GKChP and Leningrad Union of Scientists

Almost all paper and electronic media, including the main channels of television, devoted a lot of time to the 30-year “anniversary” of the so-called “August coup”. On August 18, 1991, the State Committee for Extremely Property in the USSR (GKChP) of 8 high officials of the Soviet Union, including Vice President and Prime Minister of the country, as well as leaders of law enforcement agencies, was created in Moscow. On August 19, a state of emergency was announced, the swan lake was continuously broadcast on television, M. S. Gorbachev was isolated at the presidential cottage in Foros in Crimea, and troops were introduced into Moscow. The activities of parties and public organizations “impeding the normalization of the situation” were suspended, a ban on meetings, demonstrations and strikes was introduced, and it was ordered to establish control over the media through a specially created body under the GKChP.

The position of the GKChP, formally directed against the collapse of the USSR and the destruction of the economy, initially supported the leadership of many Soviet republics, including Georgia, the Communist Party of the Baltic Republic, as well as the writer A. A. Prokhanov and the leader of the LDPR V.V. Zhirinovsky. At the same time, the leadership of Russia, headed by the President of the RSFSR B. N. Yeltsin, as well as the political forces and the masses that support him, opposed the GKChP. The main headquarters of the opposition was the Supreme Council of the RSFSR (the so -called White House).

Modern Russian media, talking in detail about the tragic events of 30 years ago, highlighted mainly what happened in the capital of the USSR and in Foros. And what happened in the city on the Neva?

At 4 a.m. on August 19, a state of emergency was also announced in Leningrad and the surrounding areas and the relevant commission was formed. This was announced at 10 o’clock on local radio and television by the commander of the troops of the Leningrad Military District, the commandant of the city, Colonel General V.N. Samsonov. Immediately at 10 o’clock on the Mariinsky Palace, where the Leningrad Council was located, the spontaneous rally began in support of the Lensovite, Mayor A. A. Sobchak and B. N. Yeltsin. This rally was attended by many members of the Leningrad Union of Scientists (LSU).

At an emergency meeting of the Presidium of the Leningrad City Council, the then very popular M.E. Salier 1 , the People’s Deputy of Russia and the Leningrad City Council, called what happened by a military coup. She called to form the headquarters to preserve the legal authorities in the field, to start organizing a general political strike, saying that only in working groups can you get support. However, this Marxist appeal of the doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences, in the apartment of which there was an expressive portrait of V.I. Lenin on the table, was not entirely accurate.

It was the city intelligentsia (researchers, teachers, engineers, etc.), who then made up a very significant part of the inhabitants (the electorate, as cynical political technologists later), was politically actively in protests against the GKChP in Leningrad. The Lensovet session held on the same day refused to recognize the State Emergency Committee and introduce a state of emergency and supported the president of Russia.

Thanks to the skillful negotiations of the city leadership, the Vitebsk division of the Airborne Forces of the KGB of the USSR and the Pskov division of the USSR Ministry of Defense, sent to Leningrad, stopped at 5 a.m. at 70 km. Thus, unlike Moscow, the troops did not enter the city.

The next day, August 20, at 10 o’clock a huge rally began on Palace Square, filling all the large space. The number of participants was estimated from 300 to 400 thousand. The head of the city A. A. Sobchak, who returned from Moscow, and also, with less expression, very respected in the city and country, Academician D. S. Likhachev, other famous persons made a fiery speech. The military promised that the army would not intervene. Many members of the LSU also participated in this most massive in the history of the city of the city.

The measures announced by the local emergency commission included the restriction and prohibition on the use of multiplying equipment, as well as radio, television transmitting equipment, video describing equipment, the removal of sound recorders, enhancing technical means, as well as establishing control of the media. A variety of rumors arose in the city, and the statements of opponents of the State Emergency Committee in Moscow on August 19 in newspapers, radio and television were not missed by censorship.

Leningrad newspapers, who did not accept the Moscow Putch, decided to jointly issue an information publication for residents. First of all, it was decided to spread the leaflet as widely with the statement of B. N. Yeltsin. However, in state institutions, copy apparatuses (“Xeroxes”) were sealed, which at that time were not so many. This also affected the Leningrad Scientific Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in which the LSU office was located. However, since we did not formally enter the structure of the LNC and were registered as a city public organization (outside the USSR Academy of Sciences), this procedure has passed us. It was necessary to somehow fill out the shortage of information about the fight against the State Emergency Committee.

One of the then leaders of the LSU N. B. Vakhtin 2 managed to not only hear B. N. Yeltsin in Moscow at home on Western radio, but also write down the corresponding statement in which the actions of the GKChP were declared illegal. Having prepared a leaflet with this text and knowing that the computer and xerox in the LSU office were not sealed, N. B. Vakhtin, along with other members of our Union, organized a mass copy of leaflets, as well as information materials provided by journalists from urban opposition newspapers. A whole chain was created from immediately respondent colleagues who, according to a conditional signal, came to the office with packs of clean paper, and left with packs of printed leaflets, then spreading in the city. In the following days, newspapers that were not afraid of censorships began to come out.

On August 21, as you know, the “putsch” ended, on August 22, members of the State Emergency Committee were arrested.

Subsequently, a number of the most active members of the LSU were marked by commemorative diplomas.

