Word: coupes
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...when the moment came to strike, Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov was unable to bring his firepower to bear. Gorbachev's drive for reform across all strata of society had left fault lines among the military as well, and the coup rapidly widened them. The air force stood aside altogether, refusing orders to participate. As for the army, the 10 tank crews that defected to Boris Yeltsin symbolized the greater number of soldiers who refused to countenance the violent overthrow of the government. Even troopers nominally supporting the junta were reluctant to fight...
...army's trauma is not over. Yazov was arrested and faces trial. His protege, former Chief of the General Staff Mikhail Moiseyev, 52, played a role ambiguous enough to let Gorbachev name him acting Defense Minister shortly after the coup's collapse. That decision alarmed those who expected the reinstated President to clean house. Under pressure from Yeltsin, Gorbachev replaced Moiseyev one day later with an unambiguous reformer: Colonel General Yevgeni Shaposhnikov, 49, the commander of the air force who had refused to support the coup...
...purge of conservatives in the military is almost sure to follow. General Valentin Varennikov, the commander of ground forces who reportedly shared in Yazov's plans was arrested; General Boris Gromov, a hero of the Afghan war thought to have been in charge of Interior Ministry forces in the coup, is another likely target. Officers and civilians in the military- industrial complex, which has fought Gorbachev's efforts to convert more defense plants to civilian purposes, can be expected to fall as well. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, 68, former chief of staff of the Soviet armed forces and top military advisor...
...perestroika does have its appeal for some restive segments of the armed forces who could capitalize on the failed coup. The reform-minded Shchit (Shield) organization of former officers, which wants to abolish compulsory service in favor of a volunteer, professional army, may get more attention. Middle-ranking officers, especially veterans of the Afghan war, are impatient for a switch from massive conventional forces to the high-tech systems that the U.S. fielded so ably in the Persian Gulf. In their view, a market economy and the dismantling of the defense bureaucracy offer the only hope for modernizing the military...
Hard-liners have tended to be clustered among older officers of colonel's rank and above, but the real dividing line is allegiance to the Communist Party. All top officers belonged to the party, while a network of loyalty officers ensures political orthodoxy throughout the ranks. The coup "wasn't the army as such in revolt," says Stephen Meyer, a Soviet expert at M.I.T. "It was the tired old nomenklatura, the party figures in the army." In his first act as defense minister, Shaposhnikov resigned from the party and, on the basis of a decree issued by Yeltsin, ordered...