Monday, Aug. 11, 2003

Moscow

By BORIS YELTSIN

On the streets outside the White House there were tanks and armored vehicles, but there were also thousands of people who had come to defend us.

I had to stop the armor from moving on the crowds. I drew up a decree declaring the plot illegal and took it outside to the first tank. My security men grabbed my arm and told me that the soldiers would destroy me. I said, 'No, they will not shoot the President.'

I climbed up on the tank and read the decree, then talked to the soldiers. They said they were carrying out orders. I said, 'Here is an order then: take your equipment and go back to base.' I climbed up on the tank and read the decree, then talked to the soldiers

I outsmarted the coup plotters. I told them to go to the Crimea and talk to Gorbachev. Five minutes after their plane left, another one followed with special forces. The plotters were in handcuffs within minutes of arriving.

Since then it has not been easy. Transitions from a planned economy never are. I cannot say everyone now lives better. But we introduced freedom of speech, a democratic constitution, a market economy.

I am confident that this country will one day be prosperous and powerful.

THE WHITE HOUSE It was a year of violence and foreboding in Russia. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms had slowed, and resistance to his policy of perestroika was growing. Then early in the morning of Aug. 19, tanks appeared on the streets of Moscow, and top Communist Party leaders declared a state of emergency. Gorbachev, on vacation in the Crimea, claims he was cut off from the outside world by the coup plotters. President of the Russian Republic Boris Yeltsin had to act. Clutching an Appeal to the Russian People, Yeltsin horrified his aides by striding out toward the tanks surrounding his office. He climbed on top of one and denounced the coup. The putsch leaders had not expected opposition and lost their nerve. Within two days their attempt to seize power had collapsed. Yeltsin swiftly dismantled the KGB and other key Soviet institutions. Power swung dramatically from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, and by the end of the year the Soviet Union had ceased to exist — PAUL QUINN-JUDGE