Dear friends,

hereunder is my article about role of civil disobedience and nonviolent civilian based defence measures in defeating the coup in the USSR, as I see it.

I shall be extreemly thankful for any comments.

Thank you,

Alexander Pronozin.

The attempted coup in the Soviet Union in August rightfully occupies a place as one of the most important and most unusual events of the twentieth century. It is not at all strange that the coup took place. The continuing political reforms, culminating in the signature of the Union Treaty on August 20, would have inevitably led to a fundamental weakening of the power of the central governmental party apparatus. It was difficult to suggest that this apparatus, which completely possessed power in the Soviet government from its first moments, would agree to relinquish control without a fight. Its only weapons were the powers of the government structures: the army, KGB, and the organs of internal affairs. As a result, only a military coup could defend the apparatus' power.

The swift, shattering strike that came down on the conspirators seems surprising. By any standard of judgment the facts could not lead to the expectation of such a quick end. It is most important to note several characteristics that define the initiators of the coup. First, in case the coup was defeated, they could not count on the mercy of the courts to judge them as government criminals. Second, it is impossible to accuse them of insufficient ability or practical skills to carry out such a plan. In terms of military adventurism the Soviet government already accumulated considerable experience. Third, it is unthinkable to suspect that they suffered from an excessive love of humanity or a desire to prevent bloodshed of innocent people. In recent years they have repeatedly demonstrated their complete ruthlessness and cynicism in the Baltic states and the Caucausus.

Several million soldiers and the most advanced military technology were under their control. Any military specialist would have said that nowhere else in the world exists the military hardware that could have finished off these monsters in all of three, practically bloodless days. Such weaponry was found, and its effectiveness was based not on some incomprehensible principle of physics but on a social political principle. The principle states that no regime can remain long in power without at least the passive support of the majority of the population. The weapon based on this principle is called nonviolent social based defense.

How did the coup begin? We have just evaluated the specific subjective qualities of the putsch organizers who openly showed that they were morally prepared for massive repression and rivers of blood. In order to understand the sequence and logic of the events, however, we must take into account other objective factors in the situation that the putschists faced. They lacked a single individual who could have been called the leader of the coup. Not one of the eight conspirators had gained respect either among the civilian population or among the military. The catastrophic condition of the Soviet economy did not give them the luxury of completely disregarding the opinion of the international community, on whose economic help so much depended. Furthermore, the vast majority of the USSR military are conscripts, and these 18-year-old soldiers grew up in the period of perestroika. In addition, the officer corps of the Soviet military's active duty units is primarily composed of Slavs. While these officers may be co

unted on in the non-Slavic regions, their reliability to act against a peaceful population in Moscow or Leningrad becomes not so assured.

The main danger for the putschists came from the RSFSR Parliament, a tall white building on the banks of the Moscow River which houses the power structure of the Russian Federation and President Boris Yeltsin and his administration. Russians have christened it "the White House." When the conspirators found the building defended by hundreds of armed and professionally trained security forces, they worked out a detailed plan to storm it. This plan made provisions for the deaths of the twelve highest Russian politicians. In order to provide even the most minimal legitimacy to this operation, it was necessary to first announce the accession of the new power. Referring immediately to the malicious disobedience and violation emergency situation on the part of the Russian leadership, they would have somehow justified the victims during the storming of the White House. To accomplish this measure the putschists first seized control of the media and communications which were immediately deployed for a massive propagan

da campaign.

But six years of glasnost and perestroika had accomplished one of its goals. People learned how to separate truth from lies, and in the first several hours thousands of demonstrators gathered at the White House and surrounded it with a dense human ring. The conspirators had not provided for this response. They had expected the response of previous years when the people, who, if not overly delighted, at least tolerated changes in the political course of the Soviet leadership.

Now the problem was more complicated and acquired a more subtle character. On the way to the White House, the aggressors roused a small number of armed forces and a crowd of unarmed civilians. But retreat was impossible. As Boris Yeltsin later stated in a television interview, the conspirators' special order was made in order "to sweep" the people off the streets. Then the leadership would report that the victims were a consequence of "wide-scale provocation by extremist elements" and hooliganism by "outraged groups." Such a press report had already been prepared by the military.

A special section of the KGB Department for the Struggle against Terrorism with the code name "Alpha" was given the direct responsibility for the fulfillment of the operation. Operational plans were carefully worked out, and the troops were equipped with the most powerful, state-of-the-art weapons, including grenades and anti-tank devices. But when it was explained that "in the process" the men would have to kill several hundreds or perhaps thousands of unarmed civilians, the entire subdivision refused to carry out the order in spite the obvious consequences of the step. They had not been trained to do that. Until this moment everything had gone according to the putschists' plan. But for the first time, the weapon of nonviolent opposition appeared, and in this case it demoralized the opposition. Such unarmed resistance proved to be the greatest asset to the defenders of the White House.

