Armed coup d'etat. All the revolutions of the 21st century. How to build a new world

COUP D'ETAIL– a sudden, illegitimate change of government undertaken by an organized group to remove or replace the legitimate government. Coups are fraught with bloodshed, although they can be bloodless and can be carried out by military or civilian forces.

The fundamental difference between a coup and a revolution is that the latter is carried out as a result of protest actions (and in the interests) of a significant group of people, constituting a significant part of the country’s population, and leads to a radical change in the political regime, which is not prerequisite for a coup. In Russian, a number of foreign concepts are also used to denote this phenomenon:

Putsch(from German putsch) The German word “putsch” came into use after unsuccessful coup attempts in Germany (“Kapp Putsch” 1920 and “Beer Hall Putsch” by A. Hitler 1923). However, as researchers note, this concept carries a more negative evaluative nature and is applied mainly to attempts to seize power that are discredited in public opinion (for example, the State Emergency Committee in Russia).

Junta(from Spanish Junta - collegium, association) is a common designation for a military government that came to power as a result of a coup d'état (for example, the Pinochet junta).

In modern times, the nature of coups d'etat has undergone some changes. The coup of 18 Brumaire 1799 is considered classic, when Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory and came to power at the head of the provisional government. Changes in the constitution and political system carried out while maintaining old legal forms or gradually creating a new parallel constitution. There is even such a term as “ creeping coup d'etat“, when an illegitimate change of power does not occur overnight, but according to a scenario extended over time, as a result of multi-step political machinations. In any case, the goal of legitimizing the new government is achieved, which is trying in every possible way to disavow accusations of usurpation and present itself as a defender of “true” democracy against its enemies.

In the 20th century the theory of “coup d’état” was considered in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, becoming part of their revolutionary strategy. The greatest contribution to the comparative historical study of coup technology was made by the Italian Curzio Malaparte in his book Coup technique(1931). In it he proves that in modern mass society in conditions of a social crisis, the complex bureaucratic infrastructure of public administration simplifies the seizure of power by a political minority with the skillful use of special coup technology.

IN modern world The so-called “banana republics” - small and, as a rule, corrupt, economically underdeveloped states of Latin America and Africa - became especially famous for the instability of their political regimes and numerous successful and unsuccessful coup attempts. Military coups have even become a kind of business for some firms engaged in the recruitment of mercenaries who sell their services to warring parties in hot spots of the world (for example, only in 2004 there were two attempted armed coups in the Republic of the Congo). Among modern heads of state, the longest-living ones who came to power as a result of a coup are President Muammar al-Gaddafi, who overthrew the monarchy in Libya (1969), and Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff, who removed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (1999). One of the last putschs was a military coup in Mauritania in 2005, which removed the president, who in turn came to power illegally in 1984.

A coup d'etat or its attempt is an indicator of existing instability and distortions in the internal development of society. He talks about the weakness of democratic institutions and the underdevelopment of civil society, and the lack of functioning mechanisms for the transfer of power through legal means. In general, history shows that even a successful coup d'etat, as a rule, is fraught with long-term negative consequences for the entire society, is an artificial attempt to overtake or slow down the evolutionary development of the country and often leads to casualties and repression, as well as a boycott by the world community.

Mikhail Lipkin

armed seizure state power carried out by illegal, "unconstitutional" means and (as opposed to a revolution or insurrection) by the forces of a small group of people.

