During the Soviet Coup of 1991, also known as the August Putsch or August Coup, a group of hardliners within the Soviet Communist party briefly deposed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and attempted to take control of the country. The coup leaders were conservatives who felt that Gorbachev's reform program had gone too far and that a new union treaty that he had negotiated dispersed too much of the central government's power to the republics. Although the coup collapsed in only three days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event crushed the Soviet leader's hopes that the union could be held together in at least a decentralized form. A coup détat (pronounced ), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a smaller supposedly weaker body that just replaces the top power figures. ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Socialist republics/ Communist state Area  - Total  - % water Largest on the planet 22,402,200 km² ?% Population  - Total  - Density 3rd before collapse 293,047,571 (July... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All... Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov (Gorbachev) â–¶ (Russian: ; pronunciation: ) (born March 2, 1931), was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. ...

Background

Since assuming power in 1985, Gorbachev had embarked in an ambitious program of reform, embodied in the twin buzzwords perestroika and glasnost, signifying economic/political restructuring and openness, respectively. These moves prompted resistance and suspicion on the part of conservative members of the Communist system. The reforms also unleashed some forces and movements that Gorbachev did not expect. Specifically, nationalist agitation on the part of the Soviet Union's non-Russian minorities grew, and there were fears that some or all of the union republics might secede. After some negotiation, the republics agreed to a new union treaty that would make them independent republics in a federation with a common president, foreign policy, and military. The treaty was to be signed on August 20, 1991. Though the treaty was intended to save the union, hardliners feared that it would encourage some of the smaller republics, particularly Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, to press for full independence. Perestroika   listen? (Перестро́йка) is the Russian word (which passed into English) for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ... Glasnost (Russian: гла́сность, â–¶(?)) was one of Mikhail Gorbachevs policies introduced to the Soviet Union in 1985. ... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... In its final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR), often called simply Soviet republics. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The August Coup

Yeltsin (far left) stands on a tank to defy the coup.

On August 19, 1991, the day before Gorbachev and a group of republic leaders were due to sign the new union treaty, a group calling itself the State Emergency Committee (Государственный Комитет по Чрезвычайному Положению, ГКЧП) attempted to seize power in Moscow. The group announced that Gorbachev was ill and had been relieved of his state post as president. Gorbachev was vacationing in the Crimea when the coup began, and remained confined there for its duration. Soviet Union vice president Gennady Yanayev was named acting president. The committee's eight members included KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Defense Minister Dmitriy Yazov, and Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, all of whom had risen to their posts under Gorbachev. Image File history File links Boris Yeltsin (far left) stands on a tank to defy the 1991 coup. ... Image File history File links Boris Yeltsin (far left) stands on a tank to defy the 1991 coup. ... August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: â–¶(?)) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva. ... Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev (Янаев, Геннадий Иванович in Russian) (born August 26, 1937), Russian politician and statesman. ... The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language acronym for the Committee for State Security, (Russian: â–¶(?); transliteration: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), and was the umbrella organisation name for (i) the principal Soviet internal Security Agency, (ii) the principal... Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov (Владимир Александрович Крючков in Russian) was born in Volgograd in 1924. ... Boris Karlovich Pugo (Russian: Бори́с Ка́рлович Пу́го) (February 19, 1937 _ August 22, 1991, in Moscow, also spelled Boriss Pugo) was a Latvian (Russian_born) Communist political figure. ... Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov (Язов, Дмитрий Тимофеевич in Russian) (born 1924), Russian military figure, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1990). ... Valentin Sergeyevich Pavlov (September 26, 1937 - March 30, 2003) was the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union from January to August 1991. ...

