margaret leinen i'm going to. find out what's really happening to the global economy and in her report. here with our team live from moscow our top stories from russia cautions against international calls for change in syria saying the president also agreed time to implement promised changes. black friday on the markets the world's financial stocks are hit by a fresh wave of sell offs amid fears the global economy is in decline becomes experts suggest the u.s. and europe are dangerously close to recession. swimmers in russia's far east from krypton fear after two people were savaged by sharks in today's attacks that have

never before been seen in the country hunting gone from what scientists believe could be a great white shark. plus it's twenty years to the day since an attempted coup by a group of hardline communists against then president mikhail gorbachev all failing to topple the government it helped bring about the eventual end of the soviet union . the next our guests on cross talk today whether the soviet union was already on the path to extinction despite the failed coup or whether it could have been before . keep the story.

below and welcome across our country to all about the coup that failed but changed everything twenty years ago communist party hardliners attempted to derail me help out of a child's efforts to reform the soviet union in the coups aftermath the communist party was banned to be followed by the end of the u.s.s.r. could history is played out differently. taking the serbs. to cross copy events of august one thousand nine hundred one i'm joined by geoffrey hosking in london he is america's professor of russian history at the university college london in oxford we have archie brown he's america's professor of politics at the university of oxford and indeed we know that although we go to nick i petro he is professor of politics at the university of rhode island all right gentlemen this is cross talk i mean you can jump in anytime you want but first let's have a look at the failed coup of ninety ninety one.

the president. on august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred one instead of tuning in to the soviet national anthem citizens across the u.s.s.r. it woke up to a radio announcement that would start a sequence of events leading to the eventual collapse of the soviet union issued by the self-proclaimed hardline state of emergency committee a now someone stated that mikhail gorbachev's efforts to reform the soviet union have gone into a blind alley and also declared a six month state of emergency in various regions of the country by that time gorbachev had already been removed and detained in his militia in the crimea with motivated the plotters to overthrow the existing order was the new union treaty designed to decentralize political power within the u.s.s.r.

and indirectly within the position of it all powerful communist party little did they know however the coup attempt would encounter strong resistance from many in the military as well as the general public by that time had begun to see or change as often happens in russia's history when the when these reforms start accumulating from the top. there's a sense of this in society there's obviously the sense there's no way things are going to go back to the way they used to be in order to some control of the russian parliament building a committee ordered tanks to roll into moscow yeltsin then considered a political maverick and reformist led russian parliamentarians in opposition to the coup that's what it clearly got all the decisions energy chorizo by the state of emergency committee. shortly most of the troops either decided to return to their barracks or join the resistance and just like that the committee's actions around parliament surrounded by armed and unarmed civilians the plotters of the

coup found little support either within the political elite or the constituent republics that made up the soviet union as a result the collapsed with a minor loss of life on august twenty first. freed and returned to moscow and the soviet union would never be to see all of a new. state committed for the state of emergency people all they knew they wanted to do was stop whatever was happening in its tracks but they didn't have an alternative vision they didn't have really anything else to propose in its place other than the status quo ante let's go back to what we had before nonstarter couldn't go anywhere got no traction in society and the second thing was simple planning planning ironically instead of curbing more of a child's performance project and reinvigorating the power of the communist party the coup plotters he sent their own political to meit's real political power shift to yeltsin who quickly moved to ban the party and a few months later the soviet union ceased to exist muster trying to across party.

find go to you first century local go international later twenty years ago there was this coup what does it mean now twenty years after the fact there's a brand new russia unrecognizable from what happened twenty years ago when you teach your students when you talk to people about it what does it mean to you today sadly too little i think it's a more significant historical event than is often recognised in contemporary russia and especially as well as in the courses that we can't it was a singular moment because it revealed in the in the precise moment in a beautifully tied up way. how in important the communist party had to

