1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt

During the August coup in Moscow from August 18 to 21 In 1991, the State Committee for the State of Emergency, a group of functionaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ), the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and tried to regain control of the country.

The leaders of the coup attempt were members of a conservative junta and communists of the Soviet Communist Party, in whose eyes the economic transformation went too far and a right deviation from communism its abolition mean. Furthermore, they feared the Gorbachev newly negotiated union contract giving the Republics of too much power. Although the coup attempt failed in just three days and Gorbachev was reinstated, the event made ​​Gorbachev hopes for the continuing existence, albeit decentralized state union destroyed and accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Background

Since 1985, Gorbachev took a reform program in the attack, which was significantly shaped by two key elements: the economic and political restructuring, known as perestroika and glasnost as the designated port to the population. However, these reforms attracted the rejection and the resistance of the left wing of the Communist Party in coming. The resistance to the reforms grew as the economic and political situation had deteriorated. In July 1991, the Open Letter " A word to the people," some Communist Party officials and men of letters was published, which was understood as an anti- Perestroika manifesto. Furthermore, both grew riot at the non-Russian minorities, who now saw the chance of a larger self-determination, as well as the fear of the Soviet regime, that some or all European Union countries would fall by the Soviet Union. After some negotiations, the republics agreed to a new union treaty that would make them independent republics in a federation with a common president, common foreign policy and common military. The contract should be signed on 20 August 1991. Although the contract should strengthen the Union, the Communists feared that now some smaller Member States, especially the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, would insist on complete independence.

Coup

On August 19, 1991, the day before Gorbachev and a group of the leaders of the republics States should sign the Treaty of Union, tried a group that State Committee for the State of Emergency ( GKTschP ) called himself, to seize power in Moscow. All parties had reached only under Gorbachev to their positions. Its members were:

• Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, Vice- President of the USSR
• Dmitri Timofejewitsch Yazov, Defense
• Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov, Chairman of the KGB
• Valentin Sergeyevich Pavlov, Prime Minister
• Boris Karlovich Pugo, Minister of the Interior
• Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov, member of the Central Committee of the CPSU
• Vasily Alexandrovich Starodubzew, chairman of the Farmers' Association
• Alexander Ivanovich Tisjakow

Other co-sponsors of the coup were:

• Valentin Varennikov, Army General, Deputy Secretary of Defense
• Oleg Shenin, a full member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU
• Valery Boldin, Head of the Central Committee of the CPSU
• Yuri Plekhanov, KGB general and head of the security services

The group announced that Gorbachev was ill and therefore was released from his political offices. The vice president and coup leader Gennady Yanayev was appointed interim president.

Gorbachev himself was at the beginning of the coup attempt on holiday in Foros in the Crimea peninsula. There he was fixed and isolated after he refused to give his consent to the imposition of emergency and transferring its powers to the Vice President on the afternoon of August 18 to August 21. He remained there three days later by the end of the coup.

In Moscow and Leningrad was followed by large demonstrations against the coup leaders. The coup was not successful because there was a lack of loyalty of the armed forces against the rebels. Consequently, it was the resistance that was led mainly by the president of the Russian republic Boris Yeltsin from the government building, the White House, against the coup, do not be dejected. During one of these demonstrations condemning Yeltsin, with a megaphone standing on a tank, the attempted coup effectively. Before tens of thousands of protesters who had gathered outside the parliament, he climbed on a tank and called for the return of Gorbachev. At the same time he asked the soldiers: " Do not become blind to the weapon of the criminal intent of adventurers! " This performance, which was a great contrast to Janajews so half-hearted televised speech, was one of the most memorable events of the coup and strengthened Yeltsin's position.

A planned attack on the government building by ALFA troops, the military special operations unit of the KGB, failed when the members of the special unit unanimously refused to obey. A defected to the government side Panzerschwadron surrounded the government building, directed the arms outward. In the surrounding streets there were confrontations, including three protesters were run over by a tank. All things considered however, there was surprisingly little violence. About Glasnet and the connected mailbox networks current situation reports were sent into the world.

On 21 August, the majority of the troops openly confessed to the demonstrators who were remaining subtracted. The coup failed, and Gorbachev returned to Moscow. Relatively powerless he then promised only to clean the CPSU from conservative forces. By a decree Yeltsin banned the CPSU was then in the field of Russian republic. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU, but remained president of the Soviet Union. Also, the KGB was abolished in October. The coup leaders were dismissed from their posts and imprisoned. Most of them were released from 1992 /1993. Interior Minister Pugo committed suicide.

Result

After the coup, the Soviet Union fell apart for good. Non- Russian former republics declared one after another their independence from the USSR. The strengthened Yeltsin took control of the media and key ministries. Gradual dismantled and he ousted Gorbachev, the until his resignation on December 25, 1991 senior officials of the former superpower. Finally, in late 1991 it was decided the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It remained now 15 sovereign states of the Union. The legal successor of the USSR took over, under Yeltsin's leadership, the Russian Federation.