Great definition

Incomplete definition ↓

COUP D'ETAIL

(coup d´?tat) A sudden, violent, and illegal removal of government, usually by the military; It is often preceded by long-term mass unrest, and the immediate cause is a direct attack against the military. In most cases, a coup results in the replacement of one ruling group by another. It may be the first step towards a form of military government with more or less civilian participation (perhaps requiring the cooperation of government officials, professionals and members of the middle class, sympathetic politicians, parties and professional groups, say, peasant associations and trade unions). A coup d'état focuses on repairing military damage, so it usually does not lead to large-scale changes in the social order. More often than not, a coup d'état is presented as effective remedy preventing revolutionary changes “from below” by carrying out some transformations “from above”. However, military intervention rarely contributes to solving the accumulated socio-economic problems. It would be wrong to say that coups d'etat do not occur in advanced industrial countries, but they are extremely rare where the government, regardless of its popularity, exists on a legitimate basis and where regular and organized changes of administration are widely practiced. In Europe, cases of military intervention were provoked either by the failure of decolonization policies (France in 1958 and Portugal in 1974), or by rapid economic change and political polarization (Greece in 1967), or by the crisis of communism in Eastern Europe(Poland, 1981). The strengthening of the European Union, in which democracy is a prerequisite for membership, is also seen as a stabilizing factor. Moreover, here the military has constitutional means at its disposal to defend its corporate and professional interests. However, in developing and weak developed countries military intervention in politics was common until the 1980s. The nature and frequency of coups d'état vary by country and specific conditions. Latin America has the most "rich" since the birth of the republics; experience of military intervention in politics; They also happened in such relatively developed countries as Brazil, Chile and Argentina. In post-independence African countries, in the absence of a system of free and regular elections, and in an environment where governments are largely personalized, have limited power and have virtually no legal basis, coups d'état have quickly become a common means of replacing them. There are several different but related theoretical schools that study the nature and causes of coups d'état. Some try to explain them by social upheaval, economic decline, and political and institutional failures. According to this view, military intervention in politics stems from its response to intense social and political unrest in a society with little or minimal political culture. The military acts almost "in absentia", filling the vacuum of central power. Other researchers seek explanations for military intervention in politics in the military's organizational advantages (discipline, centralized command structure, cohesion) compared with civilian institutions in underdeveloped countries. In their view, interference in politics was likely born out of deep disillusionment with the civilian leadership, caused by its incompetence and corruption. Some people pay attention primarily to domestic policy armed forces, insisting that coups inspired by personal ambition, corporate interests, electoral rivalries and often violent manifestations of ethnic and group loyalties are more or less random. At the same time, the emergence in Latin America in the 1960s–80s authoritarian military regimes are attributed to a failed model of economic development based on the idea of ​​replacing imported goods with domestic goods and the need to attract large foreign investments to rebuild an export-based economy. The military was determined to remain in power to rebuild society and create favorable conditions for foreign investors. It is doubtful whether the complex and variable phenomenon in question can be explained by one or more variable factors. Meanwhile, military regimes themselves are increasingly concerned about how to exit the scene; how to step away from control without causing a new coup. Since the 1980s the situation has become even more aggravated due to the debt crisis and the tightening demands of creditor states to establish effective governance. International monetary organizations also began to press for the creation of multiparty democracy as a condition for continued aid. As a consequence of this, the number of military coup attempts in Third World countries has sharply decreased. This trend is especially noticeable in Latin America, but in other regions the military leadership continues to resist demands to give up power. But for example, in Ghana, the military agreed to hold elections and were again in power.

Coups and revolutions are always carried out with the aim of making fundamental changes to the existing state of affairs. However, the processes taking place are not identical in nature. How is a coup different from a revolution? Let's try to figure this out.

Definition

Coup d'etat– forcible replacement of the current leadership, carried out on the initiative of an organized group of people.

Revolution- a powerful process that entails radical transformations in the life of society, up to the complete destruction of the old social system and its replacement with a new one.

Comparison

In both cases, dissatisfaction with the established order is manifested. However, the difference between a coup and a revolution can already be seen in the goals pursued. The main intention of the instigators of the coup is to overthrow those who are at the helm of the state. At the same time, forces are brought in to seize the centers of concentration of power and carry out the physical isolation of the leaders who have acted up to this point. As a rule, everything happens quickly with the preliminary creation of a conspiracy.

Meanwhile, such a situation is not associated with global changes in the structure of society, while the goal of revolutionary actions is a profound qualitative transformation of the existing state system. If the efforts of Protestants are aimed at reorganizing the political regime, such a revolution is called, accordingly, political. When it comes to changing the entire social system, grandiose events are classified as social revolution.

