A Year Later, Surviving Coup Leaders Left in Limbo

One is penning verse behind bars. Another shot himself to death to avoid the shame of capture. A third is back at work on his farm but had to promise not to engage in politics.

One year after they tried to usurp Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s powers and take control of a superpower, members of the short-lived State Emergency Committee and their accomplices have no idea when--or even if--they will stand trial.

Valentin G. Stepankov, Russia’s prosecutor general, says the defendants and their lawyers are reviewing 125 volumes of evidence and 150 hours of videotape that state investigators have amassed. The defendants will then file appeals; prosecutors will send them more evidence collected in the meantime; a court will likely take months to pore over the mountain of documents and schedule the case.

The first trial, not expected before 1993, should take months; the state wants to summon more than 1,000 witnesses, but only 10 or so can testify each day.

So most of the plotters, charged under the Russian Criminal Code with “conspiracy to usurp power” in a country that no longer exists--the Soviet Union--are biding their time in a small Moscow prison whose name means “Sailor’s Rest.”

In confinement are former Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, former KGB Chairman Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, former Vice President Gennady I. Yanayev and former Premier Valentin S. Pavlov.

Also imprisoned are two top-ranking figures from the military-industrial complex, Oleg D. Baklanov and Alexander I. Tizyakov; former Politburo member Oleg S. Shenin; army Gen. Valentin I. Varennikov; two officials from the KGB arm that was responsible for guarding Gorbachev, Yuri S. Plekhanov and Vyacheslav Generalov, and Anatoly I. Lukyanov, the former chairman of the Soviet Parliament who has been furiously writing poetry protesting his jailing.

One member of the eight-man committee, Soviet Interior Minister Boris K. Pugo, fatally shot himself when it was clear the coup was doomed.

Another, collective farm Chairman Vasily A. Starodubtsev of the Tula region, is said by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to have played only a minor role in the coup and was allowed to leave prison last month after signing a pledge not to leave Russia or engage in politics.

Two other putsch figures--former Gorbachev Chief of Staff Valery I. Boldin and KGB Gen. Viktor F. Grushko--have been removed from prison because of bad health; they have not yet been charged. Boldin, now hospitalized, is said to be very sick with cancer.