MOSCOW - A recent poll showed that 21 percent of Russians back the actions of the State Emergency Situation Committee (GKChP), which staged an abortive coup attempt in Russia in August 1991, while 17 percent condemn them. The survey of 1,600 people was conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) in 83 locations of 33 regions of Russia in late July (error rate is within 3.8 percent). 62 percent of those polled were undecided about whether they supported the GKChP. When asked about their political sympathies back in 1991, 16 percent of respondents said they had supported the GKChP, 18 percent said they had opposed it, 41 percent said they had not understood the situation clearly, and 25 percent were undecided.
About half of those surveyed (46 percent) believe that the coup attempt was just an episode of a struggle for power among Russia's leadership. At the same time, 25 percent of respondents said these were tragic events that had disastrous consequences for the country and its people. Only 9 percent of Russians see them as a victory of a democratic revolution which ended the reign of the Communist Party. And 20 percent of respondents were undecided.
Eleven years ago, at 6:00 on August 19, 1991, national radio announced that a state of emergency had been declared in some regions of the USSR. Then Vice President Gennady Yanayev announced that he had assumed the powers of the President of the USSR, “due to the inability of Mikhail Gorbachev to discharge his duties, for health reasons”. The State Emergency Situation Committee has been established. It comprised Mr. Yanayev, then Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, chairman of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov, deputy chairman of the Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, Interior Minister Boris Pugo, chairman of the Farmers’ Union Vasily Starodubtsev and president of the Association of State-run Enterprises Alexander Tizyakov.
Tanks rolled in to the center of Moscow. Opponents of the GKChP gathered outside the Parliament building, which was turned into the counter-coup headquarters by Boris Yeltsin and his supporters. The GKChP did not secure the people’s support, and the coup attempt failed by August 21. /RosBusinessConsulting/
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