Japan found itself in the enviable position of being among the first nations to learn that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had survived a failed coup attempt by Communist hard-liners in 1991 before the country collapsed under the weight of his reform programs.

A confidential telegram on the issue from a diplomat with close ties to conservatives in the regime was among a cache of declassified documents released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry on Dec. 21. Records on policy issues are generally released annually around this time of year once 30 or so years have elapsed since the events.

The scoop came from Masaru Sato, now famous as a writer but then a diplomat working at the Japanese Embassy in Moscow.

His report starts with the sentence, “Sato visited the Central Committee of Russia’s Communist Party at 2:30 p.m. on the 20th to exchange opinions with the No. 2 secretary (Alexey) Ilyin.”

The previous day, Aug. 19, the coup leaders consisting of top military and civilian officials, including Vice President Gennady Yanayev, the defense minister and the chairman of the Committee for State Security (KGB), formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency and announced they were taking full control of the government.

Gorbachev was said to be unable to deal with his duties for “health reasons.”

This marked a brazen move by conservative forces in the Communist Party to oust Gorbachev, who was forging ahead with policies to reform the sluggish socialist state by easing up on the party’s dictatorial ways.

As the president of Russia, the largest nation among the 15 republics constituting the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin denounced the conservatives’ move as a coup, and said that Gorbachev was placed under house arrest during his stay in the Crimea in Ukraine.

On the night of Aug. 19, however, U.S. President George H.W. Bush told Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu over the phone that nobody in his administration knew where Gorbachev actually was or if indeed he was still alive.

Governments and news agencies were frantically scrambling to get word of his fate.

As an influential figure in the Russian Communist Party, Ilyin was critical of Gorbachev, who died in Moscow last August at the age of 91 after a prolonged illness, and radical reformist Yeltsin, fearing they would shake socialism.

Sato, now 62, had formed close ties with Ilyin and bluntly asked him for any news that may have reached him from the coup side.

In the report, Sato wrote: “(When I asked the whereabouts of Gorbachev) he said he received a report from the state of emergency committee that stated he continued relaxing at a villa in the Crimea. (Asked whether he is really alive) the answer was yes. He said he was informed that (Gorbachev’s) conscious level was normal.”

ALL OVER IN DAYS

Sato returned to the Japanese Embassy to work on the telegram, which arrived in the Foreign Ministry just after midnight Japan time.

An Asahi Shimbun article in the final Tokyo morning edition on Aug. 21 stated that “President Gorbachev is still missing.” The Soviet presidential spokesman eventually announced around 4:30 p.m. Tokyo time that Gorbachev was safe in the Crimea.

As the top article on the edition’s front page reported on “tanks turning out,” “protests continuing amid political unrest” and “growing tension in front of a Russian government building,” Sato also scored a noteworthy scoop, courtesy of his Aug. 20 meeting with Ilyin.

“I heard citizens showed a positive response to the state of emergency committee’s call Aug. 19, but that there was room today on Aug. 20 for Yeltsin and others from the so-called democratic wing to take countermeasures,” Sato wrote in his report. “The final outcome will allegedly surface in a few days to come.”

Ilyin explained that the communist party’s statement would be released in the Russian Communist Party’s official newspaper on Aug. 21--and the Soviet Communist Party’s mouthpiece if possible--in support of the state of emergency committee.

“Harvests would not be able to be reaped properly this fall under the Gorbachev administration,” Ilyin was quoted by Sato as saying. “That would lead to the people’s starvation or render the Soviet Union a third-class nation that has no choice but to rely on assistance from other countries.”

The envisioned statement, however, did not appear in the two official papers. The state of emergency committee was dissolved in the evening of Aug. 21.

Gorbachev returned by aircraft from the Crimea to Moscow early on the morning of Aug. 22. He held a news conference in the evening to express his intention to devote himself to reform of the Soviet Union, working with Yeltsin.

But after the vice president and other aides rose in revolt, Gorbachev found he was unable to exert strong political influence like before. He saw his reform program stagnate.

The three Baltic states became independent. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in December announced plans to set up the Commonwealth of Independent States, insisting “the Soviet Union has been finished.”

Other member nations followed suit, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union toward the end of 1991.

TELEGRAMS TO DISPEL OPTIMISM

About 30 official telegrams sent by Sato to Tokyo on the attempted Soviet coup were found among the latest batch of released diplomatic documents. Sato recounted how he managed to secure such an accurate source of information.

“Japanese Ambassador Sumio Edamura told me to reach out to conservatives, because it was difficult for him to deepen connections with those opposing Gorbachev’s reform given his post.”

From the outset of the coup, the Japanese government kept its fingers crossed that Gorbachev would prevail.

“I kept on sending telegrams to prevent Tokyo from becoming too optimistic,” Sato said.

His meeting with Ilyin proved to be the turning point in the global quest to learn what, if anything, had happened to Gorbachev.

The receipt of a “report from the state of emergency committee” that Gorbachev was fine in the Crimea meant Ilyin was in contact with the coup headquarters.

Sato said he asked whether Gorbachev had been “killed” although he made no mention of this conversation in his cable traffic to Tokyo.

“He (Ilyin) said he was alive,” said Sato. “He added he was suffering from serious ‘radikulit.’”

The word was unfamiliar to Sato. As he was not allowed to take notes, Sato tried hard to memorize its pronunciation. Checking his dictionary afterward, Sato learned the term refers to acute lower-back pain.

“I wanted to return to the Japanese Embassy as soon as possible to report,” Sato recalled. “But Mr. Ilyin was summoned as he was meeting with me during a gathering of the Russian Communist Party.”

Ilyin left the session again 20 minutes later and presented Sato with five or so sheets of paper with handwritten notes, saying, these “are being discussed right now.”

“Among them were the draft statement scheduled for release the next day in the party’s official newspaper in support of the state of emergency committee,” said Sato.

Sato saw Ilyin a month afterward and asked him why the conservative had shared such sensitive data with him, particularly in light of the fact he was a diplomat from a nation that is a close ally of the United States.

Ilyin was quoted as saying: “I knew you will report to the Japanese government. But men feel a desire to convey truths to others under critical circumstances. And there are two types of men: ones resorting to expedients and those working honestly. The former can often be discovered in the Communist Party. I wanted to convey them to the latter. Looking around, I found you.”

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This article is a part of a series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry in December 2022.