The entire revolutionary process lasts quite a long time. First, unrest arises within the state, the cause of which is the infringement of the rights of people belonging to certain strata and classes of society. The process is developing, its dynamics are increasing, and the atmosphere is becoming increasingly tense. The logical conclusion is the revolution itself, often accompanied by bloodshed and transition to civil war.

So, revolution is a much larger phenomenon. It represents a movement of large masses of people, constituting a considerable part of the entire population of the country. The coup is not supported to that extent by popular support. A limited number of people participate in its planning and implementation. Sometimes the process is guided by some Political Party, which fails to get to power in the traditional way - through elections.

What is the difference between a coup and a revolution besides what has been said? The fact is that the latter occurs under the influence of a formed class ideology, capable of completely changing the consciousness of people. A coup, like a riot or an uprising, falls somewhat short of class ideological principles. In this respect it is much simpler.

Yesterday I again came across a character categorically broadcasting “Putinslil”, “Putin is a traitor”, “Novorossiyat” and similar mantras. I decided to figure out what motivates such characters. During the, ahem, “conversation” (on my part there were mostly malicious, I confess, questions, on his part there were streams of incoherent obscenities interspersed with threats against me) it turned out that the character is a “monarchist” and a supporter of the “Russian revolution”.

I did not find out what the “Russian revolution” is (everything is relatively clear there - “beat the Jews, Khachas and everyone else” and other racist-Nazi nonsense), but focused on “monarchism”. And he asked who he sees as the king. In response, I received a tearful story about how the Bolsheviks killed Nicholas II. I asked again: who will be the tsar if the “Russian revolution” wins. They sent me a portrait of Nicholas II. Then I clarified whether the character was going to clone the king or put him on the throne just like that, in the form of relics. After which hysteria ensued on his part and the character ran away to complain to his uncle, a hunter, who has a gun. A monarchist without a monarch is an even more pitiful creature than a European integrator without Europe.

This whole “extremely entertaining and meaningful” conversation gave me the idea to write about why I did not support the Kiev Maidan.

So, Letter from a professional revolutionary to the Maidanists(not only Ukrainian, but also Russian, because yesterday’s character was Russian).

I was a professional revolutionary for ten years. And he spent half of this time learning how to properly overthrow the government. I re-read all the available (and inaccessible, including from special storage) books on the theory of the coup d'état. He studied the works of the classics of revolutions, the successful experience of various countries and centuries, identified the reasons for the success of some and the failures of others, that is, he created a methodology for a coup d'etat.

My grandfather said: “If you do something, do it well. If you can’t do it well, don’t do it at all.” Therefore, I studied hard how to make coups correctly and efficiently. In my work I used the works of Auguste Blanca, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin, Curzio Malaparte, Edward Luttwak, Carlos Marigella, Ernesto Guevara and many others. I studied the notes of contemporaries, detailed descriptions events, memories of participants and even works of art dedicated to revolutions.

Based on this, I formed two fairly clear ideas: about how it should be done, and how it definitely shouldn’t be done. On the old Khvyla there was a whole series of my articles devoted to this.

In short, for a successful revolution you need:

1. Step-by-step reform programs in each industry.

2. Personnel reserve of revolutionary managers who will implement these reforms.

3. Analysis of possible threats and negative reactions from external players and detailed plans to neutralize these threats and achieve the status quo with external forces.

4. Revolutionary conditions - clearly according to grandfather Lenin; no one has formulated them better than him until now. All these “the top can’t, the bottom doesn’t want” and so on.

Until you have all four components, you cannot start. Because in this case it will turn out bloody, cruel, mediocre and senseless. Just like the Kyiv junta.

If you don't have a working plan for carrying out a coup, a lot of people will die in the process. During the October coup in St. Petersburg, only six people died. Six! And then, these were some kind of excesses, when one of the guards of the Provisional Government lost his nerve and started shooting, so they were forced to shoot him.

