https://youtu.be/daAuXJoNPFE; Pt 2: https://youtu.be/0rXgmcnCCR8
Press conference held by the State Committee for the Emergency Situation (GKChP), the group of hard line government officials who had attempted a coup d'etat overthrowing Mikhail Gorbachev. This press conference was held the next day and shows the coup coming apart at the seams.
Perestroika
1991
On August 19, 1991, a group of hardline Communist party members (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) who were opposed to Gorbachev’s reforms locked launched a coup attempt. Gorbachev, on vacation with his family in Crimea, was placed under house arrest at 4:00 a.m. with all communication cut off. At 5:57 a.m. a state of emergency was proclaimed across the Soviet Union effective immediately. Tanks rolled in to Moscow with the morning commute intended to secure strategic locations throughout the city. The coup leaders declared themselves the General Committee on the Emergency Situation, or GKChP (Generalnyi komitet po chrezvychainomu polozheniiu; ГКЧП). After dissolving freedom of the press, blocking several broadcast outlets, and filling others with recordings of Swan Lake, the GKChP announced a press conference to be held at 5:00 p.m.
Gennady Yanaev opened the press conference, explaining that the state emergency had been called because Gorbachev was in poor health and the leadership of the Soviet Union was in question. Ideological opposition to Gorbachev’s reforms was not mentioned, nor were details given on Gorbachev’s health. Yanaev and all the members of the GKChP had been up all night, most had been drinking heavily. Yanaev’s hands were visibly shaking. And though his words meant to reassure the viewing audience, his demeanor communicated anything but confidence.
After Yanaev’s remarks, the GKChP opened for questions. The first question (presented on this recording), from Carroll Bogert, Moscow correspondent for Newsweek, 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 could be seen smirking in the background. It would be Malkina’s courageous follow-up that would completely derail an already shaky press conference. “Do you understand that you have undertaken a coup d’etat?” 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 question asked sardonically—to the delight of the journalists in the room—whether the putschists had consulted with General Augusto Pinochet. The GKChP had lost control of its own press conference, and soon the coup leaders lost control of their own coup.
Yanaev, Gennady, Kriuchkov, Leonid, Gorbachev, Mikhail , and Yazov, Dmitry