The 19-21 August 1991 failed GKChP seizure that hastened the Soviet Union's end -- a junta that collapsed in three days.
Educational history. Casualty figures are documented ranges. This is not operational advice, a ranking of nations, or a how-to for weapons or coups.
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.
Deep introduction
August 1991 was a failed emergency that became an accelerant -- the opposite of Chile 1973's successful seizure.
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.
Dated history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt (19-21 August 1991) in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics.
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02Historical forces and institutions of Soviet 1991 coup attempt -- not a live order of battle.
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03How Soviet 1991 coup attempt unfolded as historical sequence, not instruction.
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04Human and material cost of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, as documented ranges.
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05People and debates around Soviet 1991 coup attempt.
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06Afterlives and unresolved questions of Soviet 1991 coup attempt.
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07Maps, portrayals and rituals of Soviet 1991 coup attempt.
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