Staunton, Aug. 21 – Few people benefited as much from the failure of the August 1991 coup as have members of the present-day Russian elite. Had it succeeded, their careers and lifestyles would have been much less successful; but they remain ashamed as to how that happened, Pavel Pryanikov says.
As a result, they have remained “shamefully silent” about August 1991 and are unwilling to admit that their current successes are precisely the product of the failure of the last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union, the Russian commentator says (newizv.ru/news/2023-08-21/stydlivoe-molchanie-pochemu-rossiya-ne-prazdnuet-godovschinu-pobedy-nad-gkchp-417075).
Members of the current elite constantly talk about “the accursed 1990s” even though “the entire higher reaches of that group are direct beneficiaries of the 1990s,” Pryanikov says. Had the coup not been attempted and failed, they would have had less successful careers and a much less luxurious life style.
But they have their reasons for this silence, he continues. This is all “a question of shame. It is difficult to expect shame from the bosses since now shamelessness is being propagandized in everything, from foreign policy and law to personal lives and hedonism.”
All the same, however, those who are now on top are direct beneficiaries of what happened in August 1991. They drew “a lucky ticket” and few in history have succeeded so rapidly and impressively to claim the benefits of something they didn’t organize. “By world standards, it is fantastic that fate would give such things to … lieutenant colonels” like Putin.
It may very well be that the children or grandchildren of these people will celebrate the August victory over the USSR and see it as the birthdate of their country – if, that is, “a new funeral team doesn’t appear on the scene” and do something to destroy the system in the Russian Federation now.
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