Russia Marks August 1991 Attempted Coup By

Tanks on Moscow's Manezhnaya Square on the day the August Coup started in 1991. Andrei Soloviev / TASS 

 Moscow Times: ‘It Was All for Nothing’: Russia Marks August Coup With Regret, Indifference 

Thirty years on, The Moscow Times spoke to surviving participants in the events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of a new Russia. 

 In the center of Moscow, hidden behind two lanes of heaving traffic on the New Arbat commercial thoroughfare, stands a small concrete monument bearing the names of three young men killed by tanks on the night of Aug. 21 1991, as a coup by communist hardliners to preserve the unravelling Soviet Union flamed out. 

It is the Russian capital’s only memorial to the August Coup that sounded the death knell for the Soviet Union and the birth of the Russian Federation, but today is barely celebrated, even by the country’s beleaguered democrats. 

“The coup was an idiotic affair, completely absurd,” said Grigory Yavlinsky, then an advisor to the Soviet government on economic reform and later a liberal politician, who joined the crowds who had rallied against the putschists on hearing of the coup. 

“When it all collapsed, people were shouting ‘victory’ and’ ‘freedom.’ But it didn’t feel like that to me.”  

Read more ....  

Update #1: Hardline coup set the stage for Soviet collapse 30 years ago (AP)  

Update #2: Fall of the Soviet Union: Three days that shook Russia and the world (The Independent)  

WNU Editor: I could not believe at the time that these Communist die-hards thought they would be successful. To say that I was relieved at the time that when the crisis ended is an understatement.

Soviet Veterans Still Grapple With The Soviet-Afghan War

Georgy Nadezhdin / TASS archive.

AFP: 40 years on, veterans still grapple with Soviet-Afghan war

At his home in the mountains north of Kabul, former mujahideen fighter Shah Sulaiman closed his damaged eyes, took a sip of green tea and thought bitterly of Afghanistan's war against the Soviet Union that started four decades ago.

"When we fought against the Soviets, we were expecting a good future," said the 62-year-old father, who was blinded in one eye and suffered a leg wound when he trod on a landmine during the conflict in 1985.

"Unfortunately things turned out for the worst."

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's "intervention" -- or invasion -- of Afghanistan, the beginning of a decade-long guerilla war that killed up to two million Afghans, forced seven million more from their homes and led to the deaths of more than 14,000 Soviet troops.

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WNU Editor: They have the same issues that U.S. veterans from the Vietnam war must deal with. I have two cousins who served in Afghanistan. They only talk about the war when they are drunk. One of my uncles served as a senior officer in that conflict, and he was stationed in that country for a few years. He understood why the US had to invade Afghanistan in 2001 .... but he never understood why they decided to stay. To him it was a monumental mistake, that would cost untold lives and treasure. Unfortunately, with hindsight, he was right.

Former Soviet Leader Gorbachev Blames Those Who Tried To Organized A Coup In August 1991 For The Break-Up Of The Soviet Union

© Sputnik / Юрий Абрамочкин

Sputnik: Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev Reveals Who Was Responsible for Country's Collapse

Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1985, and served as the first and only president of the USSR between 1990 and 1991, after which the country ceased to exist.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has revealed to German news magazine Der Spiegel who he believed was responsible for the collapse of the USSR, explaining that the members of the government who attempted to organise a coup against him and then-Russian republic leader Boris Yeltsin were the chief culprits.

“Those who organized the coup in August 1991, and who took advantage of the weakened position of the president of the USSR, are responsible for the end of perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev explained, speaking to the German magazine on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: There are may reasons why the Soviet Union fell apart, an attempted coup was just a minor blimp to its eventual demise. What eventually did end the Soviet Union was the system itself. Communism/socialism/progressives/etc. .... government intervention and regulation of people's affairs and economic well-being never deliver the promises that they make. In the case of the Soviet Union, once the people were no longer afraid of the security apparatus that kept the system together, it quickly crumbled. Unfortunately, in the case of Eastern Europe and the former states that made up the Soviet Union, it is going to take a take a few generations to recover from the legacy of that rule.

30 Years Ago The Soviet Union Withdrew From Afghanistan

A convoy of Soviet armoured vehicles crossing a bridge at the Soviet-Afghan border, May 21, 1988, during the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan. Vitaly Armand—AFP/Getty Images

Franz-Stefan Gady, The Diplomat: 30-Year Anniversary of Soviet Withdrawal From Afghanistan: A Successful Disengagement Operation?

The withdrawal of the Soviet 40th Army from Afghanistan from 1988 to 1989 was a militarily successful operation save one mistake.

