Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican branch. Communist Party of the Russian Federation Crimean Republican Branch Who was President in 1993
MOSCOW, October 4 - RIA Novosti. The October coup of 1993 was not accidental - it was being prepared for two years and, as a result, actually killed people's trust in power, says Sergei Filatov, president of the Foundation for Socio-Economic and Intellectual Programs, former head of the Yeltsin presidential administration.
Twenty years ago, on October 3-4, 1993, clashes took place in Moscow between supporters of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999). On October 3-4, 1993, the confrontation between the two branches of Russian power — the executive represented by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the legislative represented by the Parliament — the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR, headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov, that had lasted since the collapse of the USSR, around the pace of reforms and methods of building a new state, on October 3-4, 1993 passed into an armed clash and ended with a tank shelling of the residence of the parliament - the House of Soviets (White House).
Chronicle of the events of the political crisis of autumn 1993 in RussiaTwenty years ago, in early October 1993, tragic events took place in Moscow that ended with the storming of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and the abolition of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet in Russia.The tension was building up
“What happened on October 3-4, 1993, was not predetermined in one day. It was an event that took two years to reach. Tension grew over two years. that it was a purposeful struggle on the part of the Supreme Council against the reforms that the government was implementing," Filatov said at a multimedia round table on the topic: "The October Putsch of 1993. Twenty years later ...", held at RIA Novosti on Friday.
According to him, the two first persons of the state - Boris Yeltsin and the head of the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov - failed to enter the "normal path of relations." Moreover, "absolute and deep distrust" has arisen between the two top officials, he added.
Political scientist Leonid Polyakov agreed with this opinion.
“In fact, the putsch of 1993 is a postponed GKChP of 1991. In 1991, these people, seeing hundreds of thousands of Muscovites who surrounded the White House, the leaders of the GKChP were just, as they say, afraid. At first they themselves frightened by bringing tanks into the capital ", and then they themselves were afraid of what they had done. But those forces that were behind this, and the people who sincerely believed in what turned out to be destroyed in August 1991, they did not go away. And two years followed, the most difficult, the hardest in our history, which accounted for the collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the state ... By October 1993, this explosive potential had accumulated, "Polyakov noted.
conclusions
Conclusions from the events of 1993, according to Filatov, can be drawn both positive and negative.
"The fact that we eliminated dual power is positive, that we adopted the Constitution is positive. And the fact that we actually killed people's trust in power and this continued for the rest of the 20 years is an obvious fact that we have to restore to this day we can't," he says.
In turn, political scientist Polyakov expressed the hope that the events of 1993 were "the last Russian revolution."
Film about the events of 1993
During the round table, a film about the events of October 1993 was presented, filmed by RIA Novosti specialists in a web documentary format, which has received worldwide recognition due to the fact that the viewer has the opportunity to interact with the content and has more freedom of action than the viewer of a plot with a linear form of narration, where the course of history is predetermined by the director. This is the third RIA Novosti film in 2013 in an interactive format.
"For each of the participants in these events, it was a part of his life, a part of his inner history. And it was about these people that we wanted to tell in our film, an interactive video; to make it possible to see through their eyes, through their emotions, through their memories those difficult days. Because now it seems to be some rather distant and somewhat unusual event in our country. I really hope that this will continue, because tanks firing at the White House from the embankment is an absolutely terrible sight. And, probably, for every Muscovite and any resident of Russia, it was something absolutely incredible," Ilya Lazarev, deputy editor-in-chief of RIA Novosti, shared his memories.
The film contains photographs of people who were subsequently found by RIA Novosti and who spoke about their memories of those events.
"We revived the photos and tried to bring some video episodes to our present time ... Our colleagues, directors have been working on this format for three months - this is a very difficult story. You can watch the film episodically, linearly, but the main story and task is to make this atmosphere, draw your own conclusions, but rather just get to know people who have experienced this story and let it through themselves," Lazarev added.
As a result of the tragic events of October 3-4, 1993 in Moscow, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation were liquidated. Prior to the election of the Federal Assembly and the adoption of a new Constitution, direct presidential rule was established in the Russian Federation. By a decree of October 7, 1993 "On legal regulation during the period of a phased constitutional reform in the Russian Federation", the President established that before the start of the work of the Federal Assembly, issues of a budgetary and financial nature, land reform, property, civil service and social employment of the population, previously resolved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation are now carried out by the President of the Russian Federation. By another decree of October 7 "On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation," the president actually abolished this body. Boris Yeltsin also issued a number of decrees terminating the activities of the representative authorities of the subjects of the Federation and local Soviets.
On December 12, 1993, a new Constitution of Russia was adopted, in which such a state authority as the Congress of People's Deputies was no longer mentioned.
25 years have passed since the days when people's deputies of Russia and ordinary citizens shoulder to shoulder defended the rights of their people and the Constitution of Russia.
send
Background
The economic and political crisis that began in the 1980s in the USSR intensified significantly in the 1990s and led to a number of global and radical changes in its territorial and political system. It was a period of intense political struggle and confusion. Supporters of maintaining a strong central government entered into a confrontation with supporters of decentralization and sovereignty of the republics.
