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Alternative History

On the eve of Gorbachev's perestroika the Soviet Union was troubled by serious political and economic problems. Economic growth in the U.S.S.R. had been in steady decline for years and the nation was falling behind the countries of the West, as Gosplan was unable to adequately organise an efficient economy. Despite this however, there was no political instability, unrest or crisis. What was to come was not economic and political crisis producing liberalisation and democratisation but liberalisation and democratisation that were to bring the U.S.S.R. to the very brink of destruction.

From taking office Gorbachev pushed through a series of reforms to try and get the economy moving, including permitting individual enterprise in 1986, devolving more powers to factories in 1987, and legalising co-operatives in 1988. Gorbachev had effectively created thinly disguised private enterprises, which undermined the old institutional structures of state planning. At the Nineteenth Conference of the Communist Party in the summer of 1988 Gorbachev got agreement to hold contested elections for a new legislature, which was to be called the Congress of People's Deputies. The elections took place the following spring and resulted in defeats for a number of important party officials and victories for some forthright critics of the Communist Party leadership, including a man named Boris Yeltsin.

Throughout 1989 one by one the countries of Eastern Europe left the Soviet Block and headed down the capitalist road of the West whilst Gorbachev watched on without even attempting to intervene. The hard liners in the Soviet government saw in their eyes Gorbachev destroying everything that the U.S.S.R. had fought for and gained during the Second World War and in March 1990 even the Communist Party's monopoly of power was removed from the Soviet Constitution.

In June 1991 Boris Yeltsin was elected President of Russia and called for Russian independence from the Soviet Union. Without Russia the entire Union would collapse and so Gorbachev and his remaining supporters in the federal leadership negotiated a new Union Treaty between the spring and summer of 1991, designed to keep a majority of republics, including Russia, within a much looser federation.

For the hard-line Communists this was the last straw, and on the 18th August 1991 they placed Gorbachev under house arrest in his holiday home on the Crimean coast. The group that called itself the State Emergency Committee attempted to seize power in Moscow on August 19, one day before Gorbachev and a group of republic leaders had been due to sign the new union treaty. The 'State Emergency Committee' including KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Internal Affairs Minister Pugo, Defence Minister Dmitriy Yazov, and Prime Minister Pavlov announced that Gorbachev was ill and had been relieved of his state post as president, and they named Soviet Union vice president Gennadiy Yanayev as the acting president in his place. The hardliners had the parliament building surrounded by the military but due to the botched way the operation was carried out communications lines to the building were not cut and the word was immediately out about what was happening. Thousands of civilians from around Moscow came to the parliament building to block the military and save the nation from the coup.

In an act of defiance against the coup Boris Yeltsin climbed upon one of the tanks outside the parliament building and began to make a speech to the people who had come to defend their newfound democracy - at which point he was shot in the chest by a K.G.B. sniper whom would only ever be known as "Sergei". Panic spread throughout the crowd and people ran in all directions but the commander of the troops outside parliament had Yeltsin rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets and converged on the Kremlin protect by troops loyal to Gorbachev or had deserted the ranks of the coup forces after seeing the assassination of Boris Yeltsin for standing up for the ordinary people. After maintaining their protests throughout the night of the 19th and all of the following day, on the evening of August 20th Soviet troops leading the huge crowd stormed the Kremlin and all those who had led the coup were placed under arrest, but for Boris Pugo who had committed suicide.

When Gorbachev returned to Moscow he found had had lost all support following the people he had appointed attempting a coup, and he resigned the following month. There followed several months of re-negotiations over the constitution after which a much-simplified document was adopted streamlining the government and based broadly on the original RSFSR constitution of 1918.

During the investigation following the events of that August Vladimir Kryuchkov's order to have Boris Yeltsin assassinated was uncovered. The code name of the operative was found to be "Sergei" but his or her real name was never to be known. Vladimir Kryuchkov insisted he had no knowledge of the order despite the evidence to the contrary which he dismissed as having been "planted". Nevertheless, without Boris Yeltsin's calls for Russian Independence the U.S.S.R. still existed as a single unified state, but it had survived in a much-weakened position and still with its enormous array of problems.

During the 1990s a new generation of politicians rose up to lead the Soviet Union through the 21st century, and the people of the Union hope to a brighter future. The events in the U.S.S.R. today being covered in detail by the newspaper "For The Motherland!" which developed from the new free press to become the U.S.S.R.'s most read daily paper.

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