If you don't have an ideology that the whole country is ready to accept, then you will get a civil war. This is what happened in Ukraine, where one region went to Russia, two are waging an armed struggle to do the same, and several more are actually under internal occupation (like Odessa, into which several thousand armed punitive forces and a bunch of armored vehicles have been herded) .

If you do not have a clear reform program, then there will be a lot of talk about reforms, but there will be no real changes (except for the worse).

If you don’t have a personnel reserve, then you will have to attract various crooks from Georgia or the Baltic states who will do nothing, steal the money allocated to them and run away.

Moreover: if you do not have a clear positive program that is supported by all your supporters, then your team will break up into conflicting factions that will be more concerned with the war with each other than with the state of the state.

I will show the example of the same Bolsheviks, as the most well studied in our historiography. The Bolsheviks had been preparing for the revolution for 12 years, since the suppression of the 1905 uprising. And at the same time, back in January 1917, Lenin wrote that, most likely, there would be no revolution in Russia during his lifetime. That is, they were going to cook it for a long time.

The October Revolution for the Bolsheviks was a forced affair. It’s just that the liberals from the Provisional Government, after the February coup, so quickly destroyed all sectors and spheres of the economy and statehood of Russia that waiting longer meant the final collapse of the country and its absorption by Western empires.

For example, in just six months of its rule, the Kerensky government increased Russia’s external debt from 38 billion rubles in gold to 77 billion, that is, almost doubling!

In addition, the Provisional Government (Western liberals, what else can you expect from them!) continued Witte’s line of selling Russian industry and infrastructure to foreign capital. Naturally, in conditions of war and instability, this was done for pennies. Doesn't remind you of anyone? There is one in Kyiv, his name is Arseny Petrovich.

Add to this military defeats at the fronts, mass desertion (the number of deserters, according to some sources, exceeded a million people), and the real threat of famine.

During the six months of its rule, the Provisional Government (as it is now fashionable to say “kamikaze government”) achieved that everyone hated it: monarchists, socialists, soldiers at the fronts, workers in factories, and peasants in the rear.

Who introduced food appropriations? Liberal democrats-marketists in 1916 under the “Tsar-Father”! The Bolsheviks, at the first opportunity, replaced it with a “tax in kind.”

Despite all the listed complicating circumstances, the Bolsheviks were ready to carry out a coup d'etat an order of magnitude better than any forces today in Russia or Ukraine.

They had almost eight thousand Marxists. And a competent Marxist (not a person who simply calls himself one, but has read, studied and mastered the works of Marx and other economists) is already a ready-made economist-manager (proven by practice). Many of them also served in active military service and/or attended military academies. So they had a significant talent pool.

They had ready-made reform programs, they had a report from the Vernadsky Commission, they had programs to eliminate illiteracy and industrialization, they took the land reform project from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Also, they were not dogmatic fanatics, and quickly abandoned what did not work (for example, war communism) or introduced something new that did not even quite fit into the ideology, but actually worked (NEP).

And they carried out the coup so brilliantly that “on the morning of October 26, officers with young ladies arm in arm walked along the embankment, not even suspecting that the government had already changed.” Compare this with two months of mediocre and bloody standing on Grushevsky Street in Kyiv.

And, despite all this, there was still a civil war, there were multiple foreign military interventions, and the consequences also echoed in the Great Patriotic War in the form of various White Guard saboteurs and Vlasovites who served the Third Reich.

Understanding perfectly possible consequences(and repeatedly warning about them both in publications and in personal meetings with various “social activists”), I called for preparing a revolution in Ukraine, but was opposed to its implementation. Especially under the slogans of “Eurofreebies” and “Muscovites with knives.” It is difficult to imagine anything more contrary to my views than the Euromaidan. I wanted universal higher education, like in Japan (there are now 74% of the population with higher education, and this number is only growing), these are closing hundreds of universities. I wanted to improve the well-being of the people, these people are freezing pensions and salaries. I wanted new industrialization, these are finishing off existing production. I wanted the nationalization of the privatized (even a soft one, through a buyout), these are selling off the remnants of state property. I wanted subjectivity for Ukraine, these blindly carry out all the orders of the State Department. I have always believed that Ukrainians can only rely on themselves; they believed in “abroad will help us.” I believed that it is imperative to be friends with Russia - this is both in accordance with the behests of our ancestors and economically beneficial, these hated the “Muscovites”. There are no points of contact at all.

