forces of Alpha and Vympel were going to storm this building, it became uneasy. The authorities are not taken without blood, but here it turned out to be small. Three people are a tragedy, but when it comes to millions, it is statistics, and it is not cynicism, so the story is arranged. In those days, even the watch, the country looked into the face of a great story and into the abyss.
Yuri Ivanov: If we talk about danger, there were simply no ammunition in the tanks. As for the introduction of technology - what came from Kryuchkov and his colleagues? The Democrats had a very high level of trust. And on March 28, they carried out the anti-Gorbachev demonstration, anti-government and brought about 100-120 thousand people to the streets of Moscow, led this demonstration of Gdlyan, Ivanov, Koryagin, Kalugin ... Then, at the direction of Gorbachev, technicians, tanks and armored personnel carriers were placed on the garden ring. The people walked and spread. From the point of view of the GKCHPI, the introduction of technology was of a fake character. But when it was decided to withdraw this technique, and it went, in the Arbat zone, on the old Arbat, at this point they blocked the movement with a trolley and attacked this armored vehicle, began to throw it with bottles and combustible mixtures on top. It was on the night on the 21st. The driver of the front armored personnel carrier (his surname Bulychev) had burned hands and face. I tried to drag him as a witness to be interrogated, but as soon as I went to the military unit and began to ask me to be connected with him, at first they said that he was being treated, and then the tankers of this part were quickly scattered outside the reach.
Three people who died there died in different ways. One of them-a mustache-was the son of the admiral, this is a guy who tried to take a man from under the wheels, and the tank moved. The second of them is a mosquito - a former Afghan, from the Moscow Region, with a mount in his hand, he jumped onto an armored personnel carrier and began to hit the door, and when he opened this door, there was an Uzbek, a soldier, his last name was Sainhajaev. He saw that a man with a mount arose in the opening, and he killed him with one shot from a machine gun. By the way, then the examination noted the average degree of intoxication from Komar. The third-Krichevsky-was an educated, cultural guy, he, in my opinion, had an architectural education, he was in the group where the bottles of tankers were thrown, tankers tweaks of armored personnel carriers with a usz, they could not pass, and then the sergeant jumped out, gave a fan line, and one of the bullets hit Krichevsky. I do not set out my speculations, but I just set out the text of the decision. On the one hand, they were recognized as heroes, but the investigation did not impose their death to anyone from the State Emergency Committee.
Dmitry Kataev: I am ready to believe what you say, but a very deep gap between the fact that there were no ammunition in the tanks ... True, such rumors have already walked on the second day.
Yuri Ivanov: Yes, this is established by the investigation, these are not rumors.
Dmitry Kataev: I'm talking about what we knew. When I heard about this coup, I had the first thought: how, again? Well, no! And when I had already come to the White House on the 19th evening, General Gromov, in my opinion, instructed us how to behave. There is no need to stand close to the walls, because the glass from the first shot or salvo can sprinkle, how to go to tanks, what to do with them, that is, everything was in all seriousness. The fact that this is a big game, that we are talking about serious things, no one had doubts. Then I stood there in a cordon with Gleb Yakunin, and somewhere in the middle of the night the messengers from the garden ring ran to us and say: "Let's go there soon, there will now be a lynch over the soldiers!" We ran with him to the garden, but halfway we were met by other envoys and said that everything had already calmed down. And we returned to the place.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Alexander, when did you realize that the coup will fail?
Dmitry Kataev: On the night of the 20th to the 21st, when we became aware that Alpha refused to storm the White House. Because such professionals either carry out the order, and then everything turns out or refuse - and then everything collapses.
Yuri Ivanov: I can say that Alpha received no order. They were sent to the Ageev reconnaissance, the First Deputy Minister of the KGB, Karpukhin, the head of the Alpha group, went there. They looked at what kind of people there, what the situation. A lot of rumors are sophisticated on this episode. In what my opponent says, I have no doubt in, and I myself came there, and there were a lot of honest and decent people, anti -Soviets came. Yes, there people went there, they gave flowers to tankers. Yes, they probably prepared for the assault, showed some personal courage. My fate was so that two years later I defended Rutskiy, Rutskaya arrested Kryuchkov, and I remember October 1993, when I come to the Supreme Council, the light was disconnected there, the sewage is turned off, the stench, everything is cordoned off with barbed wire, people trying to free the parliament, beaten. There was no props there, there really the third entrance was littered with corpses, there was really Colonel Svirsky, whose knees and eyes were wound, and the same thing was with the editor of one of the Marchenko newspapers. I kept these examinations for a long time and transferred to newspapers. We are talking about the GKChP and the October situation, and I believe that the word "propulsion" to a certain extent is applicable by 1991.
