Exactly two weeks have gone by since the morning of 19 August 1991. Perhaps this is the most appropriate time to try and recreate the tapestry of events at the point they overcame me.
Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August
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18 AUGUST
A cool clear morning and the day promises to be a good one. At 0800 (0 eight hundred) as is usual on Sundays, I am headed on foot from the government dacha, to the “object” [the grounds of the FCD]. An hour-and-a-half of tennis with my aide Iurii Ivanovich Novikov, then a five minute sauna, a quick shower and to work. As usual, I’d look through the telegrams, the news agency communications and sign off on the materials. On the 18th of August no significant information had come in and there was nothing to report. An hour later I was back on the path to the dacha through the familiar grove of trees.
Around 1500 [3:00 PM] the telephone gave an ululating call—it was the Kremlin. Such a call on a Sunday promised nothing good—either some emergency or some rush assignment from Kriuchkov who was at his desk round the clock. I cursed out loud (there was no one in the room) and picked up the receiver. Grushko was on the line.
“Kriuchkov has ordered you to get two combat-ready groups of commandos together by 2100, fifty men each with transport.”
“By 2100, but it’s after three now on a Sunday. What’s the assignment?”
“Don’t know, he called on the mobile phone, told me to transmit the order: two groups with transport.”
“Who’s to be in charge of the groups after that? Who do I call?”
“Zhardetskii [head of military counter-intelligence] will be there. He’ll be in charge. That’s all I know.”
A nasty business. The special commando unit has long been a dead weight on the FCD. Attempts to transfer it to someone else’s command had been unsuccessful. This combat outfit, intended for use under special circumstances abroad, is seen by Kriuchkov as a useful instrument in difficult internal situations as well. This unit had been sent to the city of Baku to guard the government buildings there. It was also to have been sent to Vilnius in January 1991, but fortunately was not for reasons unknown to me. I was very much disturbed by Kriuchkov’s casual, unofficial and unwritten orders. My second in command and I frequently grumbled about this, even wrote a memo or two, but never had the boldness to demand written orders from Kriuchkov. At the end of July and in early August (was this just a coincidence?) at a session of KGB leaders the form of a presidential decree on the deployment of the KGB was discussed. I suggested that any decree specify that orders calling for the use of troops be issued in written form. On the 19th we were to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the special commandos.
I sensed that something was up. But what? I called the commando quarters and told the officer of the day to summon the unit commander B.P. Beskov and to gather the groups. Then I called Zhardetskii.
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“What’s going on, where will the groups be used?”
“I don’t know myself. We just sent thirty-five agents to the Baltic states. Maybe there?”
We agreed to keep in touch and inform each other if we got definite information. Things are bad. Something is going on but there has been no disturbing news from the Baltics lately, and what does military counterintelligence have to do with it? Boris Petrovich Beskov calls. He’s at his post and is executing the order.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Don’t know yet. Get the men ready.”
“What’s the equipment?”
“Don’t know, will inform you later.”
At 1800 hours, or a little later, there is a call from the officer of the day at KGB headquarters: the chairman is calling a meeting in his office at 2230. This has got to be something worse than the Baltics. Has the military cooked up something? There is no one to consult. Vadim Alekseevich Kirpichenko [First Deputy of the KGB Foreign Intelligence Department], a dependable man, has just returned from vacation and won’t be at work for three days. He is not at the dacha. An hour goes by. The phone rings again: the meeting has been cancelled. But the call-up is still on. At 2100 Beskov reports that the hundred men are ready, and I relay it by telephone to Grushko. But what should their equipment be?
“What sort of equipment have they got?” asks Grushko.
“They have civilian clothing, dark-colored jumpsuits, and camouflage fatigues of the border guards.”
“The chairman is not at his desk. I’ll find out and get back to you.”
Around 2200 I call Zhardetskii. He knows nothing new; there have been no instructions. His voice is full of alarm. I call Beskov and ask permission to give the men a rest and be ready the next morning. I also inform Zhardetskii and go to bed.
19 AUGUST
At 0130 Zhardetskii calls.
“Grushko has denied permission to let the men disperse and asked that they be in a state of readiness by morning.”
“What’s up? Where is the unit to be deployed?”
“Possibly in Moscow. But don’t give me away. You and I have not had this conversation.”
Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August
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“O.K.” I fall asleep without calling Beskov and have the craziest dreams all night. I’m up at 0635 to walk the dog and turn on the radio: “The State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs . . . announces . . .” Something very ominous is happening. The list of the committee members suggests that it is not a military show. The phone rings. It’s Ageev.
“Are the units ready?”
“They ought to be ready.”
“Send them to the Central Club immediately. And send an additional hundred men to the same place.”
“What’s the equipment and weapons?”
“Have them take everything they’ve got.”
The officer of the day calls: a meeting in the chairman’s office at 0930. If the early morning begins with telephone calls, nothing good can be expected. A thought flashes by: my normal life is over.