Compared to Yatsenyuk, Kolomoisky or Tymoshenko, even Yanukovych was “ice”. Just as you can criticize Putin for a long time, but compared to Khodorkovsky, Navalny, Kasyanov or Katz, he is simply a gift from heaven.

Every time someone shouts “It’s time to overthrow Plotnitsky in the LPR!”, I ask “Who will replace it?” And in response - silence. Okay, I know the locals there a little, I could suggest a couple of candidates, but these people don’t know anything at all, but they shout! Moreover, I believe that only Luhansk residents should determine who is in charge. But I have never seen such calls from Lugansk residents. They all come from somewhere deep in Russia! Bring Lyapkin-Tyapkin here! You give everything at once, and with a big spoon!

Every time someone shouts, “It’s time to overthrow Putin,” I ask, “Who will replace it?” A purely practical question, so as not to exchange an awl for soap and not get a pig in a poke. And in response - the same silence. Or they show such vile faces that you can’t help but spit. And the puppeteers of these processes prefer to hide in the shadows, bringing to light only clowns like Navalny on the liberal side, Kurginyan on the pseudo-left, or Nesmiyan on the “patriotic” side.

A striking example is the furious Russophobe Pan Prosvirnin, who previously wrote that he hates 95% of the inhabitants of Russia “for cattle” and that they need to be destroyed, then furiously welcomed the Maidan in Kyiv and suddenly began to sharply support Novorossiya. They don’t care what ideology they hide behind to achieve their goals and what they use as a pretext to overthrow the constitutional order in Russia.

And the options “first we’ll overthrow, then we’ll see” go straight to the garden. In Kyiv they have already “looked”: instead of a moderately thieving oligarch, bloody, dishonest bastards have come to power.

What, were there objective reasons for the immediate overthrow of Yanukovych? Was it worth drowning entire regions in blood for this? Was there famine in the country? Has the hryvnia exchange rate fallen three times? Was there a default? Were salaries not indexed? Have tariffs increased several times? Have human rights been abolished? Oh, no, all this happened after his overthrow, thanks to the efforts of the new “super-honest and democratic government.”

This is even more absurd in Russia. What, are there objective reasons for overthrowing Putin? Is the economy falling apart? No, it doesn't fall apart. Is external debt growing? No, it's shrinking. Maybe dependence on the West is growing? No, it's falling. Or does Russia not have a sovereign position in foreign policy? Yes, yes, such that Washington is in permanent hysterics.

Maybe Novorossiya has fallen? No, it’s standing, restoring production, repairing expensive ones and planting roses (really half of Donetsk is in flowers, beauty!). Or does anyone think that chaos and civil war in Russia will help Novorossiya? And without this, the overthrow of the constitutional order will not work. Does anyone other than bloody maniacs and scoundrels need it?

Over 15 years, the welfare of Russians has increased 4 times. This should be appreciated. Or have you forgotten what happened in the nineties? Oh, yes, the indignant schoolboy was still only in the project at that time! Why did the “thief and liar” Putin develop the economy, restore the army and interfere with the plans of his “partners”? Not a single “Putin leaker” will tell you this.

As I said before, I am a technocrat. And therefore, if I don’t see the presence of a working methodology, then I don’t do it.

Did the Kyiv Maidanists have reform programs? They still don’t exist, and they never will. Have they formed a personnel reserve? When I told them that this needed to be done, they brushed it off, “We have no time for that, we are busy throwing Molotov cocktails at the police.” Did they think about how other countries would react to an armed coup? At that time they were eating American cookies. Did they think about how the millions of Russians living in Ukraine would react to the “Muscovites with knives”? They were jumping and having fun.

