Time is the best teacher. Looking at history apart from time may be more objective, calm, lucid, and detached.
30 years ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union was comparable to the victory in World War II in the twentieth century, and whether you are happy or worried depends on whether you are left or right.
在1991年夏秋之交、8.19事件发生之际，当苏联面临生死关头，是什么让军队放弃了这个红色政权？
去年，8.19事件的亲历者、苏联最后一位元帅亚佐夫逝世，享年96岁。
Marshal Yazov
At the time of the 8.19 incident, Marshal Yazov was then Minister of Defense. On this day, Soviet tanks were ordered to enter Red Square. At a moment of great fate for the Soviet Union, why did Marshal Yazov order the withdrawal without firing?
Yazov was a beneficiary of the old system, which had brought him to the pinnacle of power, and it was clear that he did not want to subvert it.
When the country was in danger of dying, Yazov, as a veteran, really wanted to join the ranks of saving the country, fighting as gloriously as he had fought in the Great Patriotic War of the 1940s. At that time, fascist Germany was his enemy. In the long era of us-Soviet hegemony, the United States was his enemy.
But at the time, the battlefield was in the capital, Moscow. Where is the enemy? Could it be their own compatriots?
作为一名卫国战争的老兵，亚佐夫元帅在自己的军事生涯中，经历和组织过无数次大大小小的战役和演习，但他并不知道，当大量坦克出现在莫斯科街头时，会产生什么后果，以及如何在楼群密集的城市里保住政权，同时不对反对者同胞使用武力。
In the eyes of Yazov and some of the military, they only wanted to drive tanks into the streets in order to preserve the old Soviet system, and in the process they absolutely could not shoot at the opponents of their own compatriots.
Eventually, he made up his mind and agreed to carry out the orders of the Emergency Committee and drive the army into the capital.
Yazov misjudged that by marching into the capital, the Soviet Union could be saved. In his order, Yazov stressed that the army was stationed only to maintain order, not to fight.
Although Gorbachev had the courtesy of Yazov and transferred him from the Far East to the capital a few years ago, Yazov did not agree with Gorbachev's reforms, "the people's living standards are declining, the economy is collapsing, and the national conflicts are becoming more and more acute... Gorbachev, as an active state activist, has actually accomplished his mission. He and his government are no longer actually solving domestic problems."
The Emergency Committee, composed of Eight people, including Vice President Yanayev, Defense Minister Yazov, KGB leader Kryuchkov, decided that it was time to abolish Gorbachev and that it was necessary to save the Soviet Union, which was about to collapse as soon as possible.
但亚佐夫同时也坚信，在国家内部，绝没有发展到必须对自己的同胞动刀子的地步。
The bloody lessons of the military's use of force to disperse demonstrators, especially the April 1989 riots in Tbilisi, Georgia, which caused bloodshed by the military to disperse the demonstrators, left Yazov blamed.
由此，亚佐夫和他的同盟始终徘徊在犹豫和动摇的边缘。 Although the Emergency Committee laid out plans to seize the White House, the seat of Russia's Supreme Soviet, the order was never issued.
就这样，1991年8月19日，坦克开进首都，却并没有产生威慑效应。
然而，时任俄罗斯总统叶利钦拒不服从紧急状态委员会的命令，反而号召举行政治罢工，抗议亚纳耶夫等人发起的行动。
临近上午11点，叶利钦已从居所驱车到达白宫。 The Emergency Committee did not take any action against him, nor did communications be interrupted, but only sent a number of people to follow him.
In fact, Yeltsin knew the movements of the army, even the state of emergency committee.
Soon, some officers and men with tanks fell to the side of the White House defenders, turning their guns in support of Yeltsin.
Yeltsin realized that the situation was in his favor, and at noon on August 19, he walked out of the White House, jumped into a tank to the cheers of the crowd, and delivered a speech.
At the moment of Yeltsin's speech, his whole appearance, every movement of his hand and every word exuded the passion of victory.
By the time the dust settled and the members of the emergency committee realized it was time to use force to resolve Yeltsin, it was too late.
