Nina Aleksandrovna, you, heading both the political movement “Unity - for Leninism and Communist Ideals” (All-Union Society) and the Bolshevik platform in the CPSU, then in August 1991, supported the State Emergency Committee, supported the state of emergency that the State Emergency Committee introduced. 10 years later (2001 fb ed.), HOW do you see today what was happening? HOW do you rate the GKChP now?
N.A.
As for the first days, the first hours of the GKChP, then, as you correctly said, we immediately supported the actions of the GKChPists, supported their first and only political document.
In it, for example, it was said that the development of the country should not be based on a fall in the living standards of the population, that all attempts to speak the language of dictates with our country should be thwarted, that it is necessary to counteract the attempt on our sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Who can object to these perfectly correct provisions? Therefore, we immediately supported the GKChP, especially since by this period events in the country began to develop very sharply in a negative direction. We believed that the actions of the State Committee on Emergency Situations were aimed at somehow normalizing the situation and abandoning the vicious perestroika course. Although, as it became clear later after we analyzed the actions and position of the State Committee on Emergency Situations, they essentially acted within the framework of the then existing Constitution of the country. Their actions were directed only towards correcting Gorbachev's perestroika without changing its restorative essence, capitalist essence. We realized this three days after August 19th. HOW did we evaluate events then and HOW do we evaluate them now?
We then characterized the opposition of the anti-communist democrats to the GKChPist as the beginning of an open decisive attack by the forces of internal counter-revolution on the socialist conquests of the Soviet people. The events of those days were essentially a CHANGE OF EVEN when, behind the screen of the GKChP, the “democrats" carried out, or committed, a real political anti-constitutional coup in the country. The coup, carried out not by the GKChPists, but by the anti-communists-democrats, when the term “perestroika” is practically discarded as having become unnecessary, the leaders of the counter-revolution are replaced or replaced, the main players in this tragedy of the country are replaced, Gorbachev is replaced by Yeltsin.
As everyone knows now, and we knew it back then, Yeltsin chose Academician Sakharov to use it as TARAN for destroying the USSR, destroying communist ideology, destroying socialism. At the direction of Academician Sakharov, the “democrats" recruited Yeltsin to the highest echelons of power to fulfill the mission intended for him.
We already then, a few days after the GKChP, identified the events of those days as a play, the script of which was professionally written abroad by the US secret services, and the directing was carried out by Gorbachev. The actors were, on the one hand, GKChPisty who did not understand the role written for them, and on the other hand, Yeltsin and the anti-communist democrats. Gorbachev, who always expressed himself foggy, wavered that in this performance he himself was sent to the slaughter in the last act. Therefore, not fully understanding WHAT was destined for him, he calmly directed this performance, written by his Western benefactors. He conducted the events with interest.
The question is, what was Gorbachev's interest in the State Emergency Committee? You remember that the signing of the Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States was scheduled for August 20. The name itself has been debated for quite some time. The final formulation is the Union of Sovereign States. In fact, the signing of the Treaty was to take place, according to which the USSR as a state was liquidated. The union dissolved and Gorbachev as president of the USSR was abolished. (Which later happened). Further, in November, the XXIX Congress of the CPSU was appointed under pressure from the party masses with the adoption of a new party program, which was proposed by Gorbachev’s entourage. If this Program was adopted, the CPSU would turn into a neo-Menshevik liberal bourgeois party with recognition of the dominance of all forms of ownership. The General Secretary could well have lost his status at this congress.
This was not ambiguously declared at the All-Union Conference of the Bolshevik Platform in the CPSU, which was held in Minsk on July 13, 1991. One of the points of the Conference Decisions was to reject perestroika as an anti-popular capitulation policy that had already led the country to a national catastrophe with the immediate prospect of disintegrating the USSR into specific sovereigns and transforming the Homeland into a semi-colony of the West. Specifically, Gorbachev at the upcoming XXIX Congress of the CPSU threatened to be brought to party responsibility with the wording “for the collapse of the CPSU, the Soviet state, for the betrayal of the cause of Lenin, October, the international communist and workers' movement”. We know from journalists that Gorbachev, after receiving information about the decision of our Conference by his person, suggested that his assistant should clarify the wording of the forthcoming party punishment.
“Democrats” as the main accusation to the State Committee on Emergency Situations were allegedly charged with their seizure of power, which is completely untenable. Prior to the GKChP, each of the members of this committee formed by them already had unlimited power, because the GKChPists as a whole are the entire Security Council of the USSR, this is the Deputy Prime Minister, then Acting President, Prime Minister, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, ministers of the main departments. They all and everyone did not need to expand their powers, for they were already unlimited. The GKChP’s events of August 19 cannot be called a putsch, since any putsch will first of all completely neutralize political opponents. This was not done by the GKChPistami. Yeltsin and Sobchak (in Leningrad) spoke freely in the media and in the squares - there were no restrictions on their public activities. The troops were brought into the capital only in a sham, to demonstrate power, to intimidate the crowd: the troops did not have ammunition and clear orders from the GKChP to act.