30 years ago this month, on February 15, 1989, the last Soviet soldier crossed the Afghan-Soviet border marking the end of one of the bloodiest conflicts ever fought in Afghanistan’s history. Notably, the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan from May 1988 to February 1989 was not a route. Rather, it was a well-executed and carefully planned disengagement operation that would allow the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) to survive for another three years after the end of the Soviet occupation. However, the public announcement of a rigid timetable for the withdrawal narrowed the Soviets options to respond to the changing military and political situation in the country.

It all began in November 1986 when the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev made the decision to withdraw all Soviet combat troops by the end of 1988 from the country. Afghanistan had become “a bleeding wound” in the words of Gorbachev. Throughout 1985, the Soviets attempted to force a military solution—the year became the bloodiest in the history of the war—but ultimately failed to break the insurgency’s back.

Read more ....

Update: 'Tired of fighting': 30 years ago, Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan (New Straits Times/AFP).

WNU Editor: The above Diplomat post on the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan is a good summary on what led to the Soviet Union withdrawing from Afghanistan, the withdrawal itself, and how the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the collapse of aid to the Afghan government that resulted in the Taliban being being well positioned to win the war.

Secret Order Issued In Russia To Destroy All Data Pertaining To Gulag Prisoners

Newser: Secret Russian Order Could Be 'Catastrophic' for Historians

A museum studying Soviet prison camps uncovers 2014 directive

A museum studying Soviet prison camps said Friday it has discovered a secret Russian order in 2014 instructing officials to destroy data on prisoners—a move it said "could have catastrophic consequences for studying the history of the camps." Up to 17 million people were sent to the Gulag, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s, and at least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony. Case files of the Gulag prisoners were often destroyed, but their personal data was kept on registration cards, which are still held by police and intelligence officials. Moscow's Gulag History Museum said Friday it has discovered a classified 2014 order that instructed Russian officials to destroy the registration cards of prisoners who had reached the age of 80—which now would include almost all of them, reports the AP.

Read more ....

Update: Russian museum discovers secret order to destroy Gulag data (The Guardian/AP)

WNU Editor: My blood always boils when I read stories like this one.

A Look At Pepsi's Long History With The Soviet Union

Anne Ewbank, Atlas Obscura: When the Soviet Union Paid Pepsi in Warships

The company had a long, strange relationship with the U.S.S.R.

On April 9, 1990, American newspapers reported on an unusual deal. Pepsi had come to a three billion dollar agreement with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had long traded Stolichnaya vodka in return for Pepsi concentrate. But this time, Pepsi got 10 Soviet ships.

This wasn’t the first time that Pepsi sold soft drinks in return for a flotilla. The previous year, the company even received warships. This situation—a soft drink conglomerate briefly owning a fairly large navy—was the unusual result of an unusual situation: a communist government buying a product of capitalism from the country it considered its greatest rival.

It began with a rare exchange of culture. In the summer of 1959, the U.S.S.R. held an exhibition in New York, and the United States reciprocated. The American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park, Moscow, featured American products: cars, art, fashion, and an entire model American house. A number of still-familiar brands sponsored exhibits and booths, including Disney, Dixie Cup Inc, IBM, and Pepsi.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I use to be a Pepsi drinker .... now .... much to the chagrin of the GF who does not like soft-drinks .... I prefer Coke and Canada Dry Ginger-ale.

Russian President Putin Unveils A Monument In Moscow To Stalin's Victims

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Patriarch Kirill attend a ceremony to unveil the country's first national memorial to victims of Soviet-era political repressions on October 30.

BBC: Wall of Grief: Putin opens first Soviet victims memorial

President Vladimir Putin has unveiled Russia's first monument to people killed in political repression under Communist dictator Joseph Stalin.

At least 750,000 people were executed and millions deported or imprisoned under Stalin's rule from the 1920s to the 1950s in the Soviet Union.

Mr Putin said seeing the era clearly would help "prevent it being repeated."

But critics accused him of continuing political repression and "crushing civil freedoms".

Wall of Grief: Russia remembers victims of Soviet repression

A group of dissidents from the Soviet era wrote to a news website that they considered the event to be "untimely and cynical".

Read more ....

WNU Editor: This monument should have been unveiled on or near Red Square. Maybe the next one.

