Comrade Jack You don't know Jack...and they like it that way.
By late summer of 1991, the 74-year old Soviet Union was about to suffer a political aneurism.
On the eve of August 19, hardliners in the Soviet military and KGB met in the Lubyanka to put in motion a desperate attempt to seize power from General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
Though his name appears nowhere in related documents, U.S. intelligence analysts to this day believe Comrade Jack was the mastermind behind the entire plot.
Described as "a Commie's Commie," Comrade Jack was considered the hardest of the hardliners before the fall.
His office was on the third floor of the KGB's headquarters building, just a few doors down from the Director.
"The Lubyanka," as it was known, had once housed an insurance company, but after the October Revolution of 1917, it became headquarters for the infamous Soviet Secret Police, the KGB.
The sub floors of the vast building were converted into the KGB’s prison, a place of torture and despair for countless political prisoners during the 75 years of communist rule.
Russians, with their characteristic dark humor born of centuries of suffering at the hands of tyrants, joked that the Lubyanka, while only 10 stories high, was the tallest building in Moscow. From its basement you could see Siberia.
A siberian gulag is exactly what the plotters had in mind for Gorbachev. Since taking office in 1985, he had launched a series of last-ditch reform measures which Comrade Jack vehemently opposed.
“Glasnost” (openness) allowed inquiry into Joseph Stalin's atrocities and the dark history of the Evil Empire. "Perestroika” (reform) introduced limited free market activity to resuscitate the dying Socialist economy.
The reforms were popular with the people, but threatened the Soviet ruling class. These were the hardliners in the military and the upper ranks of the Communist Party.
Theirs was a privileged world of spacious apartments, automobiles, good food and summer dachas only dreamed of by the unwashed masses.
To Comrade Jack, the words Glasnost and Perestroika were bile on the tongue.
So on August 19, they struck. Gorbachev had the great misfortune to be vacationing in a KGB operated dacha on the Black Sea.
KGB operatives surrounded the building, overpowered Gorbachev’s body guards, cut the phone lines and disabled the communication uplinks.
Within minutes, Gorbachev was their prisoner.
The plotters had hoped the rest of the Soviet government would quickly fall in line once it was learned that Gorbachev had been removed from power, but that support was slow to arrive.
Within 72 hours, the “August Putsch” had reached a critical tipping point...
Theirs was a privileged world of spacious apartments, automobiles, good food and summer dachas only dreamed of by the unwashed masses.
To Comrade Jack, the words Glasnost and Perestroika were bile on the tongue.
So on August 19, they struck. Gorbachev had the great misfortune to be vacationing in a KGB operated dacha on the Black Sea.
KGB operatives surrounded the building, overpowered Gorbachev’s body guards, cut the phone lines and disabled the communication uplinks.
Within minutes, Gorbachev was their prisoner.
The plotters had hoped the rest of the Soviet government would quickly fall in line once it was learned that Gorbachev had been removed from power, but that support was slow to arrive.
Within 72 hours, the “August Putsch” had reached a critical tipping point...
Would the rest of the military go along with the coup?
How would the people react? After all, the reform minded Gorbachev was actually quite popular——for a Soviet dictator.
Would a bloodbath ensue as the junta struggled to gain control of the vast Soviet military and bureaucracy?
What no one knew at the time was that this was the last battle of the Cold War, fought by Russians amongst themselves within the Soviet Union.
It was the curtain call of the Iron Curtain, the final payoff of the enormous arms buildup of the Reagan Era which had finally pushed the Soviet Bear to the brink of extinction.
As events unfolded, it became apparent that the plotters had made a fatal blunder when planning their coup.
They had not foreseen the unlikely scenario of hundreds of thousands of angry citizens taking to the streets to protest!
When word of the coup leaked out, Russians swarmed like angry bees into the streets of Moscow to defy the junta and show support for, oddly enough, not Gorbachev, but the first ever elected President of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin.
The demonstrators instinctively knew that Yeltsin was the next target of the coup. Thousands were prepared to give their lives to protect him.
How would the people react? After all, the reform minded Gorbachev was actually quite popular——for a Soviet dictator.
Would a bloodbath ensue as the junta struggled to gain control of the vast Soviet military and bureaucracy?
What no one knew at the time was that this was the last battle of the Cold War, fought by Russians amongst themselves within the Soviet Union.
It was the curtain call of the Iron Curtain, the final payoff of the enormous arms buildup of the Reagan Era which had finally pushed the Soviet Bear to the brink of extinction.
As events unfolded, it became apparent that the plotters had made a fatal blunder when planning their coup.
They had not foreseen the unlikely scenario of hundreds of thousands of angry citizens taking to the streets to protest!
When word of the coup leaked out, Russians swarmed like angry bees into the streets of Moscow to defy the junta and show support for, oddly enough, not Gorbachev, but the first ever elected President of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin.
The demonstrators instinctively knew that Yeltsin was the next target of the coup. Thousands were prepared to give their lives to protect him.
Yeltsin and the rest of the elected government of Russia had taken refuge in the modern office building that served as the seat of Russia's Parliament, the ironically named "White House."
They knew that Soviet tanks were on the way...
While there was no love lost between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, hardliners like Comrade Jack despised them both and had reserved a berth for them on the next train to Siberia.
They knew that Soviet tanks were on the way...
While there was no love lost between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, hardliners like Comrade Jack despised them both and had reserved a berth for them on the next train to Siberia.
Meanwhile, the citizens who surrounded the White House were just as determined to keep the Red Army’s tanks from reaching the building.
Those tanks had once rolled through Budapest and Prague and crushed similar freedom movements.
It would not happen again!
The demonstrators spilled into Moscow’s streets and blocked traffic all over the city.
Women stood atop the makeshift barricades and begged the soldiers, "Don't shoot your mothers! Don't shoot your grandmothers!
Here and there, demonstrators and soldiers began to talk things over. They found common ground, a desire to end the nightmare of communism.
Women stood atop the makeshift barricades and begged the soldiers, "Don't shoot your mothers! Don't shoot your grandmothers!
Here and there, demonstrators and soldiers began to talk things over. They found common ground, a desire to end the nightmare of communism.
Some of the tanks had made it through to the White House.
Boris Yeltsin climbed up on one of them and onto the world's stage.
He denounced the coup and called on Russians to resist. His speech was inexplicably carried on nationwide television and it electrified the country.
From that moment, the coup was doomed. Key officers in the Red Army ordered the tank crews to stand down, disobeying orders from the hardliners who had seized power.
The command to storm the White House and arrest Yeltsin would never be carried out.
Boris Yeltsin climbed up on one of them and onto the world's stage.
He denounced the coup and called on Russians to resist. His speech was inexplicably carried on nationwide television and it electrified the country.
From that moment, the coup was doomed. Key officers in the Red Army ordered the tank crews to stand down, disobeying orders from the hardliners who had seized power.
The command to storm the White House and arrest Yeltsin would never be carried out.
Meanwhile, motorists honked their horns and everywhere there was a rebellious cry of freedom in the air.
The huge crowds in the streets had traffic snarled a full three kilometers back up toward the center of the city, all the way to the Lubyanka.
Not everyone was rejoicing at the new political freedom enjoyed by Russians.
Comrade Jack was positively seething...
Continue to Part V. Comrade Jack Escapes
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