A junta that lasted 72 hours
Duration as the fact.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale55
Intensity28
Duration12
Tech shift18
Political impact90
Cultural memory65
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many died?
Three civilians in Moscow on 21 August are the named dead of the street events. The systemic "death" was the union, not a battlefield.
Who was in the GKChP?
Gennady Yanayev (vice-president), Dmitry Yazov (defence), Vladimir Kryuchkov (KGB), Boris Pugo (interior) and others -- a committee of the centre's last cadres.
What did Yeltsin do?
As RSFSR president he denounced the committee, used the White House as a platform, and became the televised face of resistance. That did not make him the sole cause of failure.
Why did it fail?
Hesitation to use decisive force, elite splits, republic resistance, a public that would not treat the committee as legitimate, and plotters who looked unsure on television. This is analysis of a past failure, not a manual.
Did it end the USSR?
It accelerated an end already underway. Formal dissolution was 26 December 1991.
A three-day political-military emergency in one city, with a union-wide audience.
There was no long campaign -- that is the point in this atlas's intensity score.
Principles
Union legitimacy wrecked
The centre could not claim emergency successfully.
December follows August
Acceleration, not a solo cause.
Union treaty
The 20 August signing the plotters meant to stop. Read as a 19-21 August 1991 concept in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics.
Belovezha
8 December accords that dissolved the union in practice. Not a present instruction.
Steps
- Yeltsin elected RSFSR president
1991-06: A rival legitimacy in Moscow.
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
- Union treaty scheduled
1991-08-20: The fuse the GKChP named.
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
- Committee announces
1991-08-19-am: Tanks; Gorbachev "ill."
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
- Yeltsin on the tank
1991-08-19: The photograph of the three days.
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
- Standoff
1991-08-20: Crowds; units hesitate.
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
- Three dead; collapse
1991-08-21: Tunnel incident; committee flees the stage.
A past political-military date in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics -- history of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not a method for seizing a capital.
Diagrams
From Yeltsin elected RSFSR president (1991-06) through Three dead; collapse (1991-08-21) to USSR flag down (1991-12-26) in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics. One sequence, not a staff overlay.
Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR president) and Boris Yeltsin (RSFSR president) sit at the centre of most English accounts; Nursultan Nazarbayev and Stanislav Shushkevich correct the usual photograph.
Limits
Source limits
Figures such as "three civilians dead in Moscow; the USSR dissolved by December -- a low-body-count, high-system event" stay in ranges because records are incomplete, political, or still closed. How many died? is answered as a band.
No how-to
Soviet 1991 coup attempt is political-military history. This page does not teach how to move units through a capital or how to seize a ministry.
Memory bias
English-language fame of Soviet 1991 coup attempt and local memory in Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics are not the same map. Stanislav Shushkevich is often the correction the first photograph drops.
No storming-the-White-House diagram will appear here. The storm did not happen; the committee fell anyway.
Television was a field of the three days.