More News On Russian President Putin Unveiling Monument To Stalin's Victims

Stalin-Era Repression in USSR Inexcusable - Putin -- Sputnik
Putin opens monument to Stalin's victims, dissidents cry foul -- Reuters
Amid Controversy, Putin Unveils Monument To Victims Of Political Repression -- RFE
Russia's Putin condemns Soviet-era political repressions -- Washington Post
Putin unveils monument to victims of political repression -- Digital Journal
Wall of Grief: Russia remembers victims of Soviet repression -- BBC

The Soviet Military Mapped The Entire World During The Cold War

The Pentagon is visible at bottom left in this detail from a Soviet map of Washington, DC. printed in 1975. Images from The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped America, by John Davies and Alexander J. Kent, published by the University of Chicago Press

Greg Miller, National Geographic: The Soviet Military Program that Secretly Mapped the Entire World

The U.S.S.R. covertly mapped American and European cities—down to the heights of houses and types of businesses.

During the Cold War, the Soviet military undertook a secret mapping program that’s only recently come to light in the West. Military cartographers created hundreds of thousands of maps and filled them with detailed notes on the terrain and infrastructure of every place on Earth. It was one of the greatest mapping endeavors the world has ever seen.

Soviet maps of Afghanistan indicate the times of year certain mountain passes are free of snow and passable for travel. Maps of China include notes on local vegetation and whether water from wells in a particular area is safe to drink. The Soviets also mapped American cities in remarkable detail, including some military buildings that don’t appear on American-made maps of the same era. These maps include notes on the construction materials and load-bearing capacity of bridges—things that would be near-impossible to know without people on the ground.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: And today we have Google Maps/Earth.

Could The Soviet Union Have Been Saved?

Samuel Bendett, National Interest: Could the Soviet Union Have Survived into the 21st Century?

The “what if” discussions about the end of the Soviet Union are still reverberating across Russia.

The breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was arguably one of the most pivotal and surprising events of the twentieth century. What seemed like a sudden end of the Cold War ushered in a new world, along with new challenges and opportunities. Despite a nearly year-and-a-half process that led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the end of the mighty Communist superpower still caught many by surprise—in the United States and across Soviet Union itself. To Russian President Vladimir Putin, the end of the Soviet Union was a “major geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century.”

But was the breakup of the Soviet Union really inevitable? It is common knowledge today that indeed, by the end of 1991, there was no way to preserve USSR as it existed for decades after 1922. According to today’s prevailing attitudes, the political, economic and socio-cultural processes brewing in the country since 1986 eventually tore the nation part, and the relatively quick end of the largest country on the planet was more preferable to any alternatives. However, there were attempts made by the Soviet government to extend the life of their country by changing specific aspects of how it could be governed.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: In hindsight .... if free market economic reforms and liberalisations coupled with the adoption of a truly federated state (like Canada's) were implemented in the early 1980s .... parts of the Soviet Union may have survived. As for the other parts .... nationalist sentiments were on the rise, and short of a major and massive crackdown .... I personally fail to see how Moscow could have kept the entire Union together. But this is all moot .... the proper economic and political reforms were never implemented, nationalist forces and sentiments took over in every Soviet Republic that undermined Soviet authority (Russia included), and what little moral authority that Moscow had vanished with the Afghan war and how the Chernobyl disaster was handled.

Soviet Military Dream Weapons—It Never Built

Robert Farley, National Interest: Battleships, Aircraft Carriers and Super Tanks: Russia’s Military Dream Weapons—It Never Built

The Soviet military combined grandiose vision and global aspiration with a defense-industrial base that had severe limitations. In some cases, these limitations produced remarkable weapons, such as the T-34 and the MiG-21. In other cases, the limitations precluded disastrous decisions, such as the giant heavy bombers, the huge battleships, and the giant tanks of the interwar period. The true lesson, however, is that while decisions about weapon systems often reverberate across an entire defense-industrial base, they only rarely change the fates of nations.

For nearly seven decades, the defense-industrial complex of the Soviet Union went toe-to-toe with the best firms that the West had to offer. In some cases, it surprised the West with cheap, innovative, effective systems. In others, it could barely manage to put together aircraft that could remain in the air, and ships that could stay at sea.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: A good list.

Why Islamic Terrorists Don’t Kidnap Russians

WNU Editor: From the L.A. Times 30 years ago .... KGB Reportedly Gave Arab Terrorists a Taste of Brutality to Free Diplomats (L.A. Times).

Hat Tip: Federalist papers

Russia Starts To Open Up On Its Bolshevik Past And How Their Brutal Rule Resulted In Famine And The Death Of Millions

The suffering of the Russian people did not end with Wold War I, the Bolshecik Revolution, and the Civil War. The destruction and devastation resulted in a terrible famine, made worse by the Bolshevik willingness to use food as a weapon. The most vulnerable were the children. This photograph was taken somewhere in the Volga region (1921-22).