Do Russian “anti-Putinists” have reform programs? All I've seen so far are pitiful semblances, without the slightest attempt at detail. Do they have a personnel management and technological reserve? There's not even a hint. Do they think about the consequences, what the US and other countries will do in the event of a coup? Not for a second.

You are not revolutionaries, lords of the Maidan of all colors, you are mediocre ragulians.

Alexander Rogers

In Russian, an illegitimate change of power can be described in different terms.

Academician Viktor Vinogradov in his book “The History of Words” argues that in the Russian literary language the word “coup” in the meaning of a change of power began to be used from the end of the 18th century, when it semantically became closer to the French word révolution (“reversal, rotation” and at the same time “revolution, coup d'état"). As the scientist writes, it was especially widely used in the language of the Decembrists, who began to use “coup” as a complete synonym for “revolution.” The new meaning of the word was reflected in the Dictionary of the Russian Academy in 1822: “A revolution is an unexpected and strong change in affairs and circumstances. The French coup shook the entire foundation of the state.”

The word “revolution” itself began to be widely used after the French Revolution of 1789. Although, according to some data, the borrowing of this word occurred even earlier from the Polish language (rewolucja). In particular, it is mentioned in the documents of the famous diplomat of the Peter I era, Baron Pyotr Shafirov.

The word “rebellion” comes to us from the Polish bunt (“rebellion, uprising”), which, in turn, goes back to the German Bund (“union”). It was first mentioned in the Nikon Chronicle of the 16th century: “Aki in ancient rebellion.”

Another borrowed German term was “Putsch,” which comes from a Swiss dialect and means “blow,” “collision.” The word came into use after the Zurich Putsch of 1839, when peasant unrest led to the dissolution of the cantonal government. However, it became widespread only in the 20th century. In particular, the “Beer Hall Putsch” in Germany in 1923 and the “August Putsch” in the USSR in 1991 went down in history.

Among the words close in meaning to “coup” are the words “rebellion,” “turmoil,” and “uprising.” Regarding the latter, the Brockhaus-Efron dictionary notes that although an uprising “denotes active resistance to the established government, carried out en masse,” it is not aimed at its overthrow, but “has the goal of resisting it in the person of its organs in a separate specific case.”

Until the 19th century, the Old Church Slavonic word “sedition” was widely used, mentioned in documents of the 13th–14th centuries and defined by Pamva Berynda’s dictionary (1627) as “rozrukh.” The last addition to the Russian revolutionary vocabulary was the word “Maidan.” According to the first meaning, this word of Turkic origin means a city square. However, after the events on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv in 2004 and 2014, it is increasingly used as a synonym for “color revolution”.

What types of coups are there?

A coup usually means a sudden change of power in a state in violation of existing legal norms and with the use or threat of violence.

In a narrow sense, coups include actions to seize power committed by a group of individuals within the ruling elite. For example, during monarchies, palace coups were widespread, during which close associates overthrew the monarch. Period Russian history The 18th century, between the death of Peter I and the accession to the throne of Catherine II, even went down in history as the “era of palace coups.” Their later analogue can be called party coups associated with reshuffles within the ruling party elite. In the 20th century, military coups became the most widespread, during which a group of military personnel, usually of high rank, came to power in the country. The regime they establish is usually called a military dictatorship. There were especially many military coups in the second half of the century, mainly in the countries of Africa and Latin America.

A broader interpretation also includes revolutionary upheavals in which the masses are involved. They often end with a change in the political system.

A separate category includes the so-called self-coup, which refers to the usurpation by one branch of government (usually the executive) of all powers in the country. Sometimes the actions of President Boris Yeltsin in dispersing the Supreme Council in 1993 are cited as an example of such a coup.

Finally, in Lately Various hybrid forms of revolutions arise. For example, the military who overthrew the ruler transfers power to the opposition or other representatives of the current government, or the military explains their actions by fulfilling the decisions of parliament and the Supreme Court.

