Ekho Moskvy on the 1991 Putsch

On 19 August, the first day of the attempted 1991 coup, the group of anti-Gorbachev hardliners calling themselves the GKChP (“State Committee on the State of Emergency”) either blocked or took over television and radio channels, including the reform-minded radio station Ekho Moskvy. By 20 August, however, Ekho Moskvy was back on the air and soon proved indispensable as a source of information for Muscovites and anyone following events in the capital. This recording from 20 Aug 1991 begins with Matvei Ganapolsky’s interview of journalist Oleg Poptsov, who had been at the epicenter of the standoff between the GKChP’s tanks and Yeltsin’s resistance for most of the preceding twenty-four hours. After recapping the events of the last day, Ganapolsky asks Poptsov what listeners can do “to show that they oppose this illegal act” (meaning the coup). Poptsov encourages them to come to the Russian White House, the center of the standoff, and show their support by numbers. Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites heard the call and rushed to the Krasnopresnensk neighborhood, where they built barricades and continued to protest deep into the night—even as the GKChP prepared to take strategic points by force. Three protesters died that night defending one these barricades: Dmitry Komar’, Vladimir Usov, and Ilya Krichevsky, the only people to lose their lives in protesting the coup. Next, the recording turns to an advisor of the Supreme Soviet, who reads a rhymed appeal to the Red Army soldiers whom the putschists had asked to secure strategic points in Moscow, and against whom thousands of citizens came out to protest. Заглушите моторы, танкисты! Зачехли автомат свой, солдат! Посмотри, сколько жизней невинных и чистых Рядом с вами шеренгой стоят Посмотри, может мать или брата Ты увидишь стоящих в мольбе Стой солдат нет уж больше возврата К жизни нищих в казарменной мгле. Turn off your engines, tankists! Put your gun away, soldier! Look how many innocent and pure lives Stand around you holding hands Look, perhaps your mother or brother You’ll see standing in prayer Stop, soldier, you can’t go back anymore To a poor man’s life in barrack darkness. This broadcast, and Ekho Moskvy’s coverage more broadly, made two things clear: that resistance was possible, and that the putschists had not taken full control of the media. As much as any other event, the realization of these two facts and their dissemination to a broad audience through the broadcast media might be said to mark the end of the Soviet Union.