On December 25, 1991, the last President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, spoke on central television. He announced his resignation. At 19:38 Moscow time, the flag of the USSR was lowered from the Kremlin, and, after almost 70 years of existence, the Soviet Union disappeared forever from the political map of the world.
Dual Power Crisis
Simultaneously with the preservation of broad powers, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the Congress of People's Deputies established the post of President.
On one side of the confrontation was Boris Yeltsin. He was supported by the Cabinet of Ministers, headed by Viktor Chernomyrdin, the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, a small number of deputies, as well as law enforcement agencies.
On the other side was the bulk of the deputies and members of the Supreme Council, headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov and Alexander Rutskoi, who served as vice president.
The President and his associates advocated the rapid adoption of a new fundamental law and the strengthening of the influence of the President, the majority were supporters of "shock therapy". They wanted the speedy implementation of economic reforms and a complete change in all power structures.
Their opponents were in favor of keeping all power in the Congress of People's Deputies, as well as against hasty reforms. An additional reason was the unwillingness of the Congress to ratify the treaties signed in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
After lengthy and fruitless negotiations, the conflict reached a stalemate. Neither the proposals to impeach the president and Khasbulatov's resignation, nor the proposal to hold early elections passed.
On September 1, President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree on the temporary removal of A. V. Rutskoi from his post. The Vice President constantly spoke with sharp criticism of the decisions made by the President. Rutskoy was accused of corruption, but the allegations were not confirmed.
On September 21, Yeltsin addressed the people and announced that the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet were losing their powers due to their inaction and sabotage of the constitutional reform. Provisional authorities were introduced. Scheduled elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
In response to the actions of the President, the Supreme Council issued a decree on the immediate removal of Yeltsin and the transfer of his functions to Vice President A. V. Rutskoi. This was followed by an appeal to the citizens of the Russian Federation, the peoples of the commonwealth, deputies of all levels, military personnel and employees of law enforcement agencies, which called for stopping the attempted "coup d'état". The organization of the headquarters for the protection of the House of Soviets was also begun.
Siege
On the same day, at about 8:45 pm, a spontaneous rally gathered under the walls of the White House, and the erection of barricades began.
In the morning there were about 1,500 people near the White House, by the end of the day there were several thousand. Volunteer groups began to form.
The heads of administrations and the siloviki mostly supported Boris Yeltsin. Bodies of representative power - Khasbulatov and Rutskoi. Rutskoi issued decrees, and Yeltsin, by his decrees, recognized all of them as invalid.
On September 23, the government decided to disconnect the building of the House of Soviets from heating, electricity and telecommunications. The guards of the Supreme Council were given machine guns, pistols and ammunition for them. Late in the evening of the same day, a group of armed supporters of the Armed Forces attacked the headquarters of the unified armed forces of the CIS. Two people died.
Supporters of the president used the attack as an excuse to increase pressure on those holding the blockade near the building of the Supreme Council.
In the evening of the same day, an extraordinary extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies opened.
On September 24, the Congress recognized President B. Yeltsin as illegitimate and approved all personnel appointments made by Alexander Rutskoi.
September 28th. At night, employees of the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate blocked the entire territory that was adjacent to the House of Soviets. All approaches were blocked with barbed wire and watering machines. The passage of people and vehicles is completely stopped. Throughout the day, numerous rallies and riots of supporters of the Armed Forces arose near the cordon ring.
September 29th. The cordon was extended to the Garden Ring itself. Residential buildings and social facilities were cordoned off. By order of the head of the Armed Forces, journalists were no longer allowed into the building. Colonel General Makashov warned from the balcony of the House of Soviets that if the perimeter of the fence was violated, fire would be opened without warning. In the evening, the demand of the Russian government was announced, in which Alexander Rutskoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov were offered to remove all their supporters from the building and disarm them by October 4 under the guarantee of personal safety and amnesty.
September 30th. At night, a message was circulated that the Supreme Soviet allegedly plans to carry out armed attacks on strategic objects. Armored vehicles were sent to the House of Soviets. In response, Rutskoi ordered the commander of the 39th motorized rifle division, Major General Frolov, to move two regiments to Moscow. In the morning, demonstrators began to arrive in small groups. Despite their completely peaceful behavior, the police and riot police continued to brutally disperse the protesters, which further aggravated the situation.
October 1st. At night, in the St. Danilov Monastery, with the assistance of Patriarch Alexy, negotiations of the parties took place. Yuri Luzhkov, Oleg Filatov and Oleg Soskovets spoke for the president. Ramazan Abdulatipov and Veniamin Sokolov arrived from the Council. As a result of the negotiations, Protocol No. 1 was signed, according to which the defenders handed over some of the weapons in the building in exchange for electricity, heating and working telephones. Immediately after the signing of the Protocol, heating was connected in the White House, an electrician appeared, and hot food was prepared in the dining room. About 200 journalists were allowed into the building. It was relatively easy to enter and leave the besieged building.