The active behavior of LSU members was quite natural and received support from colleagues. Our organization was created on the basis of the Leningrad group of employees of academic institutes who fought for the election of academician A. D. Sakharov 3 to people's deputies from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1989. As you know, the cooperation of scientists from various institutions and cities of the USSR and skillful building tactics and strategy helped to achieve this goal then. After that, on October 28 of the same year, it was decided to create the Leningrad Union of Scientists, legally independent, but taking over the functions of the regional branch of the Union of Scientists of the USSR, which after the collapse of the USSR disappeared. On September 24, 1991, the LSU was renamed St. Petersburg (SPBSU).

Most members of the LSU were many known then or became famous scientists and public figures. Among them - head. The Department of Economic Law of Leningrad University, Professor A. A. Sobchak (1937–2000), whose employees helped to draw up the first charter of the LSU, academics philologist D. S. Likhachev (1906–1999) and physicist J.I. Alfierov (1930–2019, Nobel Prize 2000), ethnographer G. V. Starovoitov (1946–1998), economists of A. L. L. L. Kudrin and A. B. Chubais, as well as many others.

LSU had a certain weight in the city. Many of our members were elected deputies of the city council, where we had at least three commissions, especially in science and higher school. In 1994, they became one of the founders of the European University in St. Petersburg. According to our proposal, J.I. Alferov (2001) and mathematician Acad. L. D. Faddeev (2010) were elected honorary citizens of St. Petersburg. We also participated in the policy in the field of science at the federal level, in particular we advocated reform, but against the collapse of the Academy of Sciences, promoted the establishment of contacts between the RFF 4 and the National Scientific Fund of the United States, prevented the legal equalization of mass mailing from personal computers to the media, which would have to officially register, initiated the legislation that allowed state grants to receive state grants non -state organizations and much more. 5

If we return 30 years ago, then after the failure of the State Emergency Committee in the USSR, stormy political processes began, a strict rivalry of the leadership of the Soviet republics with the Union Center, where the tone set the RSFSR led by B. N. Yeltsin. As a result of the struggle for power, the nomenclature of the second echelon won. On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the notorious Belovezhsky agreement. On December 12, the Supreme Council of the RSFSR ratified this agreement and denounced an agreement on the education of the USSR of December 30, 1922.

Thus, Russian people's deputies of various political pities, from Democrats to Communists, who did not at one time in the Parliament of the USSR, announcing the independence of Russia from the “Center”, that is, in fact from itself, destroyed a huge country that existed for several centuries under the name of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. 6 The consequences of this catastrophic political decision are still felt in the events in Ukraine and the Caucasus.

And what about the people and, in particular, scientists? People sincerely believed that after the collapse of the GKChP and the abolition of the Communist power in the country, the time of justice, honesty and equality would come. Everything turned out exactly the opposite. The destruction of the country, economic and other devastation, impoverishment, mass emigration, corrupt authority, greedy Russian capitalism, interested only in profit, inevitably led to archaization and degradation of society, falling the level of scientific literacy and a sharp decrease in the share of the socially active, positive passionate part of which is occupied by either survival or consumption, or consumption, or consumption, or consumption (depending on the amount of money).

In the new post -Soviet Russia, science expenses in 1992 fell 15–20 times compared to the USSR, science ceased to be prestigious. Words about her reform began to cause scientists only irritation. The impudent bureaucracy, commanding the submissive researchers, has grown unusually. Now the atomized scientific community within itself continues to grumble, but publicly mainly silent, being, alas, it is unable to create an effective All -Russian organization that would express its interests and protect domestic science from the arbitrariness of officials. Many prefer to solve the general problems in a personal order and do not strive for solidarity. But there are islands of optimism, and most importantly, some people still have an indefatigable craving for comprehension of truth and the desire to do something useful for society. We stand on that!

Lev Borkin, Honorary Chairman of the Board
St. Petersburg Union of Scientists

1 Salier Marina Evgenievna (1934–2012), nicknamed the Leningrad Passionaria, one of the leaders of the Popular Front (1989–1990), chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Russia (1990-2001), member of the Popular Freedom Party (2011–2012), People's Deputy of Russia (1990-1993), participant in the Constitutional meeting (1993), member LSU (SPBSU).

2 Vakhtin Nikolai Borisovich (born 1950) - sociolinguist, doct. Filol. Sciences (1992), Rector of the European University in St. Petersburg (2003–2009, 2017–2018), Correct member. RAS (2016), one of the creators of the LSU.

3 in 1996 at the initiative of SPBSU, supported by A.A. Sobchak, a small nameless square between St. Petersburg University and the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences was named after Academician A.D. Sakharov. It is symbolic that it was in this part of the Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg that Russian science arose (the Kunstkamera building is near). In 2003, a monument to A.D. Sakharovu.

4 The Russian Fund for fundamental research was created by Decree of the President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin dated April 27, 1992 No. 426. At present, in connection with the administrative reform declared by Prime Minister M.V. Mishustin on November 23, 2020, the RFFIF is carried out by merging with the Russian Scientific Fund.

5 Read more see: Borkin L. Ya., Raskin D.I. 30 years old St. Petersburg Union of Scientists. Chronicle of events 1989–2019. St. Petersburg: European House, 2019, 55 p.

6 The beginning of this breathtaking process was laid on June 12, 1990, when the first congress of people's deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of state sovereignty of the RSFSR. Since 1992, this day has been celebrated as one of the main holidays of the country, as the Day of Independence of Russia (Russia Day).