The head of administration of the Soviet Communist Party's policymaking Central Committee has committed suicide following last week's abortive coup, Tass news agency said Monday.
Nikolai Kruchina was the third senior figure in Soviet politics to have taken his life in the aftermath of the failed coup."The head of administration at the Central Committee, Nikolai Kruchina, has committed suicide. Tass has just learned this from competent sources," the agency said.
Kruchina presented the party budget to a party congress last year but was criticized by reformists who said it obscured many hidden assets and activities of the once all-powerful organization.
Interior minister Boris Pugo, a leading plotter, shot himself last week to avoid arrest after the coup collapsed.
Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, military adviser to Gorbachev, committed suicide Saturday. A Russian radio station said Akhromeyev, who has not been named publicly as a participant in the coup, left a note saying everything he had devoted his life to building was collapsing.