The specific features of the 21st century are the “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet space and the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East and North Africa, as a result of which the opposition comes to power on the wave of popular protests. Most often, cases of a change of power as a result of a military invasion by external forces (for example, the operations of the international coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s) are not considered coups.

Revolutionary trends

According to Kommersant's estimates, with beginning of the XXI century, state leaders were removed from power 38 times by illegitimate or not entirely legitimate means.

Over the past 45 years, almost two hundred coups and revolutions have occurred in the world. If in 1970–1984 there were an average of six to seven cases per year, then in 1985–1999 there were four, and since 2000, an average of two per year. Among the unstable regions of the world, sub-Saharan Africa leads by a significant margin, accounting for almost half of all such incidents. Revolutionary activity in Latin America was high level in the 1970s - early 1980s, but then faded away. Asia's third place was largely due to Thailand, which entered the top 5 countries where coups occurred most often. During the reporting period there were seven of them, and since the beginning of the 1930s - 19. In addition, recent decades have been marked by an expansion of geography due to the inclusion of Oceania and the countries of the former USSR in the list.

As it turned out, in most cases of violent change of power, the military played a leading role. In addition, several other trends can be traced in the upheavals of recent decades. It is not uncommon for leaders who came to power as a result of a coup to subsequently repeat the fate of their predecessors. This happens especially often in African countries. There are also cases where leaders who seized power left and later returned to power through democratic means. For example, Olusegun Obasanjo, who ruled Nigeria in the 1970s as a military dictator, was elected in a legitimate election in 1999. In 2006 he returned to power in Nicaragua former leader"Sandinista National Liberation Front" Daniel Ortega.

Many ousted leaders face criminal prosecution in their home countries. Sentences can be severe, including the death penalty. The example of Egypt is notable for the fact that there are simultaneous trials going on there against Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown during the Arab Spring, and his successor, Mohammed Morsi. However, trials in such cases often take place in absentia because the defendants have found refuge abroad. As practice shows, for the majority of overthrown rulers the decision to leave the country immediately after the overthrow turned out to be not an unnecessary precaution.

But current heads of state should travel abroad as rarely as possible, because putschists could take advantage of their absence. This mistake cost the power of the leader of Mauritania Ould Taye, who left for the funeral of the Saudi king, the head of the Central African Republic Ange-Felix Patasse, who was away at the summit of African states, and the Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who participated in the UN General Assembly in New York. Although there are doubts about the latter: a number of media reported that the prime minister knew about the impending coup and went on a foreign tour with 114 suitcases on board the plane.

Ordered to stand down

The military often plays a decisive role in changing power through unconstitutional means. Since 1970, they have led or taken part in more than 70% of all coups.

Most often, the most senior military officers become putschists. In particular, 45 generals were included in our rating. The highest rank among the conspirators was held by Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachon, who established sole military rule in Thailand in 1971.

Middle and junior military personnel are also prone to such adventures. One can recall, for example, Muammar Gaddafi, who led a military coup in Libya with the rank of captain, after which he was promoted to colonel and retained this rank until the end of his life. Or Colonel Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who seized power in the Central African Republic and soon proclaimed himself emperor. Black colonel juntas staged coups in Greece in the 1960s and Cyprus in the 1970s.

For almost half a century, there have been two coups in the world, organized by sergeants. In 1980, a group of 16 military men led by Desi Bouterse seized power in Suriname. These events went down in history as the “conspiracy of the sergeants.” That same year, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe seized power in Liberia in a bloody coup that killed President William Tolbert and executed members of the government. However, the conspirator did not remain a sergeant for long - having headed the Council of People's Salvation, he promoted himself to general.

Authors and compilers of the reference book: Anna Tokareva, Olga Shkurenko, Maxim Kovalsky
Photo: Reuters, AP, Kommersant, Zuma
Design and layout: Alexey Dubinin, Anton Zhukov, Alexey Shabrov, Korney Krongauz
Production editor: Kirill Urban, Artem Galustyan