GKChPisty were hostages of the situation. Remember Yanayev’s shaking hands at a press conference, where the GKChPisty said that Gorbachev should return (!). In the course of events, it was clear that they were waiting for instructions, instructions (from Gorbachev, of course), and since they were not followed, the GKChPists were at a loss. And Gorbachev isolated himself from the GKChPistov by organizing one-way communication with them: only he could connect by phone with the GKChPistov when he wanted to. They were deprived of such a connection. Gorbachev, however, “imprisoned” calmly swam in the sea with his family. The security around Foros in those days was the same as usually when the president was there.
Corr.
- Do you think that there was no figure among the State Committee on Emergency Situations that could take full responsibility for the development of events?
N.A.
- Yes, that’s true, there wasn’t. All GKChPisty were not wealthy. This applies to Kryuchkov, and Varennikov, and Lukyanov, and Yazov, and others. And Starodubtsev is just an honest peasant, a good collective farm leader and no more, not a politician.
Corr
“Another odd moment.” Petersburg spoke out almost completely against the GKChP, maybe even much more united than Moscow. Troops were sent to Moscow, but not to St. Petersburg.
N.A.
- I would not say that in Leningrad there were a lot of supporters of Yeltsin. Not at all. And the rally at the Palace of Anti-Communist Democrats in support of Yeltsin is not an indicator of his massive support. The Palace Square accommodates (when fully filled) only 110 thousand people. ON thousands for almost 5 millionth city is only some 2% of the population. There were no other demonstrations or rallies of “democrats" in those days in Leningrad, except on August 19.
But we should not forget that the main anti-communist "democratic" elite is based in Leningrad, and not in Moscow. And therefore, even if 110 thousand, although there were significantly fewer, it is very few to speak of mass support for Yeltsin in Leningrad. And then we should not forget that this "democratic" intellectual "elite" is mainly the descendants of the repressed by the Soviet government, those who actively opposed the Soviet government, against the people. And among those “repressed” there are many who sat under criminal articles, and not political ones.
What is it worth, for example, the “honorary citizen of St. Petersburg,” Academician Likhachev, who was in the camp during the war years and, therefore, may have lived to almost 90 years. Why was he imprisoned? From the archive of the Pushkin House (a huge research institute of Russian literature, which has a rich collection of manuscripts and other relics belonging to our great compatriots, Pushkin A.S., in particular), before the war, part of the most valuable archive that suddenly appeared for sale at one of the European auctions It seems in London. Likhachev, then a junior researcher, was responsible for the safety of these relics. Likhachev received 4 years prison camp - he was given a minimum term, taking into account his young age. His imprisonment during the war, when blood flowed on the fronts and killed the best of our Soviet people, became during the years of Gorbachev perestroika the subject of speculation on the part of the anti-Soviet intelligentsia. So the “conscience of the nation" is by no means a victim of the "Stalinist repression."
Corr.
- I do not argue with you. It is known that the rehabilitation commission, headed by A. Yakovlev, was rehabilitated and recognized as innocently convicted under Stalin and persons convicted under specific criminal articles.
N.A.
- Yes, there is a known case when one who was convicted for the murder of his wife was rehabilitated as “a victim of Stalinist repression.”
Corr.
Regarding the August events of 10 years ago, which event left the most vivid impression on you?
N.A.
Over the past 10 years, there have been so many very different very striking events in my life, in the life of the party that I have been leading with the moment of its creation, that the events of the State Emergency Committee somehow faded into the background, faded. But perhaps the most striking was the HOW the counter-revolution itself revealed itself - highlighted the current forces and customers of the events of those days. Somewhere on August 20 in the “Komsomolskaya Pravda" journalist published an article stating that "money for the barricades was carried in suitcases. 13 suitcases of money alone! ” I quote verbatim from memory - it clearly etched into memory.
The "Patriots Democrats" were very well funded. In those days, not only money, but the whole excess was in short supply — hard-smoked sausages, cognac, expensive imported cigarettes, etc., were all brought to the barricades, which in addition were very few in Moscow. who were near or on the barricades. One of the members of our All-Union Society “Unity - for Leninism and Communist Ideals” in those days was in Moscow and out of curiosity found himself on the barricade. He was directly offered to receive the money and indicated where they it was being distributed. Your newspaper also wrote that trucks, dump trucks, various construction equipment from which the barricades were built, “were bought with the money of entrepreneurs,” in other words, those who had already managed to plunder a lot of the public property and did not spare the loot in order to preserve “perestroika” , just so that the events do not turn 180 degrees. One must understand that the money received by Gorbachev for “perestroika” in the form of an IMF loan was also involved. This is part of the so-called “debt of the Soviet Union”.
Returning to the events of 10 years ago, I emphasize once again that there were very, very few supporters of Yeltsin at that time. And only the failure of the GKChP, their cowardice, their fear of turning directly to the people, whom they, I think, were afraid of, did not allow the counter-revolution to stop and gave it a chance for success. According to the same Gaidar, there were very few defenders on the barricades.
August 16, 2001 Leningrad
Note: The publication of this interview did not take place, like many other interviews with N.A. Andreeva, which were being prepared by the journalists for publication.
This article was published in the book of N.A. Andreeva “For Bolshevism in the Communist Movement”, Leningrad 2002