I direct the communications people to tape everything that the State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs (SCEA) broadcasts and leave Iasenevo [a southern suburb of Moscow] for Lubianka Square [KGB headquarters]. As always on Monday mornings the streets are full of cars. People are coming back from their weekends. There are lines at the bus stops; it’s rush hour. The center-city is calm. There’s the usual crowd by Children’s World [a department store across the square from KGB headquarters]. No signs of any “Extraordinary Affair.”
Familiar faces greet me outside the chairman’s office: members of the Collegium, heads of directorates. Everybody seems dejected; there is no conversation, no smiles. Kriuchkov starts the meeting without any preliminaries. No one knows what is going on. Out of habit I take brief notes. I try to summarize what Kriuchkov is saying in a single sentence and come up with: “A state of emergency has been proclaimed with the goal of helping to bring in the harvest.” Kriuchkov is very excited and speaks in fits and starts. He concludes by saying approximately the following: “Keep working!” He does not take questions. Plekhanov, the chief of security, pops in. He looks completely crushed. Could it be that he is concerned about the health of the president? He is sick after all. Kriuchkov makes a rallying hand gesture in Plekhanov’s direction, something as: “It’s O.K., it’s O.K. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” We depart with our heads hanging, exchanging not opinions but mindless curses muttered under our breath.
An inner voice tells me that it is best to keep away from Lubianka, not to get trapped in some unpredictable assignment. Headquarters is always full of people who are eager to use others as a cat’s paw. I am on my way back to Iasenevo. The streets are filled with armored columns. Occasionally there are
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stalled vehicles with soldiers fussing around them. The air is full of diesel exhaust as in the bad times in Kabul. The columns move without hurry and seem endless. To everyone’s surprise they stop at red
traffic lights. Clearly something’s off.
Is Kriuchkov off on a risky venture? What’s wrong with the president? Stroke? Heart attack? Can’t figure out a damn thing. Along with the statements of the State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs they are reading Lukianov’s letter concerning the agreement on union. In spirit he is with the SCEA but he is not its member. Where are the countless committees of the Supreme Soviet, where is the mountain, the great pyramid of law-giving authority?
The TV runs stupid cartoons and the radio broadcasts mindless stuff. We have the technical capacity to receive the American news network, CNN. It is an insane situation: we get news about the capital city of our native land from American sources, from various news services, from private telephone calls. No one knows anything. Kriuchkov is always at meetings. It is pointless to ask Grushko about anything, and who would want to.
According to CNN, crowds are starting to gather at Manezh Square [adjacent to the Kremlin] and at the White House [seat of the Russian Federation] on the Krasnaia Presnia Embankment. Telephone calls substantiate this.
Time ticks away but there are no instructions and no information. I ask that copies of the SCEA statements be sent to all stations abroad as well as an order to report on the local reactions to the events in Moscow. The reactions come swiftly—they are acutely negative everywhere except for Iraq. Iraq hails the events. I authorize the telegrams to be sent to Kriuchkov, but on his orders some are diverted to members of the SCEA. Let them read, it won’t hearten them; perhaps it will give them pause.
But nothing heartens us. The airwaves are silent. The teletypes print out Yeltsin’s addresses to the people. These are immediately reproduced and distributed throughout headquarters. The situation in the city is heating up but on the screens there are only cartoons and on the telephones only anxious voices of people who understand and know nothing. My own voice is among theirs.
The most important phone rings—ATS-1—the Kremlin. It is Sergei Vadi-movich Stepashin whom I recently met for the first time. Along with the other members of the Supreme Soviet of Russia he visited the FCD in early summer. I don’t remember his exact words but the sense was clear—something had to be done to avert the approaching tragedy. I am in total agreement with Stepashin; we are moving toward something dreadful.
“We have to talk to Kriuchkov immediately. All this must be stopped. How can we get in touch with him? We are all in Burbulis’s office.”
Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August
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I try to find Kriuchkov on another line. I am told that he is in conference with Ianaev [vice-president to Gorbachev]. I call reception and demand that Kriuchkov be summoned. He takes the receiver. I tell him that negotiations are necessary, that an end must be put to everything. He asks for Burbulis’s number and hangs up. To this day I don’t know whether they had a conversation. The airwaves are silent. Toward evening Ianaev holds a press conference. He creates a stupefying impression. It is a huge nail in the coffin of the would-be dictatorship. Beskov and his commando group are in the recreation building. They have received no orders, but they are being fed.
20 AUGUST
The flow of contradictory news keeps swelling. It is clear that the people are defending the White House. At mid-day there is a report (was it the CNN or a phone call from the city center?) that the White House is about to be stormed. Stankevich [a leader of the democratic opposition] has ordered that all women be evacuated from the place. I manage to reach Kriuchkov by phone, report to him and ask that he cancel this venture. He laughs nervously: “What nonsense. Who made all this up? I just spoke with Silaev and told him that it’s all nonsense.”
But his denial gives me no peace. I have heard that laugh once before. It bodes nothing good. Kriuchkov is nervous and he is lying.