Large public demonstrations against the coup leaders took place in Moscow and Leningrad, and divided loyalties in the defense and security establishments prevented the armed forces from crushing the resistance that Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin led from the White House, Russia's parliament building. A planned assault on the building by Alpha Group, the KGB's special forces, was aborted when the troops unanimously refused the order. A tank unit defected to the government's side and surrounded parliament, guns pointing outward. At one point during the demonstrations, Yeltsin stood on top of a tank to condemn the "junta". This image, broadcast throughout the world on television news, became one of the most enduring images of the coup, and strengthened Yeltsin's position immensely. There were confrontations in the nearby streets, including one where three protesters were crushed to death by tanks, but overall there was surprisingly little violence. On August 21, the great majority of troops sent to Moscow openly sided with the demonstrators or called off the siege. The coup collapsed, and Gorbachev—who had been held under house arrest at his dacha in the Crimea—returned to Moscow. Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград) usually refers to the name of the city which is now known as Saint Petersburg, Russia between 1924 and 1991. ... State motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Workers of the world, unite!) Official language None (Russian in practice) Capital Moscow (last) Chairman of the Supreme Council Boris Yeltsin Established In the USSR:  - Since  - Until November 7, 1917 December 30, 1922 December 12, 1991 Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 1st in former Soviet Union 17,075,200... Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin listen â–¶(?) (Russian: Борис Николаевич Ельцин) (born February 1, 1931) was President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. ... A member of the FSB Alpha Group, equipped with the silenced AS VAL assault rifle. ... Special forces or special operations forces are relatively small military units raised and trained for special operations missions such as Special Reconnaissance (SR), Unconventional Warfare (UW), Direct Action (DA), Terrorism (T), Counter-Terrorism (CT), and Foreign Internal Defense (FID). ... An aerial view of Parliament of India at New Delhi. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... In justice and law, house arrest is the situation where a person is confined (by the authorities) to his or her residence. ... Dacha â–¶(?) (Russian: да́ча) is a name for summer home or vacation house in Russia and CIS countries where people spend their summer holidays and grow fruit and vegetables for their own use. ... The Crimea /kraɪˈmia/ is a peninsula and an autonomous republic of Ukraine on the northern coast of the Black Sea. ...

Once back in Moscow, Gorbachev acted as if he were oblivious to the changes that had occurred in the preceding three days. As he returned to power, Gorbachev promised to purge conservatives from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He resigned as general secretary but remained president of the Soviet Union. The coup's failure brought a series of collapses of all-union institutions. Boris Yeltsin took control of the central broadcasting company and key economic ministries and agencies, and in November he banned the CPSU and the Russian Communist Party. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All... Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin listen ▶(?) (Russian: Борис Николаевич Ельцин) (born February 1, 1931) was President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. ...

The aftermath

By December 1991, all of the republics had declared independence, and negotiations over a new union treaty began anew. In September, the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been recognized by the Soviet Union, and "re-recognized" by the United States and other western democracies who throughout the era of Cold War had considered the 1940 Soviet annexation of the three Baltic nations illegal in the first place. For several months after his return to Moscow, Gorbachev and his aides made futile attempts to restore stability and legitimacy to the central institutions. In November seven republics agreed to a new union treaty that would form a confederation called the Union of Sovereign States. But Ukraine was unrepresented in that group, and Yeltsin soon withdrew to seek additional advantages for Russia. In the absence of the CPSU, there was no way to keep the Soviet Union together. From Yeltsin's perspective, Russia's participation in another union would be senseless because inevitably Russia would assume responsibility for the increasingly severe economic woes of the other republics. Look up December in Wiktionary, the free dictionary December is the twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... For the generic term for a high-tension struggle between countries, see cold war (war). ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

On December 8, Yeltsin and the leaders of Belarus (which adopted that name in August 1991) and Ukraine, Stanislav Shushkevich and Leonid Kravchuk, met at Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where they created the Commonwealth of Independent States and annulled the 1922 union treaty that had established the Soviet Union. Another signing ceremony was held in Alma-Ata on December 21 to expand the CIS to include the five republics of Central Asia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Georgia did not join until 1993; the three Baltic republics never joined. On December 25, 1991, a now-defeated Gorbachev announced his resignation as Soviet president; the red hammer and sickle flag of the USSR was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the tricolour flag of the Russian state; the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. Exactly six years after Gorbachev had appointed Boris Yeltsin to run the Moscow city committee of the party, Yeltsin now was president of the largest successor state to the Soviet Union. December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Note: as an adjective (stressed on the second syllable instead of the first), august means honorable. ... Stanislav Stanislavovich Shushkevich (Belarusian: Станісла́ў Станісла́вавіч Шушке́віч; StanisÅ‚aÅ­ StanisÅ‚avavič Å uÅ¡kievič) (b. ... Leonid Kravchuk in Kiev, August 1992 Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk (uk: Леонід Макарович Кравчук; born 10 January 1934) is a Ukrainian politician. ... Victory Square, the central place of Minsk Minsk or Miensk (Belarusian: ; Russian: ) is the capital and a major city of Belarus with a population of 1. ... Flag of the CIS The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (in Russian: Содружество Независимых Государств (СНГ) - Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv) is a confederation, or alliance, consisting of 11 former Soviet Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Almaty (Алматы; formerly known as Alma-Ata, also Verny, Vyernyi (Верный) in Imperial Russia) is a city in Kazakhstan, with a population of 1,168,000. ... December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... December 25 is the 359th day of the year (360th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 6 days remaining. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The succession of states theory asserts that all possessions and territory held by a state are automatically transferred to the successor state, the state which succeeds it. ...

See also

• History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)