2 October. The military council headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov denounced Protocol No. 1. The negotiations were called "nonsense" and "screen". He insisted that he should personally negotiate directly with President Yeltsin. After the denunciation, the power supply was again cut off in the building, and the access control was strengthened.
Assault on Ostankino
October 3rd. At 14:00, a rally of thousands took place on October Square. Despite attempts, the riot police fail to oust the Protestants. Having broken through the cordon, the crowd advanced in the direction of the Crimean bridge and beyond. The Moscow police department sent 350 soldiers of the internal troops to Zubovskaya Square, who tried to cordon off the protesters. But after a few minutes they were crushed and pushed back, while capturing 10 military trucks. An hour later, from the balcony of the White House, Rutskoi calls on the crowd to storm the Moscow City Hall and the Ostankino television center. A crowd of thousands, having broken through the cordon, begins to move towards the White House. The riot police moved to the mayor's office and opened fire. 7 protesters were killed, dozens were injured. 2 police officers were also killed. At 16:00 Boris Yeltsin signs a decree declaring a state of emergency in the city. But the Protestants, led by the appointed Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Albert Makashov, are taking over the Moscow mayor's office. OMON and internal troops were forced to retreat and in a hurry leave 10-15 buses and tent trucks, 4 armored personnel carriers and even a grenade launcher. At 5:00 pm, a convoy of several hundred volunteers in seized trucks and armored personnel carriers, armed with automatic weapons and even a grenade launcher, arrives at the television center. In an ultimatum form, they demand to provide a live broadcast. At the same time, armored personnel carriers of the Dzerzhinsky division, as well as detachments of the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs "Vityaz", arrive at Ostankino. Long negotiations begin with the security of the television center. While they are dragging on, other detachments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and internal troops arrive at the building. At 19:00. "Ostankino" is guarded by approximately 480 armed fighters from different units. Continuing the spontaneous rally, demanding to be given airtime, the protesters are trying to knock out the glass doors of the ASK-3 building with a truck. They succeed only partially. Makashov warns that if fire is opened, the protesters will respond with their existing grenade launcher. During the negotiations, one of the general's guards is wounded by a firearm. While the wounded man was being carried to the ambulance, explosions were simultaneously heard at the demolished doors and inside the building, presumably from an unknown explosive device. A special forces soldier dies. After that, indiscriminate fire was opened on the crowd. In the ensuing twilight, no one made out who to shoot at. Protestants were killed, journalists who simply sympathized, trying to pull out the wounded.
But the worst began later. In a panic, the crowd tried to hide in the Oak Grove, but there the security forces surrounded them in a dense ring and began to shoot at point-blank range from armored vehicles. Officially, 46 people died. Hundreds of wounded. But there may have been many more victims. At 8:45 pm, Yegor Gaidar on television addresses the supporters of President Yeltsin with an appeal to gather near the building of the Moscow City Council. From the arrivals, people with combat experience are selected and volunteer detachments are formed. Shoigu guarantees that if necessary, people will receive weapons. At 23-00 Makashov orders his people to retreat to the House of Soviets.
White House shooting
On October 4, 1993, Gennady Zakharov's plan to seize the House of Soviets was heard and approved at night. It included the use of armored vehicles and even tanks. The assault was scheduled for 7-00 in the morning. Due to the confusion and inconsistency of all actions, conflicts occur between the Taman division that arrived in Moscow, armed people from the Union of Afghan Veterans, and Dzerzhinsky's division. In total, 10 tanks, 20 armored vehicles and approximately 1,700 personnel were involved in the shooting of the White House in Moscow. The detachments recruited only officers and sergeants.
On the pre-shooting October night at the Moscow City Council, Yegor Gaidar, using television, which was completely controlled by the Yeltsin group, gathered crowds of "liberal democrats" and from the balcony called for the killing of "red-brown" deputies and defenders - "these pigs who call themselves Russian and Orthodox" .
The assault was scheduled for 7-00 in the morning. The first to die from a bullet wound was a police captain, who was on the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel and filmed the events on a video camera.
5 infantry fighting vehicles, crushing the barricades, enter the square in front of the White House. Armored vehicles open aimed fire at the windows of the building. Under cover of fire, soldiers of the Tula Airborne Division are approaching the House of Soviets. Defenders shoot at the military. A fire broke out on the 12th and 13th floors. Tanks began shelling the upper floors. A total of 12 rounds were fired. Later it was claimed that the shooting was carried out with blanks, but judging by the destruction, the shells were live.
At 11:25 artillery fire resumed again. Despite the danger, crowds of curious people begin to gather around. Among the onlookers were even women and children. Hospitals have already received 192 injured participants in the shooting of the White House, 18 of whom died.
Alexander Korzhakov’s book “Boris Yeltsin: From Dawn Till Dusk” reports that when Yeltsin scheduled the capture of the White House for 7 am on October 4 with the arrival of tanks, the Alpha group refused to storm, considering everything that was happening unconstitutional, and demanded the conclusion of the Constitutional Court Russia.
Then "unknown" snipers started shooting at the back of the opposing sides. According to operational information received at that time by various organizations, there was a message that “these were snipers of international special services, who, under the guise of athletes, were placed in the Ukraine Hotel, from where they fired aimed fire.”
