New revelations on Yeltsin's coup

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

How Yeltsin crushed democracy

Secrets are spilled of 1993 deception that allowed president to suppress
parliament

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Friday October 3, 2003
The Guardian

Officials and participants today paint a fresh picture of the clashes
that began with rioting on October 2 and led to tanks rolling up to the
parliament building on October 4. The Kremlin and western governments
portrayed the unrest as a liberal regime suppressing angry communist
hardliners and rightwingers. Yet 10 years after the bloodshed, in which
at least 123 people were killed, Russia is exploding the myth that the
crackdown was anything other than a putsch against Mr Yeltsin's
political opponents.

The unrest was sparked by his decision in late September to dissolve a
parliament increasingly opposed to his economic reforms. He also
scrapped the constitution, replacing it with another that gave him
near-monarchic executive powers. Rebel MPs, comprising communists,
liberals and fascists, responded by barricading themselves into the
parliament.

The self-appointed leader of the rebels, the vice-president, Alexander
Rutskoi, appealed to Muscovites to come out on to the streets to
protest; few did, and it was clear the parliamentary rebels had
overestimated their support.

After 10 days of siege, during which water and electricity were cut to
the Russian White House, a crowd of protesters attacked police lines
around the building. Mr Rutskoi then urged them - together with General
Albert Makashov, who led the rebels' armed contingent - to go on to the
TV centre at Ostankino, on October 3. It was protected by a group of
elite soldiers loyal to Mr Yeltsin. The TV centre was significantly
damaged, and stopped broadcasting.

Next morning Mr Yeltsin felt he had enough bloodshed and chaos on the
streets of Moscow to justify sending tanks to crush the rebellious
parliament. Even so, most commanders refused to let their units be used
in what they saw as a political fight. After hours of shooting, troops
entered the building at 5pm, arresting Mr Rutskoi and other leaders.

At the time the west was keen to emphasise how its favoured reformer, Mr
Yeltsin, had fought off a coup by crazed communist hardliners (having
previously led resistance to the Stalinist coup against Mikhail
Gorbachev in 1991 that ended the Soviet Union). Yet many questions went
unanswered, and over 10 years suspicions have grown that much of the
violence was inspired by Mr Yeltsin's troops and aides, in an attempt to
justify suppression of parliament. This permitted the president to
change the constitution and enforce his economic programme, which
essentially sold off state industrial assets to an elite which kept him
in power.

There is now considerable evidence that Mr Yeltsin's men fomented the
violence. Leonid Proshkin, chief investigator for high-profile cases at
the prosecutor's office who led an investigation into the events of
October 1993, told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that a column
of pro-Yeltsin security men, backed up by six armoured vehicles, had
accompanied Gen Makashov's group of armed protesters all the way from
the besieged White House to Ostankino, clearly "allowing them to reach
the TV centre".

The investigation showed TV broadcasts had been turned off before the
siege of Ostankino, not by Gen Makashov as suggested by the Kremlin. The
idea of an assault, Mr Proshkin said, was "impossible" because the
parliamentary protesters were heavily outnumbered. "When the so-called
assault began there were 450 heavily armed policemen inside the station,
including their elite units and six armoured vehicles, while the attack
ers had 20 Kalashnikovs and one grenade launcher," he said.

Mr Proshkin said the investigation had been obstructed by the Kremlin:
"We were not permitted to investigate events on days other than October
3 and 4. We were not allowed to interrogate the heads of the
[pro-Yeltsin] Moscow police or the Moscow security ministry."

His team had also not been able to examine the guns of the pro-Yeltsin
forces to see if they matched bullets found in the bodies of the dead:
"We were not allowed to do this absolutely obligatory work for any
investigation. [Yet] videos were showing these were bullets from their
guns."

He concluded: "The impression I had during the investigation was that
everything was coordinated in some way from one centre. It was all
filmed. There were a number of chances to avoid bloodshed. But nothing
was done." He added that Mr Yeltsin had the resources to prevent
violence, yet did not use them. Other officials complain of direct
interference from Mr Yeltsin.

Alexei Kazannik, prosecutor general at the time, told Moskovski Novosti
newspaper this week: "From the third day of my work [investigating the
clashes] the president was permanently calling me, groaning down the
phone, 'Why is this man, or that man, still free?'"

He added that Mr Yeltsin had tried to get him to charge the protesters
with more serious offences, such as accessory to murder. A soldier who
drove one of the tanks which approached the parliament told the same
newspaper he had been briefed that the parliament was under attack from
Chechens, and that police officers were being hanged from lampposts.

Chaos

The events sparked off a chain of political and economic changes that
many blame for Russia's current state of mild chaos and political
authoritarianism. A poll of Russians conducted last Saturday showed 27%
said parliament had been right, 14% backed Mr Yeltsin, and 20% believed
that everyone was wrong.

Many see the events as a turning point after which Mr Yeltsin abandoned
democracy to save his skin. Dmitri Furman, a professor and human rights
activist, said: "After firing on the White House, Yeltsin burned his
bridges. From this moment, leaving power without going to prison seemed
impossible. He saw no alternative to a system of inherited presidency."
Vladimir Putin succeeded Mr Yeltsin seven turbulent years later.

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