I am not old enough to remember this, but it is part of my family’s oral history that one August day in 1991, my twin sister and I were hurriedly put on a train to go stay with my grandparents in a rural town, hundreds of kilometers from Moscow, as tanks rolled into Red Square and Russians braced for civil war.
This was an attempted military coup against the fledgling post-Soviet government. Although it happened in my (and probably your) lifetime, it’s unlikely you have heard of it, because it failed, and importantly, uncharacteristically, it ended without bloodshed.
That day, thousands of Moscovites took to the streets and stood, arms linked, between the tanks and the government buildings. When the order was given to mow down the human shield (and yes, that order was given), the tankers refused. Simply refused.
The standoff continued for two days. My mom’s friend, like so many others who lived in the city center, remembers feeding the soldiers savory crepes and tea while they waited in their positions.
Then everyone went home. The organizers of the coup were eventually tried, but granted amnesty. And everyone forgot all about it.
Is Russia in perfect harmony over all things politics now? Obviously not. But no matter how dissatisfied Russians may be with the current situation, no one believes it would be better if we just killed more of our own, not by state-sanctioned violence, nor by rogue actors.
Tomorrow we find out how this plays out in the United States. There is still hope for solidarity, peaceful resistance, and democracy to triumph.
Though, I must admit, very little.