Daily Mail: The communist cannibals: Shocking images reveal the depravation suffered by peasants forced to eat HUMANS during the 1920s Russian famine

* The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as Povolzhye famine, occurred in Bolshevik Russia
* It began in early spring of 1921 and lasted through 1922
* Civil war and Lenin's policy of seizing food from peasants caused the devastating man-made famine
* Around 30 million people were affected and around five million died
* WARNING: Distressing images

Standing solemnly in their thick winter coats behind a table laden with children's body parts, this is the grave photo of a couple that shows how starving people turned to cannibalism to survive during a man-made famine in 1920s Russia.

More than five million people died during the catastrophe, which began in 1921 and lasted through 1922.

Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, had been in charge of the country since 1917. In a chilling disregard for the suffering of his fellow countrymen he instructed food to be seized from the poor.

Lenin's Bolsheviks party believed peasants were actively trying to undermine the war effort and by taking their food away it reduced their strength.

The famine was able to take root with ease due to the economic problems caused by World War I, five years of civil war, and a drought in 1921 which led to 30 million Russians becoming malnourished.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I was surprised to read this in a Western news site .... and the Daily Mail of all websites. But they are onto something. Everyone in Russia has a story on how their parents and grandparents suffered during this time .... especially after the Bolsheviks had solidified their power .... so for most Russians this is really not news. And while most Russians do not talk about their family history publicly .... these is now a push in Russia to educate the public .... starting within the school system .... on how brutal the Soviet state was towards its citizens after they came to power in 1917. Fortunately .... it will not be hard to make this case. Just like the Nazis who documented their atrocities .... so did the Soviets .... documenting and photographing the ravages of the famines that they caused. My friends in the Russian government tell me that the government continues to maintain the archives of this period. But because of its content .... especially the tens of thousands of pictures and hundreds of news reels that document this catastrophe .... they are still reluctant to release it to the public (they just do the bits here and there). I give it another 10 years before this history is finally open for all to see .... if not sooner. And when that happens .... that is when I predict the debate will start to get very interesting ... within Russia .... and definitely outside of Russia.

Remembering The Fall Of The Soviet Union 25 Years Ago

WNU Editor: 25 years .... wow .... how time flies. When I think of  how life was in the Soviet Union .... and now .... what life is like today. Sighhh .... I am just shaking my head .... the memories are too many. That is why if given a choice .... I would rather live in the new Russia of today in a heart-beat .... warts and all .... because it is infinitely far better than what it was then. As to those Russians who long for those days .... I know only too well who these people are ....they are those who miss the days when they had privilege and power .... and cannot understand what happened to it all. And as for the young who have a romantic view of those days .... I just break up laughing when I talk to them .... they have no f____ing clue. 

More Commentary On The Fall Of The Soviet Union 25 Years Ago

'We got Christmas back': readers mark 25 years since fall of Soviet Union -- The Guardian
Twenty Five Years after Soviet Union's Collapse the West Lacks Strategic Vision Towards Russia -- Anna Borshchevskaya, Forbes
25 Years After the Fall -- James Goldgeier, US News and World Report
The Real Reason Russians Still Have Soviet Nostalgia -- Thomas Sherlock, National Interest
Fall of the USSR: Village that still sees Gorbachev as hero -- BBC
Russia: Fall and rise in 25 years -- Steven Rosenberg BBC
From Red to Silver: The 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Soviet Union -- Stratfor

Russian President Putin: The USSR Could Have Been Reformed

Russian President Vladimir Putin © Michael Klimentyev / Reuters

RT: Putin: USSR could have been reformed, there was no need to destroy it

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should have transformed the bloc into a democratic entity rather than see it collapse, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

“You know my attitude towards the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was no need to do it. Reforms could have been undertaken, including those of democratic nature,” the Russian president told the leaders of the parties which won seats in last week's general election.

“But I want to point out that the Communist Party was in charge of our former homeland, the USSR, not any other,” Putin added.

Read more ....

Update: Putin Says Soviet Union’s Collapse Wasn’t Inevitable (Bloomberg)

WNU Editor: Russian President Putin is forgetting how people felt at the time. Within Russia itself I would estimate that 80% of the population (if not more) wanted the system to be overthrown .... and since the system was the Soviet Union .... it had to go. In the non-Russian Republics .... many Russians wanted the Soviet Union to exist in order to protect their language and cultural rights .... but for those who were native (i.e. Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc.) .... the sentiment was overwhelmingly to break the USSR apart. As for Putin's remarks that the USSR could have reformed .... sorry .... I was there at the time and much of the leadership (with the exception of Gorbachev and a few others) .... had no interest in reform .... none. And even Gorbachev's push for reform was too little and far too late. What's my take .... I hated the Soviet Union and the communist system that it represented from the day that I became sensitive to politics .... and I know that Russia is in a far better place today than if the Soviet Union was still around. As for the chaos in some of the former Soviet Republics (Ukraine, the Central Republics, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, etc.) .... this is something that in the end they will have to settle and work out .... a process that I predict will probably take a few more decades.

