Word: yanayev
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...military-industrial complex; a Communist Party hack named Oleg Shenin; and General Valentin Varennikov. In the name of the so-called State Committee for the State of Emergency, the visitors demanded that Gorbachev sign a decree proclaiming an emergency and turning over all his powers to Vice President Gennadi Yanayev. Gorbachev's reply: "Go to hell...
Roughly 12 hours passed before the outside world knew anything. But at 6 a.m. Monday, TASS, the Soviet news agency, reported falsely that Gorbachev was ill and had yielded his powers temporarily to Yanayev. An hour later, TASS announced the formation of the eight-member State Committee for the State of Emergency, ostensibly headed by Yanayev. Actually, this gray and ineffectual apparatchik was only a figurehead; the real power probably was held by Kryuchkov, Pugo and Yazov, plus possibly lesser-known figures. Some of Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin's aides later fingered Baklanov as the chief plotter. The committee...
...themselves. Their performance was a disaster. Far from coming across as a take-charge group, they appeared nervous and half apologetic. They gave a preposterous excuse for assuming authority (Gorbachev was too tired and ill to retain command); stressed that the coup was a constitutional devolution of authority to Yanayev, although it clearly was not; and proclaimed a highly dubious devotion to continued reform. Junta member Vasili Starodubtsev sniffled continually, and Yanayev seemed twitchy. As Gorbachev later commented, "They said I was sick, but they were the ones whose hands were shaking...