Faces of Courage and Hope Many say Boris Yeltsin was the key figure in the overthrow of the August coup in Moscow. President Bush claims he deserves credit (because he "stood up" to Saddam Hussein). As a result of discussions with many Russian citizens in late August and early September when visiting Russia, I believe that the tens of thousands of courageous Russians who risked their lives standing up for their beliefs in democracy, freedom and human dignity and nonviolently resisting and refusing to cooperate with illegitimate authority, defeated the coup. Imagine, if you can, waking up on the morning of August 19 and seeing thousands of Soviet tanks occupying Moscow. Let me share with you the stories of some of these courageous people. Thousands of people all over Moscow gathered their courage and went out into the streets surrounded the tanks and greeted the soldiers in the tanks with cakes, cigarettes and roses and entered into dialogue with them. People knocked on the tanks and said to the soldiers, "Why are you here? Who gave you orders to bring these tanks into Moscow? Why are you going to shoot on people? Who are you going to shoot?" Mothers and girls gave the soldiers food, kisses and flowers and asked them not to kill their mothers and brothers and sisters. One friend distributed roses to the soldiers, gave them hugs and told them "Don't shoot! Be kind to the people!" Faced with this kind of interaction with the people they had been ordered to attack, the soldiers became very dispirited. A friend, Valya (who had a young daughter) and her mother, felt it was crucial to be at the barricades to nonviolently resist the military attack against the parliament building. They believed that whoever was at the barricades at the time of the military attack would be killed. But they knew that this was a critical moment in history, and they had found something they were willing to die for. Valya and her mother took turns at the "White House" (parliament building) so that if one of them were killed, the other would be left to bring up Valya's daughter. Between 10,000 and 40,000 people like Valya and her mother surrounded the Russia parliament building for three days and nights, August 19 - 21, much of this time in driving rain. They linked arms, forming a nonviolent human barricade between the parliament building and the thousands of Soviet tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers who had been ordered into Moscow to defend the "new order" of the coup leaders. The people called themselves the "Living Ring, The Defenders of the White House of Russia". The people build physical barricades of trolley cars, buses, old pieces of metal, and box springs around the White House - not so much because that would stop the tanks more than a few minutes, but to enable them to enter into dialogue with the attacking soldiers about what they were doing, and to convince them to discontinue the attack. The women at the barricades encouraged everyone to keep nonviolent and not to hurt the soldiers because they are our sons and brothers and we don't want them to wage war with us. Russanna, the Chair of the Russian Peace Society, said to others at the barricades, "We women must be the first to meet the soldiers with words of kindness. We are standing not for struggle, but for peace. Our goal is nonviolence, our arms are words and kindness." Russanna added, "We shouldn't be frightened of anything. Our people are around us. We are defending justice, legality and freedom." The official policy at the "Living Ring" was to strongly discourage any violence to the soldiers and to try to win them over. One of the sayings at the Living Ring was, "If we don't stand well, we'll be sitting for a long time." They were organized into groups of a hundred people all around the White House to allow for better organization and to keep their spirits up. The head of the KGB said that they could destroy and eliminate the opposition at the White House in about thirty minutes. Because there were indications that they could not count on the regular soldiers, the coup leaders ordered one of the most trusted elite KGB tank subdivisions with fifty tanks from Byelorussia to come to Moscow to attack the White House and capture or kill Yeltsin and the Russian parliament leaders. When the parliament members heard about the impending attack, some of them travelled to the edge of Moscow and met with the KGB troops. When the KGB troops heard they would have to kill hundreds or even thousands of civilians to fulfil their mission, they refused orders to carry out the attack. There were courageous people in the media who refused to obey orders and carry only the news approved by the coup leaders. For example, some of the news stations carried Yeltsin getting on the tank and calling for a general strike. Some newspapers carried blank spaces in the sections which had been censored. Employees of eleven banned newspapers united to publish a "general newspaper" printed on photocopiers, laser printers and mimeograph machines. Large quantities of the newspaper and copies of the Russian President's orders and appeals were posted at metros, bus stops, and street corners. This created gathering places where people exchanged opinions about the coup. These unplanned gatherings had great psychological impact. Multitudes of people refused to obey the curfew on the crucial night of August 20-21. Public transit continued to run. Most of Moscow seemed to be on the streets. This mass disobedience was a tremendous psychological blow to the coup leaders. In the face of all the fraternization between the people and the soldiers, the widespread lack of cooperation by the broader population, and the elite KGB troops refusing orders to attack the White House with the thousands of civilians surrounding it, the coup was fast becoming a losing cause. In Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Mayor Sobchak went on TV the first day of the coup and encouraged people to come out to the Palace Square the next day. Not many people were able to see that on TV, but people spread the word every way they could. One friend, Valodya, made 100 calls and encouraged each person he called to do the same. Four hundred thousand people showed up the next day. At first people were afraid. What would it mean to confront the tanks? But gradually, as people saw how many other people there were, they found courage and gradually come to feel that they had already won. They had lost their fear. The people defeated the coup because hundreds of thousands of them had decided they would not cooperate with illegitimate authority. They had lost or overcome their fear and the threats by the new government could no longer subdue the people into submission and cooperation. People throughout the society including elected officials, soldiers, KGB officers, Communist Party leaders, students, transportation workers, and journalists decided to listen to their consciences and their sense of what was right and just rather than to illegitimate authority. The coup leaders had at their disposal over four million soldiers, hundreds of thousands of tanks, sophisticated military aircraft, and nuclear weapons. They were overcome by a people armed with their courage and their convictions - people who were no longer willing to be scared into submission by threats of death or imprisonment. The Living Ring has now invited Americans knowledgeable about nonviolent civilian-based defense to come and help train the 10,000 members of Living Ring, so they can even better defend their society against any future coup attempts by the old guard. Under the sponsorship of Nonviolence International we are going to try to meet their request and expect to learn at least as much from them as we will share. All over the world we need to learn to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate authority and then find the courage to refuse cooperation with illegitimate authority - even in the face of intimidation and threats. If we can all do what the Russian people seem to have learned so well, dictatorial, oppressive, and imperialistic governments won't have much chance in this world. David Hartsough Originally published in Civilian-Based Defense: News and Opinion v7, no.5, December, 1991 International Nonviolence Training * Run by "Die Expeditie", an international nonviolence training collective based in the Netherlands * from the 1st to the 7th of August, 1992, with an extra day on the 9th for evaluation. * cost f275 - f425 (French francs?) * facilitated by Magda van der Ende and Abel Hertzberger * applications to Die Expeditie, Schimmelpenninckkade 30, 3813 AE Amersfoort, Netherlands, ph. (033) 753001, by 30th of June, 1992 * for experienced social change workers who wish to improve their skills and live in accordance with the truth Die Expeditie