Alexander Drozdov: No, it was just everything in a peaceful, pacifist manner, what's the Speakero? So it happened.
Dmitry Kataev: This is not a props. No matter how we relate to the State Emergency Committee, thank God that they were scolded, we did not want to, showed selflessness, without spilling a lot of blood. Why did they not do this is another question, but the fact that the 19th, 20th and night on the 21st none of those who defended the White House knew how serious it would be, what they would go to.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: If you take a union agreement as a reference point, which more affected the collapse of the Union-events on August 19 or Belovezhskaya Pushcha?
Alexander Drozdov: The collapse of the great country was prepared much earlier. Yuri Pavlovich spoke about the 6th article, here, in this series, I would put the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, because, it seems to me, this event greatly alerted the republican organizations. Because, in fact, the Soviet Union gathered as necessary, but was designed ideologically, almost theocratic, since the ideological program was built to the rank of religion, under the auspices of the CPSU, and there was no place for the Communist Party of Russia - and suddenly it appears. And the desire to scatter in different directions with its party cash desks appeared much earlier, until August 19. August 19 - it was such an open final, and what would follow - it was unclear. Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a result. It is enough to open a collection of documents dedicated to the collapse of the USSR, which was prepared by Sergey Shakhrai - there this parade of sovereignty began much earlier than August and Blovee. And for that matter, the objective reason is the emergence of such an institution as a congress of people's deputies of the USSR.
For the first time in 1988-89, the question of national sovereignty was raised, the pioneers were not even Baltic states, but Georgians. So Blovee is a kind of logical result. If you look in the context of time, from my point of view, 1991-the completion of a 70-year period, which began with the voluntary refusal of the Russian person from the world in which he lived. He abandoned God, from the sovereign, voluntarily chose a system that had been in the country for 70 years. And in 1991, unexpectedly for himself, he turned out to be, from my point of view, the second time in the twentieth century worthy of his great country. The first is a victory in the Second World War.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Dmitry Ivanovich, who stopped the Gkchpists, kept them from violence and entailed to Foros, to bow to the disgraced leader?
Dmitry Kataev: I think, first of all, the resistance of Muscovites. After the failure of this putsch, two of its main participants either committed suicide or committed to them.
Yuri Ivanov: Pugo committed suicide, this has already been established. There were several people. In general, I must say that suicides for an event of such a scale was not enough. In Prague, with the same change in power, there were about 80 suicides.
Dmitry Kataev: Well, now, and now let's see whether it is a props or not.
Yuri Ivanov: Well, this is the attitude of people. Marshal Akhromeev goes to the Kremlin, he is stopped by a crowd of funny young people who begin to rock the car. He opens the glass, not understanding what is happening, and they begin to spit into it, into the person who passed the front. If we talk about mythology, I agree that Belovezhskaya Pushcha was the last act. This is a point, and how it was made is different. Since 1989, there has been no party, everything has gone to the presidential structures, the country has been developing according to market norms, laws on economic self -alignment have been adopted regarding the Baltic states. God knows what, colossal shift! And the Party -Claim stopped grabbing the Partminomy. If they had cottages in the suburbs, a buckshot bucks, today they have castles and at home in Italy, yachts, planes, villas and so on. That is, the level of corruption and theft today is simply not comparable with the previous one.
The first to revise the Union Agreement was raised by the Baltic states, but then a month earlier than Russia, Georgians adopted a declaration of sovereignty. The parties acted synchronously: the republics announced the rule of the republican laws, the war of laws began, against which a complete collapse went. The republics did not carry out planned tasks, the state building stopped working, a mess and a shortage of products occurred. The country turned into a confederation. And after the declarations of independence for the declaration of the sovereignty of Russia, absolutely everyone voted! And then a chain reaction went. Therefore, I will not look for who is more to blame for, Gorbachev or Yeltsin, I will not, I do not want to go to personalities. But I agree with what sounded here - such powerful tectonic gaps passed that made the existence of a union state impossible. On the 20th, Gorbachev was actually going to do what Yeltsin did in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and I regard the GKChP as an attempt to stop this steam locomotive, while they no longer had real power. The development of the country could take a different path, and the Chinese made it simply: Tiananmen, thousands of those killed, the state exists, and no abolition of the sixth article.
