The death of the regime was accompanied by a series of suicides. Marshal Akhromeyev, Gorbachev’s military adviser, was found dead with a rope around his neck and a stack of suicide notes on his desk. Pugo, the interior minister, shot himself and his wife minutes before investigators came to arrest him. A man who oversaw the finances of the Central Committee jumped out the window. There were a dozen other suicides in the first postcoup days.