come and of course just to significantly launched the political fortunes of boris yeltsin. ok jeffrey i mean we do agree with that i mean one of the interesting things is that you know i think all of us when we study in the soviet union is that a communist party being all power for very very powerful security forces a very powerful army the plotters handle all the tools they needed to pull it off but it utter utter failure how do you account for that i mean it wasn't because they lacked resources. know it wasn't i would say that an absolutely decisive factor was that to the generals were reluctant to fire on peaceful civilians they've been through that experience in georgia a couple of years previously and got into serious trouble they wanted to be absolutely certain that if they did fire on civilians in order to do so was was illegal definitely legal whereas now we had two powers confronting each other the

soviet union in the person of the emergency committee and russia and the person of yeltsin with gorbachev somewhere in between so the generals didn't know how to react archie what do you think about that i mean. when you look at got a bunch of for me at the moment you know he was he was put into the crimea he was there for a few days he looks like he'd been he would he was basically put out of business and then he comes back the coup fails but he ends up being the ultimate victim of the coup they tried to overthrow him. well that's true but i think very important fact to the beginning was a gorbachev refused to be intimidated by the people who visited him they wanted him to give the imprimatur of legitimacy to what they were doing but in fact you know as general but any cough complaint letter he got which of us on parliamentary expressions took them so and he told them where to go and that was important but what was also crucially important was that you had the legitimacy of having to let

good president of russia just a couple of months earlier if they wanted to cool a year earlier. had more chance of success what do you think about that nickel i mean the timing of it all here because i mean the reform efforts weren't really yielding i mean maybe there was hope but oddly the facts on the ground economy wasn't going it was going down there was shortages there was a there was a debate but was it healthy debate was it really changing anything what about the timing if it had been a year before or six months later do you think it would've made any difference. on the one hand i don't think it would have made any crucial difference to the prospects of the communist party to reassert itself i think its days were already over and simply. demonstrated that it had no future in society but one of the myths that has lingered with us

is this idea that if only a more reformist course have been chosen and adopted that the u.s.s.r. could have been preserved in some way. perhaps under the leadership of the communist party i think. it's unlikely that that would have succeeded and even before the coup itself all these events the disintegration of the union accelerated nevertheless there was already a considerable hesitation of several states several republics to join the reform union treaty so i think it would have been a slow but gradual dissolution and perhaps there wouldn't even have been as much impetus in favor of reforms as there was in the immediate aftermath of the coup

which he also tried to seize but didn't actually parlay into political and economic success let me call you brianna if you were to jeff around this because i think you bring up a point today i think is still very much argued and i wish we had stephen cohen on the program because he is a very strong position on this jeff it was the soviet union reformable first which take the communist party and let's talk about the territorial integrity waiter could it was appalled communist party reform will you be able to lead. popular be legitimate in the eyes of the population i let you do i know you know and actually create create a future a better future because they were the dead and go ahead. no i don't think it was reformable and that's seems to be proved by the fact that it was a very constructive and intelligent reformer did his utmost to reform it and failed the union collapsed as a result i mean there were there were at least two major problems one of course was the economy gorbachev's reforms gave more scope to private enterprise but that

merely sucked goods out of the state enterprises and so caused shortages even worse shortages everywhere and the other of course was the nationality problem which often tended to give the national republic's somewhat greater freedom and they took much more than he wanted. but there's one aspect of this which i think hasn't been mentioned is very important and that is the unexpected strength of the russian republic gorbachev's nationality reforms inside the communist party gave new strength to russia and the the coup and the conflict which followed from it was a confrontation between russia and the soviet union yeltsin when he got on that tank warned people that if they had paid the emergency committee they would be dealt with under the laws of russia. do you think about that archie the whole reform ability of the becoming less party slash the soviet union we'll talk about later in the program if the country could have stayed together but what about the communist party with

a spent force i know here. i don't think it could have been reformed but i think it could have been transformed into a multi-party system but actually the communist party had already lost this will all play of power per the politburo by ninety ninety ninety one it was meeting all these once a month not once a week and power had moved elsewhere with god which often he went there because you know he was exercising power through the presidency and through his own entourage and were allies ignoring the call a bit of what gorbachev wanted to do was to split a communist party and lead its social democratic component here turn it into that in developer like you know if you want it actually party congress but the split never took place because there was no longer. talking to split. but that's i think was a possible reform the other thing i think could have happened was the creation of a different kind of union so it was out of baltic republics are going to jump in right here to go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the one nine hundred ninety one coup whichever stay with r.t.

