Less than a month before the 30th anniversary of the coup attempt in 1991, the last of the participants of the State Emergency Committee, Oleg Baklanov, died. He was 89 years old
Oleg Baklanov
At the age of 90, the last member of the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), the head of the rocket and space industry of the USSR and the curator of the shuttle project “Buran” Oleg Baklanov died. This was announced on Twitter by the head of “Roscosmos” Dmitry Rogozin.
“Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov, who led our rocket and space industry and headed the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering of the USSR, has passed away today. Oleg Dmitrievich was friends with my father, often visited our house. My sincere condolences to his family and friends!”raquo; & mdash; wrote Rogozin.
Baklanov was born in Kharkiv on March 17, 1932. He was the Minister of General Mechanical Engineering of the USSR, the first deputy chairman of the USSR Defense Council, secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Baklanov was elected a deputy of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 11th convocation (1984 & ndash;1989), was a People’s Deputy of the USSR (1989 & ndash;1992), a Hero of Socialist Labor and a laureate of the Lenin Prize.
The GKCHP was a self-proclaimed body that existed for four days, from August 18 to August 21, 1991. It consisted of eight people:in addition to Baklanov, Vice-President of the USSR Gennady Yanaev, head of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Interior Minister Boris Pugo, Chairman of the Peasant Union Vasily Starodubtsev, President of the Association of State Enterprises and Industrial Facilities Alexander Tizyakov and Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov.
The members of the State Emergency Committee opposed the policy of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought to sign a new union treaty and transform the USSR into a confederate Union of Sovereign States. Gorbachev was isolated for three days at a dacha in Foros in the Crimea, troops, including tank units, were brought to Moscow.
The putschists were opposed by supporters of Boris Yeltsin, who became the first president of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. The center of the resistance was the White House-the current government building, which then had a parliament. The State Emergency Committee did not dare to storm this building, around which thousands of people gathered.
Criminal cases were initiated against the participants of the State Emergency Committee, but later all of them were amnestied by the State Duma.
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