A Coup d'État Holds a Press Conference

On 19 August 1991, a group of hardline Communist Party members opposing Mikhail Gorbachev’s (1931-2022) reforms launched an attempted coup. This group included such prominent members of the Party apparatus as Vice President Gennady Yanayev, Premier Minister Valentin Pavlov, Interior Minister Boris Pugo, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Chairman of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov, First Deputy Chairman of the Defense Council of the USSR Oleg Baklanov, Chairman of the Peasants’ Union of the USSR Vasily Starodubtsev, and President of the Association of State Enterprises Alexander Tizyakov.

Gorbachev, on vacation with his family in Crimea, was placed under house arrest at 4:00 AM, with all communication cut off. At 5:57 AM, a state of emergency was proclaimed across the Soviet Union, effective immediately. Tanks rolled into Moscow with the morning commute, intending to secure strategic locations throughout the city. The coup leaders declared themselves the General Committee on the State of Emergency, or GKChP (Generalnyi komitet po chrezvychainomu polozheniiu; ГКЧП). After dissolving freedom of the press, blocking several broadcast outlets, and filling others with recordings of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the GKChP announced a press conference to be held at 5:00 PM on 20 August.

Gennady Yanaev opened the proceeding by explaining that the state emergency had been called because Gorbachev was in poor health and the Soviet Union’s leadership in question. Ideological opposition to Gorbachev’s reforms was not mentioned, nor were details given on Gorbachev’s health. Yanaev and the other GKChP members had been up all night. Most had been drinking heavily. Yanaev’s hands were visibly shaking. Although his words were meant to reassure viewers, his demeanor conveyed a complete lack of confidence.

After Yanaev’s remarks, the GKChP opened the floor for questions. The first question, presented on the recording excerpted above, came from Carroll Bogert, Moscow correspondent for Newsweek. Bogert asked pointedly, “Where is Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev? What is he sick with? […] And against whom are the tanks that we see on the streets of Moscow today directed?” During Bogert’s question, Tatyana Malkina, correspondent for The Independent Newspaper [Nezavisimaya gazeta] could be seen smirking in the background. Malkina’s courageous follow-up completely derailed an already shaky press conference. “Do you understand that you have undertaken a coup d’état?” she asked. “And what historical parallel seems more fitting, 1917 or 1964?” After Yanaev’s wan response, the room quickly understood that this coup was not to be taken seriously. The next questioner asked sardonically—to the delight of the journalists in the room—whether the putschists had consulted with General Augusto Pinochet. The GKChP had now lost control of its own press conference, and soon enough, the coup leaders would lose control of their own coup.