Attempted Soviet Coup, 1991

Or "The Coup Everyone Expected"

Twenty years ago today, the KGB and some hardliners tried to overthrow the Soviet government. The people, and the army, would not allow it. The Party trembled in the background waiting to see what would happen.

The Soviet Union was ruled by a troika of the Communist Party, the KGB, and the Soviet Armed Forces (usually called the Army since it was (and still is) the senior service. The Army and the KGB did not like each other but were well matched. The Army had the numbers and the raw firepower. The KGB had better training and focus. The Party held the balance between the two since it was the actual government.

The only way the KGB would win was a quick attempted decapitation. They tried with an early morning arrest of Gorbachev, installation of some cronies as an emergency General Secretariat, and orders to the Army to get in line.

What no one was prepared for was the support of the People.

They, as you can see by the picture, provided by referl.com, backed the Army. No great surprise there since soldiers come from....The People.

It was not really a reaffirmation of Gorbachev but a refusal to be pushed back into the darkness after seeing the light of the outside world. People who wish to be free cannot be held down.

This event is naturally being compared to the dimming of the lights we are seeing in the West.

In '91, the American did not hate their government to the degree it is hated today. There was no Homeland Security (KGB), no wiretaps on phones (without warrants), no fear of government retaliation for speaking against it, and, most important, the feeling that our government, incompetent and bubbling though it was, was simply that.

Now The People feel their freedom is being taken away by the same people they elect.

They feel the government is not really thiers but instead is in the employ of Wall Street or special interests. They also feel that their government is out of control and actively seeks their impoverishment and even enslavement. Looking at ObamaCare and calls for even higher taxes while spending increases astronomically into numbers that lose meaning, you begin to think our fellow Americans may be onto something. And any discussion about the Fed is going to be "animated", to say the very least.

Some may say this is simply paranoia. Maybe it is. But remember, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

The morons in Washington work for us. Remind them from time to time.

If the Berlin Wall can fall and the Soviet Union can splinter, what kind of totalitarian system can hope to survive a mass refusal of the people to go along with it?

Some people will shout "The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants." I prefer to use the Civil Rights mantra of "we don't just shuffle along."

But, just in case, don't forget about the Second Amendment....