CRISIS IN THE KREMLIN : Who’s In, Who’s Out : A FAILED COUP

Winner: Democracy, Perestroika, Glasnost

The reforms, or perestroika, that Mikhail S. Gorbachev put into place turned out to be stronger than the eight-man junta that ousted him. A fledgling democracy was put to the test and its advocates won out over a group that usurped power. An elected republic leader, Boris N. Yeltsin, was supported by the people that chose him. The media that flowered under glasnost, or openness, refused to be silenced despite an official decree.

Winner: Market Reforms

Gorbachev hesitated about putting into effect a market-oriented economy, even though the Western powers pushed for it. Yeltsin also was a strong advocate of scrapping the centrally planned economy in favor of a market-oriented one. Now this major restructuring of the ailing Soviet economic system is likely to get Gorbachev’s full support.

Loser: KGB and Military

The Committee for State Security, or KGB, once struck fear into people’s hearts. The military also supposedly held the Soviet Union in its iron grip. When the crunch came, many of the Soviet troops refused to obey orders to attack demonstrators. And members of the Russian KGB listened to their boss, Yeltsin. Both federal organizations have now been discredited.

Loser: Communist Party

Once the kingpin of Soviet politics, the Communist Party has been on the wane in recent years as millions of its members quit. Yeltsin even banned party cells from workplaces, where they had been long entrenched. The failed coup by hard-liners may have been the party’s last gasp.

WHO’S OUT: Early Monday, Gennady I. Yanayev announced that he had taken over as president of the Soviet Union and that an Emergency Committee was in charge. Here are the men who led the failed coup.

Source: Times News Services.