General Varennikov: Soviet Hero
On 6 May 2009, General
Valentin Varennikov died, aged 85 in Moscow. His life was a model of loyalty
and service to the Soviet proletariat through good times and bad. Born a poor
Cossack, his ambition from the age of 5 was to become a soldier. He graduated
from officer cadet school in 1942 and was sent straight to the front to fight
the Hitlerite army at Stalingrad.
At all times distinguishing himself by his ability
and courage, he was part of the Soviet pursuit of the retreating German army,
and in fact led one of the units that captured the Reichstag in 1945. He was
as a result given the honour of participating in the victory parade in Moscow at which Soviet soldiers in the presence of Stalin threw captured German banners on
the pedestal of Lenin’s tomb. When Stalin died, Varennikov formed part of the
guard standing by his body as it lay in state.
Varennikov was made a general in 1978 and joined
the Soviet army general staff in 1979. He opposed the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan on the grounds that it would be the Soviet’s Union’s Vietnam, but once the USSR did intervene, Varennikov carried out his duties as Chief Soviet Military
Representative loyally and efficiently. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, he was appointed
Commander-in-chief of the Soviet ground forces and Deputy Defence Minister.
Perhaps his greatest acts of courage, however, lay
in his attempts to save the Soviet Union from overthrow. On 23 July 1991
Varennikov co-signed, along with many other prominent Soviet people, an appeal
in Sovyetskaya Rossiya, warning of the “unprecedented tragedy”
that was engulfing mother Russia, and drawing attention to the fact that “the
great state entrusted to us by history … is being plunged into darkness and
oblivion”, in the hope of mobilising the masses for defence of the
revolution. Shortly afterwards the Soviet government adopted a new Union
Treaty that devolved power away from the central Soviet state to the various
republics.
On 18 August several prominent Soviet leaders tried
to forestall the collapse of the Soviet Union by setting up a State Committee
for the Emergency to take away Gorbachev’s power and to place him under house
arrest at his summer villa by the Black Sea. Varennikov was one of the people
sent to effect this arrest.
As is well known, the coup leaders failed to
mobilise the masses in defence of the revolution and the coup was thwarted
after only 3 days. 12 of its leading members, including Varennikov, were
charged with treason, and were (briefly) imprisoned. In 1994, however, they
were offered an amnesty. All of them accepted – except Varennikov who was
determined to have his day in court.
His defence to the charge of treason is that he had
acted to save his country, just the opposite of treason. At the trial, he said
Gorbachev and his cohorts were like the Nazis he had fought half a century
earlier. “In August 1991 I confronted another enemy”, he declared, “a
far more dangerous and disguised enemy who wanted to destroy my motherland. I
have no regrets about what I did, but I have a bitter feeling that we failed to
save our country”, he
said in his defence. Much to the joy of his supporters, this defence was
successful and he was acquitted.
Thereafter he was elected to the Duma as a
Communist representative, where he spoke out loudly and clearly in defence of
socialist values. Stalin was his hero, and only last year he appeared on
television putting forward Stalin as the person most deserving of the title of Russia’s greatest historical figure.
With the death of Cde General Varennikov we have
lost a truly honourable and most courageous fighter for the proletarian cause,
but his glorious life will forever be an inspiration to us in the hard
struggles that lie ahead.