Kendzor Archives: "Shame on the Communist Party!"

Video from Yaroslav Kendzor's personal archive.

August 24, 1991, Kyiv.

On the video: the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR, session hall, meeting; a group of deputies led by the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU Stanislav Hurenko; Ivan Plyushch speaks; at the rostrum, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Leonid Kravchuk reads out the draft Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR "On measures to prevent the concealment or destruction of documents of state bodies and the Communist Party of Ukraine, which testify to its involvement in the coup d'état in August 1991"; at the rostrum, People's Deputy Anatoliy Matviyenko with a proposal to supplement the resolution, chaos in the hall; speech by deputy Larisa Skoryk, speaking against Matviyenko's addition; speech by Stanislav Hurenko; deputies chant "Shame on the Communist Party!"; Yaroslav Kendzior comments off-screen: "State criminal, get off the podium"; Gurenko steps down from the podium; communist deputies leave the hall.

Reference: The August 1991 putsch was an attempt by part of the Soviet leadership to stop political reforms and preserve the Soviet Union by introducing a state of emergency and removing Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev from power. The failure of the coup caused a political crisis in the union republics and became one of the direct factors in the adoption by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR of decisions regarding the responsibility of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the declaration of Ukraine's independence on August 24, 1991.