pairs of handcuffs were ordered, and arrest warrants were drafted for
thousands of reformers and “troublemakers” across the country. The
plan was to be executed on 18 August, while Gorbachev and his en-
tourage were on vacation at their summer retreat at Foros in the
Crimea. Early that morning, KGB Border Guardunits surrounded
his dacha, and his chief body guard took control of the Soviet “suit-
case,” a computer notebook that contained the codes required to
launch a nuclear strike.
The putsch was generally successful across the country but failed in
Moscow, where Russian President Boris Yeltsinmade his way to the
Russian White House, the parliament building, and rallied support. Ef-
forts by the coup plotters to convince KGB Spetznazunits to storm the
White House, neutralize Yeltsin, and disperse the crowd failed. An
abortive effort to storm the building by a small Red Army unit killed
three young Yeltsin supporters near the White House, but the plotters
lacked the ruthlessness, intelligence, and craft to seize power.
The putsch ended with more of a whimper than a bang on 21 Au-
gust when airborne troops in Moscow withdrew to their bases. All the
plotters could do was to return Gorbachev to Moscow and beg for-
giveness. Gorbachev did return to Moscow that day, but without the
authority to govern his country. The putsch, however, demonstrated
the bankruptcy and incompetence of the Communist Party and the
KGB. Within three months, power devolved from the Soviet Union
to independent republics, and on 25 December 1991 the Soviet flag
was replaced by Russian national colors over the Kremlin. The plot-
ters spent more than a year in jail but never stood trial; they were re-
leased in 1993.AZEV, YEVNO FISCHELOVICH (1869–1918).The most infamous
double agent in Russian history, Azev served as both “Raskin,” a se-
cret agent for the Okhrana, and as “Comrade Valentine,” chief of the
Battle Organizationof the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) Party. From
1902 to 1908, Azev recruited terrorists and planned the executionof
several senior tsarist officials and members of the royal family. Si-
multaneously, he betrayed scores of his own recruits to the Okhrana
for trial, imprisonment, and execution.
Azev’s planning of the assassination of Minister of Interior Vy -
acheslav von Plehvein 1904 made him a hero to Russian revolu-18 •AZEV, YEVNO FISCHELOVICH (1869–1918)06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:54 AM Page 18