At 15:00 from the high-rise buildings adjacent to the House of Soviets, these snipers open fire. They are shooting at civilians. Two journalists and a woman passing by are killed.
Special Forces detachments "Vympel" and "Alpha" are ordered to storm the building. But contrary to the order, the group commanders decide to make an attempt to negotiate a peaceful surrender. Later, the special forces will be punished for this arbitrariness.
An hour later, a man in camouflage enters the premises and leads out about 100 people through the emergency exit, promising that they are not in danger. The spetsnaz commanders manage to persuade the defenders to surrender. About 700 people left the building along the living corridor of the security forces with their hands raised. All of them were put into buses and taken to filtration points.
Still in the Khasbulat House, Rutskoi and Makashov asked for protection from the ambassadors of Western European countries. But they were detained and sent to a pre-trial detention center in Lefortovo.
Historical assessment of the storming of the White House
Today there are different assessments of the events of "bloody October". There are also differences in the number of deaths. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, during the execution of the White House in October 1993, 148 people died. Other sources give figures from 500 to 1500 people.
Even more people could become victims of executions in the first hours after the end of the assault. Witnesses claim to have seen beatings and executions of detained Protestants.
According to deputy Baronenko, about 300 people were shot without trial at the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. The driver who took out the corpses after the shooting of the White House claimed that he was forced to make two walkers. The bodies were taken to the forest near Moscow, where they were buried in mass graves without identification.
It has already become known today that the officers, participants in the assault on the Supreme Soviet of Russia, were paid 5 million rubles (approximately 4,200 US dollars at the exchange rate of that time) as a reward each, riot policemen were given twice 200 thousand rubles (approximately 330 dollars), ordinary received 100 thousand rubles each and so on.
In total, more than 11 billion rubles (9 million US dollars) were spent to encourage the “particularly distinguished ones” - this is exactly the amount that was taken out of the factory of the State Sign of Moscow (most of this money “disappeared”!)
The theme of "bloody October 1993" is still under seven seals today. No one knows exactly how many citizens died in those troubled days. However, the figures given by independent sources are appalling.
Scheduled for 7:00
In the autumn of 1993, the confrontation between the two branches of power - the president and the government, on the one hand, and people's deputies and the Supreme Council, on the other - reached a dead end. The constitution, which the opposition so zealously defended, bound Boris Yeltsin hand and foot. There was only one way out: to change the law, if necessary, by force.
The conflict went into a phase of extreme aggravation on September 21, after the famous Decree No. 1400, in which Yeltsin temporarily terminated the powers of the Congress and the Supreme Council. Communications, water and electricity were cut off in the parliament building. However, the legislators blocked there were not going to give up. Volunteers came to their aid to defend the White House.
On the night of October 4, the president decides to storm the Supreme Council using armored vehicles, government troops are drawn to the building. The operation is scheduled for 7 am. As soon as the countdown of the eighth hour began, the first victim appeared - a police captain, who was filming what was happening from the balcony of the Ukraine Hotel, died from a bullet.
White House victims
Already at 10 am, information began to come in about the death of a large number of defenders of the residence of the Supreme Council as a result of tank shelling. By 11:30 a.m., 158 people were in need of medical attention, 19 of whom later died in hospital. At 13:00, People's Deputy Vyacheslav Kotelnikov reported on the heavy casualties among those who were in the White House. At about 2:50 pm, unknown snipers begin to shoot at people crowded in front of the parliament.
Closer to 16:00, the resistance of the defenders was suppressed. The government commission assembled in hot pursuit quickly counts the victims of the tragedy - 124 killed, 348 wounded. Moreover, the list does not include those killed in the White House building itself.
The head of the investigation team of the Prosecutor General's Office, Leonid Proshkin, who was involved in the seizure of the Moscow mayor's office and the television center, notes that all the victims are the result of attacks by government forces, since it was proved that "not a single person was killed by the weapons of the White House defenders." According to the Prosecutor General's Office, which MP Viktor Ilyukhin referred to, a total of 148 people were killed during the storming of the parliament, with 101 people near the building.
And then in various comments on these events, the numbers only grew. On October 4, CNN, relying on its sources, stated that about 500 people had died. The newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty", referring to the soldiers of the internal troops, wrote that they collected the "charred and torn by tank shells" remains of almost 800 defenders. Among them were those who drowned in the flooded basements of the White House. Former deputy of the Supreme Council from the Chelyabinsk region Anatoly Baronenko announced 900 dead.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article by an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who did not want to introduce himself, who said: “In total, about 1,500 corpses were found in the White House, among them women and children. All of them were secretly taken out of there through an underground tunnel leading from the White House to the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station, and further outside the city, where they were burned.”
There is unconfirmed information that a note was seen on the desk of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin, which indicated that in just three days 1,575 corpses were taken out of the White House. But Literaturnaya Rossiya was the most surprised by its announcement of 5,000 deaths.
