Soviet Union: The failed August 1991 coup
In August 1991 reactionary communists opposed to reform of the crisis-hit Soviet Union attempted a coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev as he holidayed in the Crimea.
They failed thanks to resistance led by the president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.
The coup was the last nail in the coffin of 70 years of communism. The fate of the USSR had been sealed.
- Army columns roll into Moscow -
The capital was waking up at 6:20 am on Monday August 19 when the official Soviet news agency Tass announced that Gorbachev could no longer perform his duties as president because of "health reasons". He had been replaced by vice president Gennady Yanayev.
The Soviet leader was on holiday at the time in Crimea, on the Black Sea.
The plotters set up a "state committee on the state of emergency" invested with all power. The first columns of armoured vehicles and trucks were already converging on Moscow.
The goal of the coup plotters was to bring perestroika and glasnost to an end. Gorbachev's reforms aimed at reforming and liberalising the USSR had undermined the communist party's domination and led the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse.
- Yeltsin on a tank -
The new leadership immediately censored the press.
Nevertheless, telephone links with overseas were still operational and the international airport remained open. The streets were calm and queues formed as usual in front of the shops.
In a sign that an unusual event was underway, television replaced their usual programmes with a programme of ballet "Swan Lake".
From the outset Yeltsin led the resistance. Shortly before midday, holed up in the "White House" Russian parliament now cut off by tanks, he denounced a right-wing, reactionary and anti-constitutional coup.
The highly popular Russian leader defied the coup leaders to demand that Gorbachev be allowed to address the people.
As people headed to Manezh Square at the foot of the Kremlin, Yeltsin standing on a tank, launched into a rousing call for a general strike and civil disobedience. Images of the orator galvanising the crowd were beamed around the world.
- Rallies and barricades -
Around the White House thousands of Muscovites erected makeshift barricades to protect the building.
Trolleybuses, railings and old pipes: all were in place to prepare for the feared attack by the security services who were loyal to the coup plotters.
As night fell demonstrators remained gathered in front of the Russian seat of power. Local residents brought sandwiches and tea.
On the morning of August 20, those still inside the building distributed bulletproof vests, helmets and gas masks.
They included parliamentarians, ministers, artists and musicians, including the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who had arrived from Paris. Sporadic gunfire erupted in the area.
On the ground, three military units sided with Yeltsin, and flew the Russian flag which had become the symbol of the resistance.
Groups of parliamentarians fanned out among the barracks of the Moscow region as they sought to convince officers to join up with Yeltsin.
The demonstration in support of Yeltsin gathered more than 50,000 people under the walls of the Russian parliament, despite the regular passage of columns of tanks in the streets of the capital.
- Intense day -
Towards two in the morning, Yeltsin was joined by the former Soviet foreign minister Edouard Shevardnadze, to wild applause from the crowd.
The feared attack did not materialise, but three young men nonetheless died in clashes with a column of tanks they were trying to block.
An intense day got underway on Wednesday August 21, with the decision of the Russian parliament to bring Gorbachev back from Crimea.
The defence ministry ordered the return of troops to barracks. The military presence around sensitive points in Moscow was eased, censorship and the curfew lifted, and the decrees of the coup leaders annulled.
Television resumed its broadcasts, and showed the Russian parliament in session.
In the meantime, Estonia and Latvia had proclaimed their independence.
From his dacha in Foros, President Gorbachev said he was "completely in control of the situation". After three days of uncertainty the coup had failed.
- Return of Gorbachev -
Overnight Gorbachev returned to the Kremlin but he was weakened in every sense. The people he had chosen to work with had betrayed or abandoned him, the army had been shaken and the party hesitated.
In his role as the real master of power, Yeltsin banned the Russian Communist Party and sidelined Gorbachev. On December 8, Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia proclaimed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. Gorbachev went on to resign on December 25.
The main rebels have been arrested, and two of them committed suicide. They later benefited from a parliamentary amnesty and one of them was cleared in 1994 by a court which considered that he had acted to preserve the interests of the former Soviet Union.