Soviet 1991 coup attempt (1991): Standoff

The 19-21 August 1991 failed GKChP seizure that hastened the Soviet Union's end -- a junta that collapsed in three days. In the early hours of 19 August 1991 a self-styled State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) announced that Mikhail Gorbachev was "unable" to govern and that it would run the Soviet Union. Tanks entered Moscow. Gorbachev was isolated at Foros in Crimea. The committee -- Yanayev, Yazov, Kryuchkov, Pugo and others -- opposed the union treaty scheduled for 20 August that would have recast the USSR as a looser federation.

Boris Yeltsin, president of the RSFSR, climbed on a tank outside the White House (the Russian parliament) and framed the committee as a junta. Military units hesitated; some crews fraternised with crowds. Three civilians died in a tunnel incident on the 21st. The committee collapsed. Pugo died by suicide; others were arrested.

The failed coup did not restore the Soviet order it claimed to save. It destroyed the centre's remaining legitimacy. Ukraine's independence referendum, the Belovezha accords, and the USSR's formal end on 26 December 1991 followed. English memory is Yeltsin-on-a-tank and CNN. Intensity was low; political impact in this atlas is among the highest. This is not a guide to seizing a capital.