Counting Difficulties
The representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Tatyana Astrakhankina, who headed the commission investigating the events of October 1993, found that shortly after the execution of the parliament, all materials on this case were classified, “some medical records of the wounded and the dead” were rewritten, and “dates of admission to morgues and hospitals” were also changed. . This, of course, creates an almost insurmountable obstacle to an accurate count of the number of victims of the storming of the White House.
It is possible to determine the number of dead, at least in the White House itself, only indirectly. According to the estimates of the General Newspaper, about 2,000 besieged people left the White House building without filtering. Given that initially there were about 2.5 thousand people, we can conclude that the number of victims did not exactly exceed 500.
We must not forget that the first victims of the confrontation between the supporters of the President and the Parliament appeared long before the attack on the White House. So, on September 23, two people died on the Leningrad Highway, and since September 27, according to some estimates, the victims have become almost daily.
According to Rutskoy and Khasbulatov, by the middle of the day on October 3, the death toll had reached 20 people. In the afternoon of the same day, as a result of a clash between the opposition and the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the Crimean bridge, 26 civilians and 2 policemen were killed.
Even if we raise the lists of all those who died in hospitals and went missing during those days, it will be extremely difficult to determine which of them fell victim to precisely political clashes.
Ostankino massacre
On the eve of the assault on the White House on the evening of October 3, responding to Rutskoy's call, General Albert Makashov, at the head of an armed detachment of 20 people and several hundred volunteers, tried to seize the television center building. However, by the time the operation began, Ostankino was already guarded by 24 armored personnel carriers and about 900 soldiers loyal to the president.
After the trucks of supporters of the Supreme Council rammed the ASK-3 building, an explosion was heard (its source was never identified), which caused the first victims. This was the signal for heavy fire, which began to be conducted by internal troops and police officers from the building of the television complex.
They fired in bursts and single shots, including from sniper rifles, just into the crowd, without understanding the journalists, onlookers or trying to pull out the wounded. Later, indiscriminate shooting was explained by the large crowding of people and the onset of twilight.
But the worst began later. Most of the people tried to hide in the Oak Grove located next to AEK-3. One of the oppositionists recalled how the crowd was squeezed in a grove from two sides, and then they began to shoot from an armored personnel carrier and four automatic nests from the roof of a television center.
According to official figures, the battles for Ostankino claimed the lives of 46 people, including two inside the building. However, witnesses claim that there were many more victims.
Don't count the numbers
Writer Alexander Ostrovsky in his book The Shooting of the White House. Black October 1993" tried to sum up the victims of those tragic events, based on verified data: "Before October 2 - 4 people, on the afternoon of October 3 at the White House - 3, in Ostankino - 46, during the storming of the White House - at least 165, 3 and on October 4 in other places of the city - 30, on the night of October 4-5 - 95, plus those who died after October 5, in total - about 350 people.
However, many admit that official statistics are several times underestimated. How much, one can only guess, based on eyewitness accounts of those events.
Sergei Surnin, a teacher at Moscow State University, who observed the events near the White House, recalled how, after the shooting began, he and 40 other people fell to the ground: “Armored personnel carriers passed us and shot people lying down from a distance of 12-15 meters - one third of those lying nearby were killed or injured. And in the immediate vicinity of me - three dead, two wounded: next to me, to my right, a dead man, another dead behind me, in front, at least one dead."
Artist Anatoly Nabatov from the window of the White House saw how in the evening after the end of the assault, a group of about 200 people was brought to the Krasnaya Presnya stadium. They were stripped, and then at the wall adjacent to Druzhinnikovskaya Street, they began to shoot in batches until late at night on October 5. Eyewitnesses said that they were beaten beforehand. According to deputy Baronenko, at least 300 people were shot at the stadium and near it.
Georgy Gusev, a well-known public figure who headed the People's Action movement in 1993, testified that in the yards and entrances of the detainees, riot police beat the detainees, and then killed unknown people "in a strange form."
One of the drivers who took out the corpses from the parliament building and from the stadium admitted that he had to make two trips to the Moscow region in his truck. In the forest, the corpses were thrown into pits, covered with earth, and the burial place was leveled with a bulldozer.
Human rights activist Yevgeny Yurchenko, one of the founders of the Memorial society, who dealt with the secret destruction of corpses in Moscow crematoria, managed to learn from the workers of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery about the burning of 300-400 corpses. Yurchenko also drew attention to the fact that if in "normal months", according to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, up to 200 unclaimed corpses were burned in crematoria, then in October 1993 this figure increased several times - up to 1500.
According to Yurchenko, the list of those killed during the events of September-October 1993, where the fact of disappearance was either proven or witnesses of death were found, is 829 people. But obviously this list is incomplete.
August putsch 1991
Since 1989, the power of the party-state nomenklatura has steadily declined. New commercial and political structures slowly but steadily gained momentum. All this evoked open and covert protests from the "ruling class". The last straw that prompted the party and state leadership of the USSR to act was the threat of signing on August 22, 1991, a new Union Treaty, which was worked out during negotiations between representatives of the republics in Novo-Ogaryovo, at a government dacha near Moscow.