The Soviet Union Started To Collapse 25 Years Ago

RT: 25 years on: Failed coup that ended the Soviet Union (PART 1)

The junta that tried to seize power in the Soviet Union on August 18-21, 1991, is one of the most inept in the history of palace coups. Not only did it fail to take power, but it also brought about the opposite of its aims – the collapse of the USSR.

The coup was triggered by the New Union Treaty, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s stillborn, last-ditch attempt to save the USSR. The union was in the midst of an uncontrollable collapse of its command economy and being torn apart by its increasingly-nationalist minorities.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The big fear that I had during this time was that the protests against the coup plotters would result in a Russian version of a Tienanmen Square massacre. It did not .... and it was then that I personally accepted the inevitable that the Soviet Union would cease to exist as the state that I grew up in. Not surprising .... even though Russian state media is talking abut this anniversary today, the Kremlin wants it to be low key .... Putin bans anniversary of defeated KGB coup (The Times).

More News On The Collapsed Of The Soviet Union 25 Years Ago

Russia Marks 25th Years Since Failed Soviet Coup -- AP
Twenty five years ago the USSR collapsed -- Euronews
25 years ago, a failed coup in Moscow killed a superpower. Now it’s back -- Steve LeVine, Quartz
The Soviet empire collapsed 25 years ago, but history did not end -- Tom Switzer (Australian Financial Review)
What Happened To The August 1991 Soviet Coup Plotters? -- RFE

Remembering The Collapse Of The Soviet Union (Photo Gallery)

Hard times: Eighteen-year-old prostitute Katya scours the street for work as a police car drives past in Moscow in 1991 shortly before the collapse of the USSR

Daily Mail: Poverty, prostitutes and the long, slow death of the Soviet Union: Haunting pictures show desperate struggle to survive in last days of USSR

These shocking pictures may look like something out of the Great Depression - but in fact they show life in the last years of the Soviet Union, less than three decades ago.

Shop shelves were often bare, it was normal to have to join a long queue if you wanted to buy groceries and many of the people looked ground down after a century of desperate poverty.

The dismal state of the USSR's economy, during a time of rapidly improving living standards in the West, was a result of its dogmatic Communist political system, which stifled free enterprise and stopped the country moving on from its feudal past.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: These pictures bring back bad memories. I was lucky than most .... I was working for the UN and being paid in a foreign currency .... but that only meant that everyone else was dependent on me. The images that strike me of the time are the train stations being packed with homeless people/families sleeping, the young girls prostituting themselves around Red Square, everyone selling their belongings to make ends meet, the long lines in front of state stores with nothing to sell. Sighhh .... yup .... I still shudder when I think of those days.

Remembering The Millions Who Died Under Soviet Rrepression

A woman holds a candle near the monument Solovetsky Stone on the eve of the remembrance day for the victims of political repression in central Moscow, Russia, October 29, 2015. The stone from the Solovetsky Camp, one of the Gulag labour camps which operated in the early years of the Soviet Union, was installed as a memorial to the victims of political repression near a building of former NKVD secret service in 1990. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

WNU Editor: The AP report is here .... Victims of Soviet repressions remembered in memorial (AP).

Every Russian has a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, .... who can repeat a story of someone who suffered during this time. I know in my case I have dozens. And while there are still some survivors .... I know that they are not going to live long enough to see justice. But I also know that there will be an accounting one day .... as well as a suitable memorial to the tens of millions who died .... but that is not going to happen today.

Update: I completely disagree with the following Guardian commentary .... Russia's Gulag camps cast in forgiving light of Putin nationalism (Shaun Walker, The Guardian). Russians are not "casting a forgiving light" of the Gulags .... it is like Americans forgiving slavery because of the current state of American nationalism .... logic and common sense dictates otherwise. The dark part of our pasts are separate issues from today's current events, and they should be remembered and treated as such.

Map Depicting The USSR Gulag Camps From 1923 To 1961

Map depicting the USSR Gulag camps, which existed between 1923 and 1961 pic.twitter.com/ATfdkRTGqK
— Tom T. (@VRWCTexan) February 8, 2014

Soviet Top Secret Weapons