35 years ago a putsch took place in the USSR. How did Belarusians react?

The Soviet Union was rapidly moving towards its collapse. Disintegration was occurring, the economic crisis was worsening, national movements were developing in the republics, whose participants sought independence.

Mikhail Gorbachev tried to save the Union: on August 20, a new Union Treaty was supposed to be signed. Conservatives decided to prevent this. Gorbachev was removed from power, and the GKChP was created.

But after three days, the putsch failed. The then extremely popular President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, spoke out against it. Thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow.

There was no unity among the GKChP members. Also, none of the putschists took responsibility or signed an order for the forceful suppression of protests. And the special services sabotaged the actions of the putschists in every possible way and refused to act without an order.

How did Belarus react to these events? Not many spoke out against the putsch.

Among them was the parliamentary opposition of the BPF in parliament, which condemned the GKChP in its statement. The deputies, led by Zianon Pazniak, interpreted the committee's actions as an attempted coup d'état.

At the call of the BPF deputies, on the first day of the putsch, about two hundred people gathered in Minsk on what was then Lenin Square, and on August 21 — already several thousand.

The local councils of Homel, Orsha, Pinsk, Salihorsk, and Navapolatsk categorically condemned the actions of the GKChP.

Pavel Yakubovich's article "Tanks Do Not Know the Truth" was published in "Narodnaya Gazeta". The future editor-in-chief of "Sovetskaya Belorussiya" condemned the attempted coup. The issue of "Znamya Yunosti" with criticism of the putschists was not allowed to be printed and was released only on August 21.

After the coup was prevented, the parliament created a Provisional Commission. It evaluated public and political associations, state authorities, officials, and citizens – whether they supported the GKChP.

According to their data, the putsch was supported by the security forces.

For example, the Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded all instances of protest. An order also appeared, according to which combat police units were to be armed with automatic weapons and special equipment. The headquarters of the Belarusian Military District also supported the putschists.

General Kostenko ordered soldiers and officers to be explained why a state of emergency was introduced (allegedly to overcome the crisis and avoid confrontation).

The putsch was also supported by the state-controlled press. The commission's materials stated that its members checked 91 newspapers. Of these, 83 supported the putsch. Television, radio, and the BelTA agency did not transmit a single material against the GKChP.

The authorities closed the then-popular program "Radiofact". But globally, Belarusians decided to sit it out: the population and officials were not particularly active and waited for further developments.

However, the failure of the putsch fundamentally changed Belarusian history: soon, the activities of the Communist Party were temporarily suspended, and Belarus's independence was declared.

After the putsch, the mentioned commission of the Supreme Soviet proposed dismissing a number of officials who supported the GKChP. But all of them remained in their positions. The exception was the speaker of parliament, Mikalai Dzyamyantsey, who was effectively forced to retire even before the commission began its work. However, he later admitted in his memoirs that he would never have signed the Belovezh Accords. His successor Stanislau Shushkevich did so with satisfaction.

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