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N0KFQ > TODAY 18.08.14 17:31l 61 Lines 2839 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Aug 18
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Aug 18, 1991:
Soviet hard-liners launch coup against Gorbachev
On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed
under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his
own government, military and police forces.
Since becoming secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and
president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in
1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet
system. Combining perestroika ("restructuring") of the
economy--including a greater emphasis on free-market
policies--and glasnost ("openness") in diplomacy, he greatly
improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly
the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev
faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line
politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the
Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate
power. On the other side were even more radical
reformers--particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most
powerful socialist republic, Russia--who complained that
Gorbachev was just not working fast enough.
The August 1991 coup was carried out by the hard-line elements
within Gorbachev's own administration, as well as the heads of
the Soviet army and the KGB, or secret police. Detained at his
vacation villa in the Crimea, he was placed under house arrest
and pressured to give his resignation, which he refused to do.
Claiming Gorbachev was ill, the coup leaders, headed by former
vice president Gennady Yanayev, declared a state of emergency and
attempted to take control of the government.
Yeltsin and his backers from the Russian parliament then stepped
in, calling on the Russian people to strike and protest the coup.
When soldiers tried to arrest Yeltsin, they found the way to the
parliamentary building blocked by armed and unarmed civilians.
Yeltsin himself climbed aboard a tank and spoke through a
megaphone, urging the troops not to turn against the people and
condemning the coup as a "new reign of terror." The soldiers
backed off, some of them choosing to join the resistance. After
thousands took the streets to demonstrate, the coup collapsed
after only three days.
Gorbachev was released and flown to Moscow, but his regime had
been dealt a deadly blow. Over the next few months, he dissolved
the Communist Party, granted independence to the Baltic states,
and proposed a looser, more economics-based federation among the
remaining republics. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned.
Yeltsin capitalized on his defeat of the coup, emerging from the
rubble of the former Soviet Union as the most powerful figure in
Moscow and the leader of the newly formed Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS).
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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