The August Coup of 1991
How hardliners tried to reverse Gorbachev's reforms — and how their failure accelerated the Soviet Union's end.
Three Days in August
On August 19, 1991, a group of hardline Communist officials launched a coup against Gorbachev. The self-proclaimed 'State Committee on the State of Emergency' placed Gorbachev under house arrest at his vacation dacha in Crimea and declared a state of emergency. Tanks rolled into Moscow.
The plotters included the vice president, the defense minister, the KGB chief, and the interior minister — on paper, they controlled the entire apparatus of Soviet power. But they were indecisive, poorly organized, and badly misjudged public sentiment. Rather than submitting, tens of thousands of Muscovites took to the streets to resist. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Soviet republic, climbed atop a tank outside the Russian parliament (the White House) and denounced the coup — an image that defined his political career.