At 1730 Beskov calls. His men have done reconnaissance on the White House and concluded that a mad and bloody venture is being readied which will have totally disastrous consequences. I call Kriuchkov, inform him of Beskov’s report and ask, beseech him to cancel the plot.
“Report to Ageev,” he says. That’s all. While keeping Beskov on the line so that he can hear everything, I relay the information to Ageev. On an internal line I switch in V.A. Kirpichenko and ask him and Beskov to listen to me carefully.
“Boris Petrovich [Beskov],” I say, “I command you not to execute any orders without informing me and getting my authorization.” I repeat if for clarity and effect. Kirpichenko understands everything and acknowledges the order.
It’s max alert. At 2115 I’m in my office at headquarters trying to find Kri-uchkov and confront him. But he is not in the building and the duty officers say that he is in the Kremlin. I try to reach Beskov, but he is at a meeting with Ageev. I have him summoned to the telephone. He reveals that the storming is still being discussed despite the totally obvious opposition of all its would-be
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executioners, that is, Beskov himself and V. F. Karpukhin leader of group Alpha of the Seventh Directorate [specially trained antiterrorist squads].
I categorically reconfirm my instructions to refuse any order to storm the White House and to do everything possible that no such order be given. Kri-uchkov is still away from headquarters.
Beskov reports that it has been decided to cancel the storming (but when? At night or in the morning?). I ask him to return the groups to their quarters in Balashikha, which he does with relief.
21AUGUST
The session of Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation is being televised live. Many of those who, like us, kept silent, now rush to announce their allegiance to the winning side. Everyone pretends that they knew all along that the State Commission on Extraordinary Affairs was nothing more than a bunch of conspirators. (If one were to believe everything that was said and written after 21 August, then millions of people were manning the White House barricades while the enemy consisted of eight helpless evildoers.) The twenty-first of August was not a peaceful day, rather it was a day of deten-sioning, the end of the first act. Later that evening the president of the USSR [Gorbachev] returned from the Crimea [where he had been held hostage].
22AUGUST
The government is in place; the conspirators arrested; television is presenting news reports; the people are rejoicing. Does life go on? Maybe. At 0630 I take the dog, put on a vigorous and confident air for the benefit of the gate guards and proceed to the FCD. Normally these are the best twenty-five minutes of each day, but not today. What have we been thrust into? How could Kri-uchkov have betrayed us? I am plagued by the naive question of a virgin: “Whom can I trust?”
The phone rings at 0900. It is a woman’s voice: “Mikhail Sergeevich [Gorbachev] requests that you come to his office at noon.”
“Where is it?” (A stupid, but sincere question.)
They give me directions. Things seem to be getting easier. I go to KGB headquarters in order to be closer to the Kremlin and bide my time. Grushko hastily gathers the Collegium. In a collective mood of “mea culpa” we accept the Collegium’s condemnation of the conspiracy. In the condemnation the word “sullied” is used. An idiotic argument ensues: isn’t it better to say
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“stained” or “besmirched?” It is an argument straight out of Kafka or the Supreme Soviet. We are all in a state of general and amicable mindlessness; the only unstated thought is that we are all up the creek. Yes, up the creek and how. Yesterday’s impotent cursing of the chief gives no comfort. He has betrayed everyone.
The Collegium is breaking up. I stop by Grushko’s office and tell him of the president’s invitation. Grushko says that Mikhail Sergeevich had called from his car that morning and asked for everyone to remain calm. And Grushko is calm though his eyes are sunken and his face is somber. It was a brief conversation about nothing.
I drive to the Kremlin. My papers are thoroughly checked at the Borovit-skii Gate. This is so
mething new. In the past the guards would merely glance at the number on the car’s plate. I cross Ivan Square past the gleaming domes of the great bell tower (a joyous gift to Moscow by the ill-fated Boris Go-dunov) toward the Soviet Ministries building where the Politburo used to meet and where the president’s office is now located. There are two enormous black ZIL limousines at the entrance. I see that M.A. Moiseev, chief of the General Staff, has arrived. We meet in the reception room. The others present are I.S. Silaev [prime minister], chief justice of the Supreme Court Smolent-sev, and V.P. Barannikov [head of the Interior Ministry]. Finally A.A. Be-smertnykh comes in. We are all somewhat nervous but not gloomy. Moiseev and I have a friendly exchange in which we excoriate our previous bosses. More people arrive: S.S. Alekseev, chairman of the constitutional commission, E.M. Primakov [then director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations and advisor to Gorbachev], V.N. Ignatenko, the president’s press secretary, V.V. Bakatin, and someone else. “The black walnut room,” cherished spot of the Soviet VIP’s was full.
The president entered. I introduced myself and he immediately took me into an adjacent empty conference room. (I was to visit this room once again a day later.)
The conversation was very brief. “What were Kriuchkov’s aims. What were the instructions to the Committee?” I answered with total frankness, giving a brief description of the meeting on the nineteenth. “What a scoundrel. I trusted him most of all, him and Iazov. You yourself know that.” I nodded in agreement.
The Russian Century Page 46