Alexander Drozdov: I would like to call this incomplete bourgeois revolution, perhaps not quite bourgeois.
Dmitry Kataev: Colleagues, firstly, in 1986, neither democrats nor liberals were at all in sight as an organization, as a structure. So to say that they are responsible over the years, just funny. In the spring of 1989, when there was a massacre in Tbilisi, after two or three weeks we met with Georgians, and then we already began to create a Moscow association of voters, we wrote some kind of letter to them, sympathetic, and they say to us: what did you not act when it was in Tbilisi? I say: I'm sorry, we were not then, in April 1989, as a structure.
Now I will add a couple of facts about when and how the Soviet Union broke up. Firstly, taxes from the regions ceased to enter the center, and the state rests on them. Second: then or, perhaps, later, the regions ceased to supply food, cordons began to arise at the boundaries of the regions. Third: the Law on Cooperation is, in fact, underground privatization, which almost ended somewhere by 1990-91.
I absolutely agree that the nomenclature wanted property with a capital letter, it has already not satisfied the loaf of sausage from a closed distributor. And the last one: I remind you of a fact that for some reason no one mentions when they talk about Yeltsin that he collapsed the Soviet Union. When does Ukraine celebrate Independence Day? August 24 or 25. What other evidence do you need? And then what happened? As soon as Ukraine announced independence, Yeltsin threatened it with sanctions, and indignation began there. And the next day, Sobchak, on behalf of Yeltsin, went to Kyiv to apologize. That is, Yeltsin did not at all want the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Почему упустили время, не развили успех августа 1991 года? Борис Николаевич ушел в отпуск в сентябре, и так все это как-то на эйфории закончилось.
Александр Дроздов: А что должно было произойти?
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Надо было работать, создавать правительство, бороться с инфляцией...
Александр Дроздов: Так и создавали правительство, и боролись с инфляцией, и решали вопросы, сохраняется ли окончательно советская федерация или нет. Так что я вижу упущении, скорее, в другом. Мне кажется, это связано с непониманием того, кто в действительности двигал эту революцию. Соглашусь, что тогда не было демократов и либералов в сегодняшнем понимании этих явлений, а были люди, воодушевленные антиноменклатурным порывом. А далее, после августа, мы ушли в привычную плоскость – решения хозяйственных, финансовых, в общем, государственно-хозяйственных проблем. А вот этот потенциал общественного порыва, гражданского общества был недоиспользован. И важную роль здесь сыграло и достаточно гуманистическое отношение первого президента России к бывшим соратникам.
Дмитрий Катаев: Репрессий тогда во власти никто не хотел. Они не начались, и слава богу. Я понимаю события 1991 года как одну из антифеодальных революций, не первую и не последнюю.
Александр Дроздов: То есть в каком-то смысле она продолжала февраль 1917 года. И трудно в те дни было это оспорить, потому что весь мир стремится к свободе и бежал от рабства.
Юрий Иванов: Когда была принята конституция, я был депутатом первого созыва, хорошо помню, как писатель Максимов, который при коммунистах уехал за границу, сказал: "Россия получила конституцию полуфашистского государства". Вот мы сегодня живем в государстве совершенно авторитарном. Все слова о демократии и свободе не соответствуют действительности, причем не просто на практике, а они юридически подкреплены полным бесправием парламента, полной невозможностью законодательной власти осуществлять контроль за исполнительной властью, полным унижением судебной власти. Мы получили авторитаризм в голом виде! Мы получили ужасное государство, которое сегодня сотрясается. В нашем государстве есть какая-то относительная свобода, люди могут выходить на улицу, но как только они немного выходят за флажки – их берут и заматывают.
