Michael Dobbs - Down with Big Brother

Four hours after responding to Yeltsin’s radio appeal, Dmitri Komar found himself in the center of the action. As a teenager he had dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. His experiences in Afghanistan—which he refused to talk about, even to his family—had turned him off a military career. But now, as the sound of gunfire echoed through the streets of Moscow, he was once again in his element.

Emboldened by the methylated spirits that he had been gulping back in the course of the evening, Komar climbed on top of APC No. 536. The rear hatch had come loose as a result of repeated collisions with the barricade, and Komar began to climb down into the cabin. The gunner thought he was attempting to take control of the APC and ordered him to get out. Komar refused. The gunner fired his automatic rifle. The shots missed Komar but caused him to lose his balance. He toppled off the vehicle and smashed his head open on the road beneath. 120

“Fascists, murderers,” screamed the crowd as it became clear that one of the White House defenders had been mortally wounded. After dragging Komar’s body to the side of the road, the demonstrators surrounded the APC and began trying to climb on it. From the rampway above, people began hurling firebombs onto the vehicle. Soon smoke filled the tiny cabin, making it difficult for the crew to breathe.

Afraid he was about to be lynched, the gunner of APC No. 536 fired a volley of shots into the air from his AK-47 assault rifle. The shots ricocheted off the half-opened hatch and hit half a dozen demonstrators. One of the demonstrators, Vladimir Usov, was hit in the head with a bullet and subsequently crushed by thirty tons of heavy armor.

Ilya Krichevsky, the amateur poet with the black and red cowboy boots, also found himself in the thick of the fighting that night. The former tank gunner had hoped to talk the troops out of joining the expected assault on the White House. After witnessing the deaths of Komar and Usov, he began throwing stones at APC No. 536. As he ran toward the vehicle, his fist thrust into the air in front of him, he was hit in the forehead by a bullet. He died instantly.

WHEN THE SHOOTING BEGAN, Yeltsin’s bodyguards began to implement a secret plan to allow the Russian president to escape from the White House. They hustled him down into the basement garage and bundled him into his bulletproof Zil. The garage exited onto a side street, less than five hundred yards from the new American Embassy compound. Russian officials had already secured the agreement of American diplomats to grant the president refuge if his life was in danger.

Yeltsin sat in the limousine for several minutes, as the sound of street fighting raged aboveground. He later said that he categorically refused to leave the White House, once he understood what was happening. 121He and his aides spent much of the rest of the night in an underground bomb shelter, behind a hermetically sealed steel door. Whether this would have saved his life in the event of an attack on the building is unclear. Russian prosecutors later learned that the KGB possessed blueprints of the labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers beneath the White House and were guarding all the exits.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the barricades, some units had already begun to implement the initial stages of Operation Thunder. Shortly after midnight the KGB spetsnaz left their barracks in Teplyi Stan in full battle formation. They headed down Lenin Avenue and along the Mozhaisk Highway, on a route that led directly to the White House.

The security chiefs who had attended the noon meeting at the Defense Ministry were busy consulting with one another over the vertushka . Resorting to standard Soviet army tactics of prevarication and confusion, Grachev had held off sending his paratroopers to the White House, where they were meant to clear the way for the Alpha Group. When the fighting erupted outside the U.S. Embassy, Grachev called Gromov, to find out what the Interior Ministry troops were doing.

“They are standing still. And they are not going anywhere,” replied the last commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. 122

Grachev then received a call from Karpukhin. The Alpha commander said he was waiting, with his men, underneath a bridge on the other side of the river from the White House. (This information later turned out to be false. The Alpha Group remained in its barracks that night.) After feeling Grachev out, Karpukhin announced that his men would not be participating in the operation.

“Thank you,” replied Grachev. “My men are no longer in Moscow. I am not taking another step.”

AT KGB HEADQUARTERS Kryuchkov had been waiting all night for reports on the attack on the White House. Around two o’clock he received shattering news from Defense Minister Yazov. The army had decided not to participate in the operation. After hearing his subordinates describe the scene around the White House, Yazov had ordered a halt to all troop movements.

The KGB chairman asked the security chiefs to see him in his office on the fifth floor of the Lubyanka. Yazov refused to attend and sent his deputy Achalov. When Achalov entered the room, he was greeted by shouts of rage from the GKChP members, gathered around the table.

“So you chickened out?” asked Baklanov, who had led the delegation to Foros.

Quarrels broke out over who was responsible for the fiasco. KGB officials accused the military of cowardice and incompetence; Baklanov attacked Kryuchkov for failing to cut communication lines to the White House; the generals blamed the civilians. Eventually Kryuchkov bowed to military reality and told his fellow conspirators, in his soft voice, “Well, it looks as though we’ll have to call the operation off.” 123

The coup had effectively collapsed.

THERE WAS NOW ONLY ONE HOPE LEFT for the conspirators: to plead forgiveness from Gorbachev. The fact that they considered it at all was a measure of their desperation. They had locked the president up for four days, cut off his communications, and taken away his nuclear codes. But they also knew about his rivalry with Yeltsin and his penchant for endless political maneuvering. They had taken advantage of these characteristics in the past. If they could persuade Gorbachev that they had been motivated by patriotic concerns, such as a desire to save the union, there was a chance he might agree to a compromise.

In the presidential compound at Foros, Gorbachev and his family listened all day to the radio. They heard about the shooting incidents near the White House, the continued defiance of the Russian parliament, and the withdrawal of troops from the capital. It was clear that the coup was crumbling. Senior state and Communist Party officials, who had kept silent during the early stages of the coup, were going on Moscow radio to denounce the GKChP and express allegiance to the country’s lawful president.

Although most of the news was encouraging, there was also cause for concern. Raisa Gorbachev was particularly alarmed when she heard, over the BBC, that Kryuchkov had agreed to allow a delegation of parliamentarians to fly to Foros to confirm that the president was incapable of carrying out his duties. After three nights without sleep she concluded that the conspirators were planning to turn her husband into a real invalid, in order to justify their earlier lies. 124In her panic she began looking for places for him to hide. She was so frightened that she suffered a mild stroke. For a few hours she was unable to talk or move her arm.

Shortly before five in the afternoon a long line of Zils and Volgas swept through the gates of Camp Dawn. The putschists—Kryuchkov, Yazov, Baklanov, Lukyanov—had flown to the Crimea in the presidential airplane. They had nearly two hours’ head start on another plane carrying Russian leaders, led by Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi and Prime Minister Silayev. They were determined to get to Gorbachev first, so that they could present him with their version of events.