Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev

Educated as agriculture engineer, Gennady Yanayev joined the Communist party in 1962. He started his career as a Komsomol leader serving as a second secretary (1963-1966) and then as a first secretary (1966-1968) of the Komsomol organization in his home region, Gorky province. In 1968 he was made Chairman of the Committee of the Youth Organizations of the USSR. In 1980 Yanayev became deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Soviet Associations of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. In the course of perestroika, Yanayev took important post as a secretary for foreign affairs of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (1986-1989) and then was promoted to deputy chairman in this organization in 1989. Yanayev shortly headed the Soviet trade unions as the chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions (Apr 1990 - Jul 1990), but the 28th party congress elected him a member of the Central Committee (1990-1991), which in turn elected him a member of the Politburo (14 Jul 1990 - 31 Jan 1991) and a secretary of the Central Committee (14 Jul 1990 - 31 Jan 1991) responsible for foreign affairs. Yanayev resigned his office in the Central Council of Trade Unions and joined the higher party structures. On 27 Dec 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev nominated Yanayev for the post of Vice-President, but he failed to win the first vote at the Congress of People's Deputies (1,089 for, 583 against). Gorbachev refused to nominate another candidate and Yanayev eventually won on the second ballot and became Vice President of the USSR (27 Dec 1990 - 4 Sep 1991). Analysts viewed Yanayev as a compromise selection chosen to placate hard-liners in the CPSU.

On 19 Aug 1991, Yanayev and seven other state officials declared the creation of the State Committee for the State of Emergency and claimed that they were taking over the governing of the nation. While Mikhail Gorbachev was falsely declared ill, Yanayev assumed the duties of President of the USSR. When the coup failed, largely due to public disdain, Yanayev was arrested (22 Aug 1991) and charged with treason. The trial of Yanayev and 11 others was postponed in May 1993 amid allegations that it had been compromised by pretrial publicity. In February 1994 the legislature dominated by nationalists and hard-liners granted amnesty for all the alleged conspirators. Biography source: [4, pp. 620-621]