Russian military personnel

The author of the book “Military Personnel under the Russian Flag”, the head of the Center for Military Forecasting, Anatoly Tsyganok, is not only a witness, but a participant of the events which he described: the military takeover in 1991, the establishment of the Russian Guard in 1991, the launch of the emergency situation and the war in Chechnya and the establishment of the Defense Ministry and the Russian Army in 1992.

Anatoly Tsyganok

The book is devoted to the generals and officers of the defense headquarters of the White House, first of all. The monograph is the result of a complex research of the military and political aspects of Soviet-Russian history from 1991 to 1993. The influence of the events on the process of military formation is not discussed. It is tasteless to recall the activities of Army in 1991-1993. On the contrary, some insignificant facts are exaggerated. The real facts about establishing the Russian Army and the Defense Ministry are hushed up. Society is full of myths, and contemporary publications have contributed to them. One of the aims of the monograph, written on the basis of the State Archive of Russia and lost and found facts, is to dispel the myths of 1991-1993.

Despite great interest in the events of 1991 and 1993, there is no complex systematic research into the military and political aspects of the establishment of the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian Guard by the government of Russia. The ambiguity of the evaluations and a rare opportunity to express the attitude of a real participant are one of the main reasons for the appearance of this monograph. Russian politicians, military personnel and historians don’t like to remember the history of the formation of the Russian Army, because they made a lot of mistakes. We should remember why the decisions of the Emergency Assembly of People's Deputies of the RSFSR were not implemented; why the Ministry for Emergency Situations appeared instead of the Russian Guard, and so on.

Sergey Filatov, President of the Socio-Economic and Intellectual Programs Fund

The events of 1991 hold a special place in the current and future history. Today we focus our attention on some external factors – the Russian flag, the blockade of the White House the defenders of the White House. But in reality the process was much deeper and more acute. But the book is not only about the State Committee on the State of Emergency and 1993. The process of establishing the Russian Army underwent serious difficulties. It is one of the closed pages which are unknown to society. When the Soviet Union collapsed, nobody thought that such a global task would have to be solved – the establishment of a new army. Boris Yeltsin at first followed a simple way and decided to organize the Armed Forces of the CIS, headed by Marshal Shaposhnikov. But the CIS itself was formed with difficulties. There were a lot of ambitions in Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – their heads believed that they were absolutely independent already, were able to have their own armed forces, were able to manage their economies and politics, and they behaved impudently at the sessions of the CIS heads. The question of nuclear armaments was acute. It appeared on the territories of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. There was a problem of fulfilling duties which were created by Gorbachev – the withdrawal of our troops from Germany, Poland and Hungary. It was a huge problem for Russia, which had no money at all, no currency, no gold reserve, which had been spent by the Soviet Union. The most important thing was that all the danger points stayed abroad – on the territories of the Baltic states and in the Caucasian states which had already left the Soviet Union.

If the military men had shifted to an aggressive stance, war would have been unavoidable. Our soldiers stopped, because Gorbachev used the army in Baku, in Georgia, in the Baltic states, in Fergana and so on, where human blood was shed. I am working with young writers, including those from the Caucasus, even though they were not born yet then, but they write a lot about these events directly, perhaps they are inspired by stories of their parents and grandparents. I have always said to politicians: “Don’t believe that everything you are doing can be kept secret.” There will never be secret. There are no secrets due to documents, literature, cinema, plays, and so on. People will always know the truth. Soldiers felt and understood that this chaos had to come to an end some day. A big role was played by the fact that many young men who entered Moscow in tanks refused to carry out the orders given by their commanders.