The airborne commander who held the coup's key and handed it to Yeltsin
'With a single airborne regiment I could restore order in two hours': Grachev's boast on the eve of the First Chechen War proved the prelude to disaster.
Pavel Grachev was an airborne general who earned the Hero of the Soviet Union title in Afghanistan for achieving objectives with minimal losses, rising to command all Soviet Airborne Forces in December 1990. On the first day of the August 1991 coup he obeyed Defence Minister Yazov's order and brought the 106th Guards Airborne Division into Moscow, but the next day he opposed the planned storming of the White House, switched his allegiance to Yeltsin, and sent troops to defend the parliament: the pivot that broke the coup's military spine. After the Soviet collapse he became Russia's first defence minister, backed Yeltsin during the 1993 constitutional crisis, and presided over the disastrous First Chechen War, leaving office in 1996 amid corruption allegations and the derisive nickname 'Pasha-Mercedes.'
Activities and affiliations
- 1981–1983 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1965–1969Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School (gold medal)
- 1981–1983, 1985–1988Afghanistan: 345th Regt → 103rd Guards Airborne Div
- 1988Awarded Hero of the Soviet Union
- 1990.12–1991.08Commander, Soviet Airborne Forces
- 1991.08–1992First Deputy Minister of Defence, USSR
- 1992.05–1996.06Minister of Defence, Russian Federation
- 1997–2007Military adviser, Rosvooruzhenie / Rosoboronexport
Related historical events
- 1979–1989The Soviet-Afghan WarAirborne division commanderHe commanded the 345th Regiment and the 103rd Guards Airborne Division in Afghanistan.
- 1991The Novo-Ogaryovo Process and the New Union TreatyThe airborne commander who held back the assaultAs airborne forces commander, moved troops into Moscow on Yazov's order on 18 August, but effectively refused to execute the White House assault on the night of 20 August, and had his deputy Lebed secretly warn Yeltsin's side of the attack time.
- 1991The August Coup and the Collapse of the USSRAirborne commander who played both sidesAs airborne forces commander he cooperated with the GKChP while secretly informing the White House defenders, via Lebed, that the assault was planned for 2am on 21 August.
Building the Russian Army and the void of military reform
When Grachev became Russia's first defence minister in May 1992, the Soviet military was disintegrating and the fate of troops beyond Russia's borders hung in the balance. On 7 May of that year Yeltsin's decree formed the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Russian Ground Forces, even as tens of thousands of personnel were being withdrawn from the groups of forces in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary and from Mongolia. That same day Grachev was given direct command of the Russian Armed Forces and the rank of general of the army, Russia's first, making him the youngest such general at 44. He filled the senior leadership largely with generals he had known from joint service in Afghanistan.
In the military reform debate he sought to preserve the Soviet-style mass standing army, which put him at odds with the "young reformers" pressing for radical change. He opposed the rapid withdrawal of Russian units from the Baltics, the Transcaucasus and parts of Central Asia, arguing that Russia lacked resources to address the housing and social needs of service members and their families. At the same time, to prevent politicization, he banned the All-Russian Officers' Assembly, the Independent Trade Union of Servicemen and other politicized army organizations. These measures to preserve unity of command sat in tension with his declared principle that the army should not intervene in domestic political problems.
In practice, however, reform barely advanced. A reform plan appeared in Krasnaya Zvezda on 21 July 1992 but was judged hastily assembled to satisfy public demand, and the General Staff became a bastion of conservatism; few of the reforms planned in the early 1990s eventuated. Among the reasons was the absence of firm civilian political guidance, Yeltsin being chiefly interested in ensuring the armed forces were controllable and loyal rather than reformed. The withdrawal from the former Warsaw Pact states and the Baltics was an extremely demanding and debilitating process, and returning units faced housing shortages, with personnel and equipment in some cases unloaded from rail cars into empty fields. Grachev's tenure as defence minister thus remains a period in which the verdict that he "preserved the army" and the charge that he blocked reform collide sharply.