紧急状态委员会成员们的犹豫不决，没有能够当机立断的公认领袖，反倒是他们都害怕事后被拉清单，缺少相互协调，则为失败埋下了伏笔。
Later, when members of the Emergency Committee were taken to court, they also blamed each other.
Although Yazov, as defense minister, was not a decisive figure in this incident, it also proved that Yazov lacked decisiveness and had weak control over the army.
If someone on the Emergency Committee were a man who did not consider the consequences and could order the shooting of the crowd, as Yeltsin did, they might have succeeded.
Later, Yazov and some of his old comrades were imprisoned in the "Sailor Silence" prison for the failed coup. In just a few days, the new Soviet defense minister took office. Soon after, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist. 这无疑对像亚佐夫一样的爱国老兵而言，不仅是一场国家悲剧，也是一场个人悲剧。
三年后，当亚佐夫等人获俄国家杜马大赦出狱后，面对国内政局的变化，很多人迅速转变思路，大声谴责苏共，而亚佐夫却没有，老元帅的人品自带光芒。
In November 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the 81-year-old Yazov with the medal as his birthday gift.
The efforts to save the old system and the insistence on "not firing guns" in the face of the people have won Yazov the respect of the Russians.
Veterans withered away, and Yazov, despite his limited abilities, was a true patriot worthy of respect. 而且晚年他也彻底醒悟过来，他不可能建议普京走美国道路，因为那是一条绝路。
亚佐夫生前曾请求在他死后公布自己关于戈尔巴乔夫、叶利钦和普京的看法。
Last year, after his death, the Russian Satellite News Agency published footage of his talk, as he had been entrusted with during his lifetime.
He said that although 76 percent of citizens approved of Soviet reunification in a referendum, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union because he believed that "the people will put up with everything."
Yazov said Gorbachev was still too young to lead such a complex country. "It's not good to have a country disintegrate," he said. But it's not his business alone. Everyone close to him helped him. ”
亚佐夫说叶利钦是一个追求名利的人，他会巧妙地利用人的感受。
Yazov believed that all Yeltsin had done was to "rise to power" and drive Gorbachev out of the Kremlin.
Yazov said: "If Yeltsin had thought about keeping the Soviet Union, then he would have behaved differently. And all he thinks about is himself. He picked a group that suited him, and this group carved up the most delicious parts of this great country. ”
I seriously agree with Marshal Yazov's assessment that Comrade Yeltsin was a man who did not hesitate to smash everyone's pot for the sake of eating more for himself.
Referring to the current president, Putin, he said: "He led Russia away from the abyss of decommunism, he turned the army into a real army".
If asked to give advice to the president, yazov said, he would advise the president to follow the Chinese path, "the Chinese government has successfully combined personal and state property."
Mr. Yazov believes that Mr. Putin should also nationalize natural resources and not allow them to make huge profits for a small group of wealthy people.
This is the heartfelt words of a witness of the times.
当然，另一位老兵、也是元帅阿赫罗梅耶夫却用行动表达了。
Five days after the "819" incident, at 21:50 on August 24, 1991, the body of Marshal Akhromeyev was found in Office A, Building 19, Kremlin.
The marshal sat quietly against the radiator, double strands of synthetic twine wrapped around his entire neck. It can be confirmed that he died by hanging himself.
This great patriotic soldier, the former chief of the general staff of the Soviet Army, had long anticipated that the August 19 incident would end in failure, and finally chose to martyr the country for the ideal, which can be said to be full of tragic and magnificent colors of the hero of the end.
早在事变爆发二个月前，即1991年6月19日，在纪念卫国战争50周年的记者招待会上，阿赫罗梅耶夫一开始就睿智尖锐地提出：苏联在1941年和1991年的形势有点相似。 The socialist edifice defended by soviet soldiers and civilians with 27 million sacrifices is about to collapse today; the intentions that Hitler's tens of millions of troops failed to achieve are possible today.
不幸被老元帅言中。 Four months later, the Soviet Union collapsed.
The flag of the sickle and axe that had been unyielding in Leningrad, that had been planted in the Reichstag in Berlin, that had guided the world communist movement, that had once revered the world, had been abandoned like a piece of scrap of paper that night, and had since been far removed from the field marshal who had experienced the war, and from this once powerful country.