Word: apparatus
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...seems screamingly obvious. Gorbachev had designated Tuesday, Aug. 20, for the ceremonial signing of a new union treaty with the presidents of the Russian and Kazakh republics; other republics were expected to sign later. The treaty would transfer so many powers -- over taxes, natural resources, even the state security apparatus -- to the republics as to make restoring ironfisted Kremlin control of the whole country impossible. Moreover, a new national Cabinet would have been named by representatives of the republics. Some of the eventual coup leaders, including KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov and Interior Minister Boris Pugo, would...
...Soviet military-security apparatus tried to use ominously rumbling, fume-belching columns of tanks and APCs to bring Moscow to submission, but proved no more potent than the Wizard of Oz. The communist system by last week had reached such an advanced state of debility that the brain was no longer capable of sending commands to the limbs. What most Soviets will remember about "Acting President" Gennadi Yanayev is his trembling hands as he tried to explain himself on television...
Most disgraced of all, the KGB is likely to be broken up. It may retain its foreign intelligence functions, but will see its domestic security apparatus turned into a separate, smaller organization. Other portions may be reorganized as an immigration and customs service and as a security organization for officials, similar to the U.S. Secret Service. The Interior Ministry's OMON special forces, the so-called Black Berets, are almost certain to be disbanded...
There is only a bare stage, the magic tricks are purposely corny, and the largest wild animal is made of chairs. The entire troupe, including costumes and apparatus, could fit into a clown car with room left over for a family of four. This is far too modest to be the greatest show on earth. How about something simpler: a one-ring wonder. The sweetest little circus this side of Barnum...
Gorbachev came to realize several years ago that the apparatus of Soviet power both at home and abroad was expensive, wasteful, cumbersome, distracting and provocative. He set out to dismantle much of the old structure, not because it was objectionable to the West but because it was crushing whatever chance the U.S.S.R. had of making it into the 21st century as a modern, civilized country. All those missiles in their silos, all those troops in foreign lands, all those rubles and cheap oil flowing to Cuba, represented resources that he desperately needed for the Augean task of cleaning...