August Coup

The failed August 1991 attempt by Soviet hardliners to remove Mikhail Gorbachev, suspend political reforms, and preserve the Soviet Union under Communist Party rule.

State Committee on the State of Emergency: A group of Soviet officials that declared emergency rule during the August 1991 coup. Its members announced the takeover and claimed Gorbachev could no longer govern.
Perestroika: A program of political and economic restructuring pursued in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Its changes weakened established party controls and alarmed conservative officials.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The process that ended the Soviet Union as a state in December 1991. The coup weakened the central government and hastened the union’s final breakup.
Prague Spring: A 1968 Czechoslovak reform movement that Soviet-led forces ended by invading the country. Unlike the 1968 intervention, the August plotters could not secure effective military control.
Mikhail Gorbachev: The Soviet leader from 1985 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, associated with reforms including glasnost and perestroika. The plotters isolated him in Crimea and falsely announced his incapacity.
Glasnost: A policy of increased openness in public discussion and access to information in the Soviet Union. Public criticism and freer media made a return to strict control harder.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union: The ruling political party of the Soviet Union from its founding until 1991. After the coup, its activities were suspended in Russia and its authority rapidly collapsed.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956: A nationwide Hungarian uprising against Soviet-backed rule, crushed by Soviet forces in 1956. Its suppression contrasts with the restraint and disunity of Soviet forces in 1991.
Boris Yeltsin: A Russian politician who became president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1991. He denounced the coup and mobilized resistance from Moscow’s Russian White House.
Sovereignty Parade: The wave of declarations of sovereignty by Soviet republics during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Republican claims to authority challenged the central state the plotters sought to preserve.

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