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Gorbachev's revolution from above was spinning out of control by the fall of 1990, and former supporters of the Soviet president feared that democracy would soon fall victim to social chaos and political conservatism. Ter-Petrosian was wary about Gorbachev's efforts to renew the Soviet federation through the signing of a new union treaty. While visiting the United States in September, he made it clear that he favoured a confederation of equal, sovereign states. 92

While Gorbachev struggled to stave off the collapse of his state, the Armenians parliament, led by HHSh, refused to participate in the referendum on the union treaty. At the beginning of March, the Armenian Supreme Soviet announced that the republic would hold its own referendum on September 21 to comply with Soviet law on secession. Through the spring Armenia paid a high price for its moves toward independence. In May, Soviet paratroops landed, without notifying the Armenian government, at Yerevan airport to protect Soviet defence installations in Armenia. Fighting broke out on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Armenians accused Soviet troops once again of deporting Armenians from Getashen (Chaikend) and Martunashen in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis claimed that only documents were being checked and that armed militias were in the area, but eyewitnesses told of beatings and people being forced to sign documents that they were willing to leave their villages. Ter-Petrosian issued a statement in May 6: "To all intents and purposes, the Soviet Union has declared on Armenia." 91 Voskepar, a village inside Armenia in the Novemberyan district, was destroyed by invading MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) troops under Azerbaijani control. Combat continued in the Goris district, where hostile soldiers entered six villages. In retaliation, Armenians in Dilijan disarmed sixty Soviet soldiers and held them hostage.

On the morning of August 19, the world awoke to hear the stunning news that a self-proclaimed Emergency Committee had overthrown Gorbachev and taken control of the Soviet government. For three tense days the forces loyal to Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the democratic movement withstood the threats from the conservative leaders of the army, KGB, and the party. In his Crimean isolation Gorbachev refused to give in to the coup organisers, and after a strained stalemate the army and police refused to obey the plotters. The coup collapsed, but with it so did the last hopes of a union treaty.

While Azerbaijan's Communist boss Ayaz Mutalibov had welcomed the coup, and Georgia's president Zviad Gamsakhurdia had vacillated, Ter-Petrosian resolutely opposed the plotters. He believed that Gorbachev's personnel blunders, indecisiveness, and concessions to the conservatives were to blame for the coup. Armenian leaders hoped that a more powerful Russia under Boris Yeltsin would provide the economic and political support that the central government under Gorbachev had denied them. At the same time there was an awareness that some kind of relationship, particularly in the realm of economics, was essential between Armenia and whatever remained of the Soviet Union.



Within the first two months of the failed coup, Armenians went to the polls twice: the first time on September 21, to reaffirm the commitment to independence; the second time on October 16, to elect Levon Ter-Petrosian president of the republic. Receiving 83 percent of the votes cast, Ter-Petrosian now had a popular mandate to carry out his vision of Armenian independence and self-sufficiency.