. if you. still. want to. be able to go to. this street studentships sequence of

times in the field of the soviet files see some. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images her world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing up for asians around the day. can you. talk about eurostar computor a little to remind you we're discussing the events of august ninety ninety one. can

. i go to you i mean archie brown brought up a very interesting point before we went to the break about we got about chicago got a bunch of spines to split up the communist party into competing factions me but isn't that still kind of a an old style a mentality reform from the top down i mean because we saw during the coup a lot of spontaneous spontaneity and where people are saying no we're not going to go back to the old days and actually you know civil society became very very fertile with ideas again i mean got a child by then was already out of step with the changes in society. i tend to i tend to agree with that point of view that you just articulated. i think. if a good director of had somehow managed to push through his version of reforms the net

result would not have been progressive change over time it would have been a dead weight on society for even longer sadly what happened in the aftermath of the coup was that the impetus for reform that yeltsin attempted to seize was not thoroughly promulgated as strongly as it could have been although there were some very notable steps taken such as the abolition of the communist party of the soviet union and on the day mediately after the coup the raising of the try of the tri color flag as russia's national flag these were all symbolic events and there was a great deal of fervor in the air at the time as as well or can i recall but sadly that got dissipated and i don't think you know even the communist party in its in its much weak in the form has managed or managed i should say at that time

to throttle significant changes especially regionally so i think if if there had been an attempt to. to undergo a gradual transition the results would have been even less impressive you know you don't really have jeffrey it's interesting i mean we we've been talking about to russia the new russia emerging versus the soviet union still existed but it was really about got a bit off in yeltsin after the coup in a lot of people will blame both political figures for making it very personal it was very about ambition is well and that i lofty ideas kind of got lost to decide because it was just a power struggle between two men. well that is partly true but there was a great years going on as well one has to remember that the communist party of the soviet union was not just it wasn't an ordinary political party it was the administrative executive backbone of the soviet union and therefore splitting the party up was never likely to work it seems to me it could not have been transformed

into a normal political party so change had to be very radical gilts in used the new color of russia the russian federation or is it was called in the russian soviet republic as a weapon against gorbachev the irony was that gorbachev conservative opponents to the same they set up the russian communist party in one thousand nine hundred that being a russian communist party before and one should remember that the present communist party in russia is the inheritor of the russian communist party not the communist party of the soviet union it's much more like a normal political party and it's been a kind of permanent opposition ever since the collapse of the soviet union archie what do you think about when we look at the power struggle between or is the soviet union was. quickly going into dissolution it was about to the ambitions of two men or to go back to my original question i mean because we we see that they were very close at one point and then they had a huge following out and it's very interesting when people ask me about creating

you know and both of them for a lot of people in russia today twenty years out the doctor extremely unpopular political figures. yes it was partly that but never less coverage of laterally was prepared to give up office in order to preserve some kind of union i mean i think he had certain convictions and to go back to what we're talking about a moment ago it wasn't a question of having factions within the party it was actually splitting the party into several different parties the congress party the soviet union had nationalist stalinist liberal social democrats conservatives it could have turned into a member of different parties and so that would have been a fundamental change about transformational change but of course the hasten the transfer of power from gorbachev to yeltsin which was not what they who thought of sort of tended of course it really hastened the dissolution of the soviet union which was also the opposite of what they intended in only there was but i go ahead they were but it's really interesting you say you know what jeff had to say is that

you know we have this communist party was the administrative apparatus of the state as well how could you separate the two go ahead. well. my sense of the communist party at the time was although technically yes what we have today is the russian communist party is the inheritor of a of another organization but for all practical purposes the leadership at the time desired in defacto to reconstitute the communist party of the soviet union and i think that inheritance weighed heavily continues to it sadly the way. too heavily on the political leadership of the communist party with prevents them from becoming for making that final transition to social democracy which every leftist meaningful left the political party in europe that emerged from marxism has undergone it's very interesting jeffrey what do you think about that because if they did i've often reflected upon that when you have become as party of russia

