Yanayev dies

Obituary for GENNADI YANAYEV. The 1991 Soviet coup attempt is one of those almost completely forgotten stories that was really huge for a brief period of time. It seemed quite feasible for those few days that Soviet hardliners would take control and roll back the Gorbachev era, two years after most of Eastern Europe had fallen out of the Soviet orbit.

Instead, the coup was thwarted a few days later, the Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of the year, and for various reasons Boris Yeltsin seems to be remembered as a vodka-swilling used car salesman rather than as a man who showed genuine bravery at the time (that’s the Yeltsin I tend to remember, and that’s why I find it hard to laugh at his memory as many do). That bravery is nicely captured in the unbelievably dramatic (prize-winning) photo below, which show as much composition as an oil painting. They were expecting to be assaulted by the army at any moment, though it never happened.

I realize it’s not fashionable to attack anything other than capitalist neo-liberalism these days. But I have a number of friends who lived and suffered in Eastern Europe under Soviet domination, and their experience has given them some seriousness and some moral authority about these things. One of the really remarkable academic events I’ve witnessed was a joint American-Polish gathering at which the Americans were all denouncing America and the Poles were all praising America.