Boriss Pugo
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Boris Karlovich Pugo, OAN (Latvian: Boriss Pugo, Russian: Борис Карлович Пуго; 19th February, 1937 – 22nd August, 1991) was a Soviet politician of Latvian origins.
Pugo was born in Kalinin, Russian SFSR (now Tver, Russia) into a family of Latvian communists who had left Latvia after Latvia was proclaimed an independent country in 1918 and the Communist side was defeated in the war that followed. His family returned to Latvia after the Soviet Union occupied and annexed it in 1940.
Pugo graduated from Riga Polytechnical in 1960 and worked in various Komsomol, Communist Party and Soviet government positions, both in Latvia and Moscow. His positions between 1960 and 1984 included the first secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol of the Latvian SSR, a secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol of the USSR, the First Secretary of the Riga City Committee of the Communist Party, and chairman of the KGB in Latvia.
Pugo was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Latvia from April 14, 1984 to October 4, 1988. Pugo also served as chairman of the Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991.
Between 1990 and 1991, he was the Minister of Interior Affairs of the USSR. He participated in the August Coup in 1991 and, as the Minister of the Interior, firmly supported measures to suppress opposition to the coup. After the coup failed, Pugo committed suicide in his Moscow apartment, realizing that his arrest was imminent. He was contacted by the RSFSR prosecution for a meeting and shot himself minutes after the phone call. His wife Valentina Ivanovna also committed suicide, although sources from the time were uncertain as to whether she killed herself or was killed by her husband.