According to this agreement, the republics included in the new Union received significantly more rights, the center turned from a manager into a coordinating one. In reality, only questions of defense, financial policy, internal affairs, and partly tax and social policy remained in the hands of the allied leadership. Some republics refused to sign even this rather liberal treaty (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia).
In order to thwart the signing of this treaty and preserve their power, a part of the top party-state leadership tried to seize power. On August 19, 1991, a state of emergency was introduced in the country, troops, including tanks, were brought into the streets of Moscow and a number of other large cities, almost all central newspapers, with the exception of Pravda, Izvestia, Trud and some others, were banned, all channels of Central Television, with the exception of the 1st program, and almost all radio stations stopped working. The activities of all parties, except for the CPSU, were suspended.
The coup was led by the "State Committee for the State of Emergency" (GKChP) consisting of: i. O. President of the USSR G. I. Yanaev, Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, First Deputy Chairman of the Defense Council O. D. Baklanov, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V. A. Kryuchkov, Prime Minister of the USSR V. S. Pavlov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR B. K. Pugo, Chairman of the Peasants' Union of the USSR V. A. Starodubtsev, Minister of Defense of the USSR D. T. Yazov and President of the Association of State Enterprises A. I. Tizyakov. The GKChP saw the main task of the coup in restoring the order in the USSR that existed before 1985, i.e., in eliminating the multi-party system, commercial structures, in destroying the germs of democracy.
The main political rival of the central leadership of the USSR was the leadership of the RSFSR. It was against him that the main blow was directed. Troops were concentrated around the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR ("Beoyy Dom"), which were supposed to occupy the building, disperse the parliament and arrest its most active participants.
But the coup failed. The population of the country basically refused to support the State Emergency Committee, while the army did not want to use force against its citizens. Already on August 20, barricades grew up around the White House, on which there were several tens of thousands of people, and part of the military units went over to the side of the defenders. The coup was perceived very negatively abroad, from where statements were immediately made about the suspension of assistance to the USSR.
The coup was extremely poorly organized and prepared. Already on August 22, he was defeated, and the members of the State Emergency Committee were arrested. As a result of the events of August 19-21, 1991, three of its defenders were killed near the White House.
Immediately after the defeat of the putsch, mass demonstrations against the CPSU took place in practically all major cities, which served as a convenient pretext for suspending the activities of the CPSU in the country. By order of the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin, the buildings of the Central Committee of the CPSU, regional committees, district committees, archives, etc. were closed and sealed. On August 23, 1991, the CPSU ceased to exist as a ruling state structure.
Simultaneously with the termination of the activities of the CPSU, a number of newspapers were temporarily closed by decree of the President of the RSFSR. In September, all the union republics that had not yet declared their full sovereignty and independence made these declarations.
After the events of August 1991, the significance of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR came to naught. The next Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, held in late August - early September 1991, was the last. The congress announced its self-dissolution.
In September-November 1991, sluggish attempts were made to prevent the final economic and political collapse of the already former Soviet Union. The work was carried out in two directions: the creation of an economic union and the formation of new political relations.
In September, the Inter-Republican Economic Committee (IEC) was created, headed by I. S. Silaev. The greatest success of the IEC was the preparation of an economic agreement, which was signed by nine republics: the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan. This agreement was a real step, designed to stop the collapse of a single economic organism.
The controversy over political union was much more serious. The Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia refused to even discuss this issue. The first preliminary talks took place only in the second half of November, with the participation of the presidents of seven republics. As a result of negotiations, the presidents came to the conclusion that it was necessary to create a new state on a confederal basis.
After the declaration of independence, relations between the republics on border issues escalated. A number of peoples of the North Caucasus, which are part of the RSFSR, proclaimed independence and sovereignty and made political and territorial claims both to the RSFSR and to their neighbors. This was most clearly manifested in the emergence of the Chechen Republic. The events in Chechnya and a number of other regions of the North Caucasus, the ongoing war in South Ossetia - all this brought the Caucasus to the brink of a comprehensive civil war by the end of 1991.
The economic situation in Russia and other states of the former USSR in the autumn and winter of 1991 was rapidly deteriorating. Inflation rates increased sharply, in October-November they reached 25-30% per month, industrial and agricultural production was declining. All this, with an increase in the issuance of new money, led to the fact that by the end of 1991 there were practically no industrial goods or food products left on the shelves of stores. There were problems in supplying the population with the most necessary: bread, milk, potatoes.
October 3 - 15 years ago (October 3-4, 1993) an attempted coup d'etat took place in Moscow. This event is also known as the "Constitutional Crisis of 1993", "Coup d'état of 1993", "Shooting of the White House", "Shooting of the House of Soviets", "October Uprising of 1993", "Decree 1400".
The crisis was the result of a confrontation between two political forces: on the one hand, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the executive power under his control and his supporters, and on the other hand, Vice President Alexander Rutskoy, the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation, and their supporters. The confrontation ended with the forceful dispersal of parliament and the victory of President Yeltsin.
After the seizure by supporters of the Supreme Council of the building of the Moscow mayor's office and clashes near the Ostankino television center, President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow. The storming of the White House was organized. The confrontation resulted in armed clashes on the streets of Moscow.