they still here bring out lenin and they talk about marx and all that and it is it you know twenty years out of the fact it did its appeal to the most russians young russians is zero. may i say yes but i don't think this is actually written ality well if you're gonna yeah you're in charge exactly terry jeffrey go ahead well i don't think this is really about communism a tool communism wasn't involved in the coup remember the coup plotters in the declaration never mention marx all lenin or communism they talk about the integrity of the soviet union and one has to remember that whilst many other non russian nations welcomed liberation from the soviet union the russians saw it as a deprivation and the russian communist party really represents two strands in russians thinking about their own country it represents of course a soviet imperialism but it also represents the russian orthodox church the promise love ning understanding of russia's history and it's an uneasy

combination of the two and that's one reason why it hasn't really been all that effective it's trying to bring together two incompatible narratives about russia and persuade ordinary people that they should vote for that party ok r.t. if i go to you twenty years on who was the winner and who was who did anyone win from the coup twenty years ago. will yachts and one he was to be in bed officially though i agree with what was said earlier by the colloidal he didn't make the most of his opportunities in an ikea ninety's the transfer of property and not going prices to pre-selected buyers that helped to discredit the very idea of democracy do you think that because what do you think about that i mean other than yeltsin was anyone else a beneficiary from the failed coup. i believe that in the longer term perspective of history this was a good thing in the same sense that going through

a feverish night and breaking through the fever allows one even though all that you know one is that one is weakened by the illness one gradually becomes better i believe that it would it was indeed better to have gone through this feverish episode than to drag out the illness and i'm not sure what the ultimate result would have been what we have now is preferable to that continued uncertainty. but another benefit the non russian republic or no one has taken away and form their own nation states jeffrey what do you think about that maybe minus the baltic republics is what was there any possibility that union could have stayed together under any circumstances. well i think what drove the union apart was the very determination and radical nature of god much else reforms if you had not undertaken those reforms the soviet union would do for it seems to me survive possibly for a long time even including the baltic republics after which of started one can imagine a union treaty which would have created

a more decentralized union probably as you say without the baltic republics. but without the backbone which it had in the communist party of the soviet union it would have been a very unstable place so i think probably not and in the long run archie what do you think about that in one communist soviet union could it come into existence again could it be viable. i think it could have been viable without a number of republics certainly without the baltic states but something closer to the european union today than to the old soviet union recover show went through several stages first of all planning a shoot a federation into a genuine federation but latterly he was prepared for a much looser kind of union something much more like the e.u. and that i think would have been possible and possibly preferable for russians through what has happened because it was clearly in yeltsin's interest to get himself into the kremlin gorbachev vote to deprive russia of its centuries old

links with the other countries and to have russians stranded in other countries where they were no longer. equal citizens in many cases it was hardly in the interests of russia because when you think about i mean and then this is something that the russians implemented and russians implemented this for twenty years if they did so many russians will found it on themselves on an on the wrong side of a border and not only russians these sentiments are sufficiently widespread in the crane because a. lot with. probably given the emotions running at the time very high the time it's difficult to imagine another outcome particularly because local leeds were very busy taking advantage of the situation at the same time there is a considerable frustration with the way things turned out because there is

a sense that what they wanted was the separation that came about was produced under false pretenses and others people wanted some sort of freedom and autonomy they didn't want it to be difficult to visit their uncles and relatives across the border they don't understand why one has to go along with the other so i think that sort of ambivalence continues. although now things have become so entrenched that it's hard to think of a clearer way to reintegrate again but i do think archie's point about the model of a closer association along the lines of the e.u. . viable one and seems to be the model that the new customs union between russia kazakhstan be a little with perhaps some of the ukraine is moving along those lines producing twenty years later we might get to that many thanks my guest today in oxford london the broken thanks to our viewers for watching us here as you see you next time remember across time.

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