In early October 1993, people poured into the streets of Moscow, tanks drove in, the White House building was on fire, snipers fired, people died. In mid-November 2013, people poured into the streets of Kiev, in February 2014 the building of the House of Trade Unions was on fire, snipers fired, people died. Much in common? More likely no than yes.
As they say, feel the difference: in Moscow, the so-called elite fought for power - two branches of government - in Kiev, the citizens of their country took to the streets to protest against a corrupt government that violated an agreement with the people who elected it and perverted the Constitution. In Moscow, the people of Russia did not put forward any demands on any of the branches of government. In Kiev, citizens of Ukraine immediately put forward a number of conditions, and, from the President and deputies elected by them, demanded that they be met.
Moscow
By the fall of 1993, the confrontation between President of Russia Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation, headed by speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, reached its zenith. Each of the parties tried to monopolize power. As popular wisdom says: "which party in Russia you do not create, you will still get the CPSU." Each of the parties strove to create its own "CPSU", to completely usurp power in its hands and thus control the country and, most importantly, its resources. At the end of September, Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1400 on direct presidential rule, thereby translating the mechanism of discussion confrontation into a violent one. Yes, a huge number of people took to the streets to support Boris Yeltsin, but on the same streets there were a considerable number of supporters and defenders of the White House. And the order to shoot snipers of his defenders is still many can not forgive Yeltsin.
Kiev
On the first night of the confrontation in Kiev Maidan, at the call of the journalist Mustafa Nayyem, according to various estimates, two to five thousand angry citizens of Ukraine came out. It was in this way that a “popular veche” was formed, which considered that the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, who refused to sign an agreement with the EU on European integration under Russian pressure, thereby betrayed his people. The Popular Council demanded a return of agreements with the EU, the resignation of Yanukovych and the government, and a return to the 2004 Constitution, which provides for a parliamentary republic, not a presidential one. It must be recalled that, having come to power, Viktor Yanukovych changed the Constitution of Ukraine "for himself." Neither that night nor later, even his associates in the Party of Regions sided with Yanukovych.
Moscow
Moscow in October 1993 plunged into chaos and anarchy for several days - into a civil war of a local - Moscow - scale. By and large, neither of the opposing sides controlled either the power structures or the citizens of their country. Employees of the Alpha unit refused to comply with Yeltsin’s order to storm the White House, but regular military units came to the rescue, who fired from large-caliber guns, after which a fire broke out.
Ruslan Khasbulatov and Vice President of Russia Alexander Rutsky failed to organize any effective force support. By and large, according to eyewitnesses, everything was decided by the case, although for B. Yeltsin both a helicopter and an escape plan were ready.
But history does not know the subjunctive mood and Boris Yeltsin managed to carry out a coup d'etat, crushing all branches of power under himself, creating a convenient constitution "for himself", excluding parliamentary-presidential government. All this happened under the loud assurances of the need for liberal reforms. Russia embarked on the path of personalism, almost autocracy. The deaths of 157 people who died in those days have not yet been investigated.