On the night of October 3-4, a plan was prepared to storm the White House, in which about 1,700 people, 10 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers took part; the action was extremely unpopular, the contingent had to be recruited from five divisions, about half of the entire contingent were officers or junior commanding staff, and tank crews were recruited almost entirely from officers.
At 9:20 am on October 4, tanks located on the other side of the river began shelling the upper floors of the building of the Supreme Council. In total, six T-80 tanks participated in the shelling, firing 12 shells.
At 15:00, Special Forces Alpha and Vympel were ordered to storm the White House. The commanders of both special groups, before fulfilling the order, tried to negotiate with the leaders of the Supreme Council on a peaceful surrender.
Alfa, having promised security to the defenders of the House of Soviets, managed to persuade them to surrender by 17:00. The Vympel special unit, whose leadership refused to carry out the order to storm, was subsequently transferred from the FSB to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which led to the mass resignation of its fighters.
After 5 p.m., by agreement with Yeltsin's supporters, a mass exit of the defenders from the Supreme Council began. According to the assurances of those who stormed, there should not have been any shelling. However, those leaving the building did not go even 100 meters when fire was opened over their heads.
A few minutes later, the stormers began to shoot people leaving the building almost point-blank. According to eyewitnesses, it was at this moment that the largest number of people were killed. The relatives of the missing people, who came the next day, could see in one of the nearest stadiums, troupes laid up to three rows along the wall. Many of them had bullet holes in the center of the forehead, as in the control shot.
Before leaving the building of the Supreme Council, Rutskoi demonstrated a Kalashnikov assault rifle in front of the TV cameras, from which not a single shot was fired. He also showed a small cardboard box containing cassettes with recordings of negotiations, including those of Yeltsin and Luzhkov. A recording was shown, in which a voice similar to Luzhkov's voice was clearly audible, calling on the OMON and the Alpha special forces to "shoot mercilessly."
In the video sequence of the film "Secret Russia" there are also shots of one of the halls of the Supreme Council, where more than 30 shots of sniper rifles are visible at the heart level of the victims. According to Rutskoy, this is shooting to kill those people who were at that moment in the Supreme Council. Rutskoi also pointed out the fact that in the corridors of the Supreme Council there were more than 400 corpses of the defenders of the Supreme Council by the end of the assault.
According to official figures, the number of people killed during the riots was 150 people, the number of injured was 389. According to the deputy Sazha Umalatova, 2,783 people were killed. As a result of an investigation by the Commission of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation for additional study and analysis of the events of 1993, B. Yeltsin's actions were condemned and found to be contrary to the Constitution of the RSFSR that was in force at that time. Based on the materials of the investigation conducted by the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, it was not established that any of the dead were killed with weapons that were at the disposal of the supporters of the Armed Forces.
Parade of sovereignties (1988-1991) - the conflict between the republican and union legislation, connected with the announcement of the priority of republican laws over union laws, which resulted in the collapse of the USSR. During the “parade of sovereignties” during 1990-1991, all the union (the sixth was the RSFSR) and many of the autonomous republics adopted Declarations of Sovereignty, in which they challenged the priority of all-union laws over republican laws, which began a “war of laws”. They also took action to control local economies, including refusing to pay taxes to the federal and federal Russian budgets. These conflicts cut off many economic ties, which further worsened the economic situation in the USSR.
The first territory of the USSR, which declared independence in January 1990 in response to the Baku events, was the Nakhichevan ASSR. Prior to the August coup, the State Emergency Committee declared independence from four union republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia and Georgia), about the refusal to join the proposed new union (SSG) and the transition to independence - two more: Estonia and Moldova. At the same time, the autonomous republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which were part of Georgia, as well as the newly formed republics of Transnistria and Gagauzia in Moldova, announced that they did not recognize their independence and wanted to remain part of the Union.
With the exception of Kazakhstan, there were no organized movements or parties in any of the Central Asian union republics that aimed at achieving independence. Among the Muslim republics, with the exception of the Azerbaijani Popular Front, the movement for independence existed only in one of the autonomous republics of the Volga region - the Ittifak party of Fauzia Bayramova in Tatarstan, which since 1989 has advocated the independence of Tatarstan.
On August 19, 1991, the signing of a new union treaty on the creation of the Union of Sovereign States (USS) as a soft federation was thwarted by the August putsch of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in an attempt to remove M. S. Gorbachev from the presidency of the USSR, immediately after which, during the massive collapse of the USSR, independence was proclaimed by almost all the remaining union republics, as well as several autonomous ones (in Russia, Georgia, Moldova). On September 6, the USSR authorities recognized the independence of the three Baltic republics.
Although on November 14, seven of the twelve union republics (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) decided to conclude an agreement on the creation of the SSG as a confederation, after the December 1 referendum on the independence of Ukraine, the heads of the three founding republics of the USSR ( RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus) on December 8, the Belovezhsky agreements on its dissolution are signed, on December 21 this is approved by all eleven republics, and instead of the SSG, the Commonwealth of Independent States is created as an international (interstate) organization. At the same time, by the time of the dissolution of the USSR on December 8, only three of all the Union republics had not declared independence (the RSFSR, Belarus and Kazakhstan; the latter did this a week later, on December 16).
