The Retreat: The Silent Guns of August

By Richard Lacayo

Throughout Soviet history, Kremlin leaders have taken special care to prevent the army from interfering in the nation's internal politics. Yet the new order being established by Mikhail Gorbachev was not the kind that soldiers were accustomed to living with. Pulled out of Afghanistan, shown the door in Eastern Europe, beset by shrinking defense outlays, low pay and ethnic tensions, the army smarted under the changes sweeping the U.S.S.R. For the plotters of the coup, such discontent seemed to make the military a logical -- if reluctant -- ally. Its armed might made it an essential one.

But when the moment came to strike, Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov was unable to bring his firepower to bear. Gorbachev's drive for reform across all strata of society had left fault lines among the military as well, and the coup rapidly widened them. The air force stood aside altogether, refusing orders to participate. As for the army, the 10 tank crews that defected to Boris Yeltsin symbolized the greater number of soldiers who refused to countenance the violent overthrow of the government. Even troopers nominally supporting the junta were reluctant to fight.

The army's trauma is not over. Yazov was arrested and faces trial. His protege, former Chief of the General Staff Mikhail Moiseyev, 52, played a role ambiguous enough to let Gorbachev name him acting Defense Minister shortly after the coup's collapse. That decision alarmed those who expected the reinstated President to clean house. Under pressure from Yeltsin, Gorbachev replaced Moiseyev one day later with an unambiguous reformer: Colonel General Yevgeni Shaposhnikov, 49, the commander of the air force who had refused to support the coup.

A deeper purge of conservatives in the military is almost sure to follow. General Valentin Varennikov, the commander of ground forces who reportedly shared in Yazov's plans was arrested; General Boris Gromov, a hero of the Afghan war thought to have been in charge of Interior Ministry forces in the coup, is another likely target. Officers and civilians in the military- industrial complex, which has fought Gorbachev's efforts to convert more defense plants to civilian purposes, can be expected to fall as well. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, 68, former chief of staff of the Soviet armed forces and top military advisor to Gorbachev, committed suicide on Saturday night, though his link to the plot was not clear.

The new leadership that supplants the Old Guard will have to brace itself for a further restructuring of the army, which has already suffered strains as a result of the changes brought about under Gorbachev. The military's claim on the national budget, still about one-third of all government spending despite the diminution of East-West tensions, faces additional reduction. Gorbachev has cut military forces by 500,000, to 4 million, but even sharper reductions are likely. The withdrawal from Eastern Europe has sent soldiers home to a severe housing shortage: some 200,000 are still quartered in tents, barracks and makeshift shelters throughout the country.

Yet perestroika does have its appeal for some restive segments of the armed forces who could capitalize on the failed coup. The reform-minded Shchit (Shield) organization of former officers, which wants to abolish compulsory service in favor of a volunteer, professional army, may get more attention. Middle-ranking officers, especially veterans of the Afghan war, are impatient for a switch from massive conventional forces to the high-tech systems that the U.S. fielded so ably in the Persian Gulf. In their view, a market economy and the dismantling of the defense bureaucracy offer the only hope for modernizing the military.

Hard-liners have tended to be clustered among older officers of colonel's rank and above, but the real dividing line is allegiance to the Communist Party. All top officers belonged to the party, while a network of loyalty officers ensures political orthodoxy throughout the ranks. The coup "wasn't the army as such in revolt," says Stephen Meyer, a Soviet expert at M.I.T. "It was the tired old nomenklatura, the party figures in the army." In his first act as defense minister, Shaposhnikov resigned from the party and, on the basis of a decree issued by Yeltsin, ordered its cells banished from the barracks. The generals must also accept firmer control from the Supreme Soviet, whose members have shown growing interest in the defense budget and procurement.

Even the concept of a single army is being questioned. To thwart future coup attempts, Yeltsin and other republic leaders plan to press ahead with plans to form separate armed forces -- in effect republican guard units -- that will not be answerable to Moscow's command. That kind of challenge to its dominance of armed power will probably prevent the military from becoming a firm ally of change. The army will not wither away, but it will have to swallow reforms that so troubled some of its generals that they went to the barricades to forestall them.

With reporting by James Carney/Moscow and Bruce van Voorst/Washington