Soviet 1991 coup attempt (1991): Three dead; collapse

The Novo-Ogaryovo union treaty would have shifted power to republics. Hardliners in the KGB, army and cabinet chose a decree night rather than lose the centre on paper. Gorbachev's half-reforms had already hollowed the party's monopoly without building a new union consent. Yanayev's shaking hands on television became an icon of weakness. The plotters issued bans and then hesitated to storm the White House -- a political-military failure of nerve, recorded as fact, not as a lesson in "how to."

Republic leaders watched; some condemned, some waited. Gorbachev returned to a country that had moved past him. The Communist Party was suspended. Republics bolted. Yeltsin's personal myth was born on that armour -- a myth 1993 and the later 1990s would complicate. Belovezha (8 December) and the Alma-Ata protocol ended the USSR in law. The coup's irony is complete: it hastened the death it meant to prevent.

December stays dated: 1991-08-19 (Yeltsin on the tank) in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics. Dmitry Yazov (Defence minister) is a named witness -- The army name on the committee; units did not finish a seizure. Cost band: three civilians dead in Moscow; the USSR dissolved by December -- a low-body-count, high-system event. Encyclopedia, not a method.