The conspirators fully understood that time was of the essence. The continued existence of the Russian government, who immediately used its widespread popularity to assume responsibility for coordinating the democratic opposition, represented a fatal threat to the junta. There was no time to reeducate ideologically the rebellious subdivision. In Moscow substitutes were called up from the KGB special forces, who, according to specialists, were real zombies capable of fulfilling any order. But time was lost, and the Russian government had already demonstrated its capability. Peoples' Deputies located inside the White House maintained constant contact with the demonstrators. People saw that they were defending more than just bricks and mortar. This realization provided a moral justification and added to the strength of the defenders.

A back-up government was immediately formed by the White House. By the second day, they already began to fulfill their duties from an underground bunker near the city of Sverdlovsk, kilometers from Moscow. In addition, they were working on the creation abroad of a Russian government-in-exile. These measures fundamentally devalued the meaning of the capture of the White House itself, and forced the putschists to slow further their operations. In these efforts, another method of nonviolent opposition became crystal clear: the organization of parallel reserve structures of power.

The first victory provided impetus to the mass opposition movement. In this situation the Russian government occupied an extremely distinct and skillful position. The central message of its edicts and appeals was the total illegality of the junta and the complete refusal to use any form of violence. Following Yeltsin's call for a general strike, a series of organizations in many regions of the country stopped work on the very next day. This happened in spite of a total blockade of independent means of mass communication and the officially announced prohibition of strikes.

Employees of media banned by the Committee for the Emergency Situation behaved courageously. For instance, in Moscow employees of eleven leading banned newspapers united to publish a "general newspaper," reproduced on photocopying and duplicating machines. Large quantities of issues of this newspaper as well as copies of the Russian President's orders and appeals were pasted to the walls and cars of the metro, at bus stops, and other gathering places. This was important not only in order to spread accurate information. All over town large groups of people gathered around the posted papers and exchanged opinions about recent events. It had a great psychological impact and added a special mood to the city. The quantity of signs was so great that any attempt to tear them down would have seemed funny and stupid.

An invaluable aid in the campaign for social defense turned out to be the "united efforts" of other governments and especially Western radio broadcasts transmitted into the Soviet Union. In the days of the putsch, they assisted Soviet citizens including Gorbachev, who voluntarily admitted that they provided a fundamental source of the most complete and accurate information.

Other forms of nonviolent acts, such as the surrounding and occupation of government buildings and organizations, were also used. For instance, under the command of instructor Colonel Anatoli Pchelintsev, 101 students of the Moscow Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense barricaded themselves in their barracks and declared their unwillingness to participate in the overthrow of the government.

In Moscow mingling with soldiers entering the city provided another very important type of nonviolent action. Spontaneous meetings took place around military vehicles and tanks. No one displayed an personal hatred for the soldiers. In fact, their children or friends often served in similar units. They gave the soldiers cigarettes and brought food. The goodwill attitude and reliable information that soldiers could not get anywhere else put the "fighting mood" out of commission. Such action created the necessity for a constant rotation of military units patrolling the city. Units successfully persuaded by the local population were taken out and replaced with fresh arrivals.

Barricades were built from trolleybuses, delivery trucks and garbage dumpsters. Of course, they did not present serious obstacles to armored vehicles, but they were completely capable of stopping opponents if only for a few minutes. These minutes could be used to agitate among the soldiers. Protesters who spoke the languages of non-Russian nationalities were selected out in order to appeal to soldiers in their native tongue while the tanks attempted to storm the barricades. As a result of these discussions, six tanks ordered to seize the White House defected to the Russian side. They hung Russian flags on their antennas and turned their gun turrets 180 degrees away from the White House.

Moscow's response to the announcement of a curfew was significant. On the night of August 20-21 when the curfew was officially imposed, there were no fewer people than usual on the Moscow streets after 11 p.m. Public transport continued to operate. An uninformed individual would not have thought that such a extreme measure as a curfew was being imposed. Who knows, maybe this collective act of insubordination by Muscovites became the decisive psychological factor that demonstrated to the putschists the futility of their efforts to bring "order" to the country. At least, it was the last night for the junta.

Now in the Soviet Union, some people joke that it is necessary not to try the conspirators, but to raise monuments to them. In just three days they secured the construction of fundmental political change in the country that the democrats had not been able to achieve in six years of perestroika. In that case, they rightfully deserve further recognition. No one before them succeeded so persuasively and graphically to demonstrate the effectiveness of nonviolent social based defense.