И международный аспект. Вот хотели американцы и Запад краха Советского Союза или нет? Где живет Горбачев? По некоторым данным, в Ирландии. Где живут дети Ельцина? В Лондоне, по крайней мере, собственность у них там есть. А вот Крючков как жил в трехкомнатной квартире, а сын в двухкомнатной, так они там и остались, то же самое Лукьянов, то же самое Язов. Никто из этих людей не уехал из страны. Это говорит о том, что Горбачев – совершенно чужой нам человек. Ельцин хоть здесь умер, а Горбачев – прилетает только в студию. И факт есть, что в августе 1991 года, как пишут Коржаков и Хасбулатов, Ельцина сажали в бронированную машину, и он должен был стартовать на территорию американского посольства. Об этом что-то невразумительное пишет и Ельцин. Меня интересует уровень контактов и связей Ельцина в эти августовские дни с американцами. Потому что, если американцы гарантировали ему выезд, тогда храбрость становится понятной.
Александр Дроздов: Нам известны контакты Попова с Мэтлоком. Что касается контактов Ельцина – это мифология. И первая реакция Запада на август – полная растерянность. Что бы вам ни рассказывали, американцы такого не прогнозировали и не планировали. Вот для них как раз распад Советского Союза, гигантской ядерной державы, был величайшей угрозой. Три дня думали, признать или нет.
Дмитрий Катаев: Это хороший сценарий для кинофильма, но с точки зрения истории и политики меня мало интересуют контакты Ельцина с американцами, с немцами, с кем-то еще. Всегда есть силы, которые работают на развал государства, заинтересованные в развале, но далеко не всегда государство разваливается. Сколько сил и средств вложил Советский Союз в развал очень многих европейских государств, сколько воевали в Анголе, в Латинской Америке и так далее – ничего не получилось. Почва была подготовлена изнутри – вот что главное, в этом основа, а спусковой крючок всегда найдется. Теперь, я настаиваю, что это не какое-то изолированное событие, а именно один из этапов антифеодальной революции. И то, что вы говорили сейчас в упрек и Ельцину, последних лет, по крайней мере, и нынешней власти, – я с этим абсолютно согласен, но это же уже не революция, это уже контрреволюция, контр-Ельцин.
И будет следующий этап антифеодальной революции, дай бог последний. А почему этот не удался, абсолютно понятно. Даже сейчас мы пользуемся гораздо большей свободой, мы можем обсуждать эти темы, у нас политологи, партии, движения. Ко всему к этому масса претензий, но оно есть. Мы можем худо-бедно на ближайших выборах проголосовать. Ничего подобного не было при Советском Союзе. И потому и уничтожили эту свободу, что мы были к ней совершенно не готовы – в кадровом, теоретическом отношении, моральном, каком хотите. Многие были настроены на помощь государства, патернализм и так далее, и это до сих пор не изжито, и сейчас нам это наследие мешает, пережитки "совковости" у нас очень сильны.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: Юрий Павлович, как вы считаете, вся ли правда нам известна сейчас об августе 1991 года?
Юрий Иванов: По каким-то позициям у нас есть согласованное мнение. Что акт подписания Ельциным Беловежской пущи – это конец развала Советского Союза.
Дмитрий Катаев: Это признание реальности.
Юрий Иванов: Признание реальности, но эта реальность создавалась. Для меня мой оппонент – не просто либерал-демократ, а в определенной степени союзник Запада, который был заинтересован в развале Советского Союза. Вся демократическая платформа, вся творческая интеллигенция, огромны были эти ряды, мощная была поддержка. Я согласен, что этот развал произошел более или менее бескровно, потому что в этот момент силовые структуры возглавлялись людьми толерантными, которые не стали пускать кровь своим политическим противникам.
Дмитрий Катаев: А скорее потому, что номенклатура была с этим согласна.
Юрий Иванов: Дальше эта номенклатура начала взращивать свой олигархат, в нем бандитов не меньше, чем номенклатурщиков. Для меня важен вывод. Что такое ГКЧП? Я для себя определил, что это последний крик наиболее честной части горбачевской администрации против развала Союза.
Дмитрий Катаев: Последние судороги.
Юрий Иванов: Судороги – это у либералов сегодня. Но к власти пришел крепкий парень, который слушать либералов не желает.
Дмитрий Катаев: Произошел бюрократический переворот, который вернул нас в феодализм.
Владимир Кара-Мурза: И нам это поставим многоточие…