Some of the autonomous republics that declared independence later became the so-called. unrecognized (Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria) or partially recognized (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) states (while Gagauzia, Tatarstan and Chechnya did not retain such status).
MOSCOW, October 4 - RIA Novosti. The October coup of 1993 was not accidental - it was being prepared for two years and, as a result, actually killed people's trust in power, says Sergei Filatov, president of the Foundation for Socio-Economic and Intellectual Programs, former head of the Yeltsin presidential administration.
Twenty years ago, on October 3-4, 1993, clashes took place in Moscow between supporters of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999). On October 3-4, 1993, the confrontation between the two branches of Russian power — the executive represented by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the legislative represented by the Parliament — the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR, headed by Ruslan Khasbulatov, that had lasted since the collapse of the USSR, around the pace of reforms and methods of building a new state, on October 3-4, 1993 passed into an armed clash and ended with a tank shelling of the residence of the parliament - the House of Soviets (White House).
Chronicle of the events of the political crisis of autumn 1993 in RussiaTwenty years ago, in early October 1993, tragic events took place in Moscow that ended with the storming of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and the abolition of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet in Russia.The tension was building up
“What happened on October 3-4, 1993, was not predetermined in one day. It was an event that took two years to reach. Tension grew over two years. that it was a purposeful struggle on the part of the Supreme Council against the reforms that the government was implementing," Filatov said at a multimedia round table on the topic: "The October Putsch of 1993. Twenty years later ...", held at RIA Novosti on Friday.
According to him, the two first persons of the state - Boris Yeltsin and the head of the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov - failed to enter the "normal path of relations." Moreover, "absolute and deep distrust" has arisen between the two top officials, he added.
Political scientist Leonid Polyakov agreed with this opinion.
“In fact, the putsch of 1993 is a postponed GKChP of 1991. In 1991, these people, seeing hundreds of thousands of Muscovites who surrounded the White House, the leaders of the GKChP were just, as they say, afraid. At first they themselves frightened by bringing tanks into the capital ", and then they themselves were afraid of what they had done. But those forces that were behind this, and the people who sincerely believed in what turned out to be destroyed in August 1991, they did not go away. And two years followed, the most difficult, the hardest in our history, which accounted for the collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the state ... By October 1993, this explosive potential had accumulated, "Polyakov noted.
conclusions
Conclusions from the events of 1993, according to Filatov, can be drawn both positive and negative.
"The fact that we eliminated dual power is positive, that we adopted the Constitution is positive. And the fact that we actually killed people's trust in power and this continued for the rest of the 20 years is an obvious fact that we have to restore to this day we can't," he says.
In turn, political scientist Polyakov expressed the hope that the events of 1993 were "the last Russian revolution."
Film about the events of 1993
During the round table, a film about the events of October 1993 was presented, filmed by RIA Novosti specialists in a web documentary format, which has received worldwide recognition due to the fact that the viewer has the opportunity to interact with the content and has more freedom of action than the viewer of a plot with a linear form of narration, where the course of history is predetermined by the director. This is the third RIA Novosti film in 2013 in an interactive format.
"For each of the participants in these events, it was a part of his life, a part of his inner history. And it was about these people that we wanted to tell in our film, an interactive video; to make it possible to see through their eyes, through their emotions, through their memories those difficult days. Because now it seems to be some rather distant and somewhat unusual event in our country. I really hope that this will continue, because tanks firing at the White House from the embankment is an absolutely terrible sight. And, probably, for every Muscovite and any resident of Russia, it was something absolutely incredible," Ilya Lazarev, deputy editor-in-chief of RIA Novosti, shared his memories.
The film contains photographs of people who were subsequently found by RIA Novosti and who spoke about their memories of those events.
"We revived the photos and tried to bring some video episodes to our present time ... Our colleagues, directors have been working on this format for three months - this is a very difficult story. You can watch the film episodically, linearly, but the main story and task is to make this atmosphere, draw your own conclusions, but rather just get to know people who have experienced this story and let it through themselves," Lazarev added.
As a result of the tragic events of October 3-4, 1993 in Moscow, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation were liquidated. Prior to the election of the Federal Assembly and the adoption of a new Constitution, direct presidential rule was established in the Russian Federation. By a decree of October 7, 1993 "On legal regulation during the period of a phased constitutional reform in the Russian Federation", the President established that before the start of the work of the Federal Assembly, issues of a budgetary and financial nature, land reform, property, civil service and social employment of the population, previously resolved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation are now carried out by the President of the Russian Federation. By another decree of October 7 "On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation," the president actually abolished this body. Boris Yeltsin also issued a number of decrees terminating the activities of the representative authorities of the subjects of the Federation and local Soviets.
On December 12, 1993, a new Constitution of Russia was adopted, in which such a state authority as the Congress of People's Deputies was no longer mentioned.
