The August Coup was an attempted coup by communist hardliners against Soviet president and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev which lasted from 19 to 22 August 1991. The coup leaders were opposed to Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, as well as to his decentralization of power, which effectively led to the Soviet republics becoming semi-independent states. The coup initially succeeded, and the eight-man GKChP committee came to power. However, the committee collapsed after two days due to civil resistance led by President of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin, and Gorbachev returned to power. However, the coup destabilized the USSR beyond repair, leading to Gorbachev's resignation in December and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Background[]
Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, and he embarked on an ambitious program of reform, embodied in glasnost (political freedom) and perestroika (economic freedom). However, these new freedoms led to the growth of nationalist movements across the USSR, and there were fears that some or all of the union republics might secede. By 1991, the USSR was in a severe economic and political crisis, and there was a shortage of food, medicine, and other essentials, inflation was over 300% on an annual basis, and factories lacked in cash to pay salaries. In 1990, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, and Georgia declared the restoration of their independence from the USSR, and, in January 1991, there was an attempt to retake Lithuania by force. As the Baltics entered political crises, armed ethnic conflicts broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.
On 12 June 1990, the Russian SFSR declared sovereignty, limiting the financial and economic laws of the USSR. The Supreme Soviet of Russia adopted laws which contradicted Soviet laws, leading to a "war of laws" in Russia. On 17 March 1991, in a referendum boycotted by the Baltic states, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova, the majority of residents of the rest of the republics expressed the desire to retain the renewed USSR, approving the "New Union Treaty". This would make the USSR a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy, and military, and Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan were to sign the Treaty of Moscow on 20 August 1991.
Since the start of Gorbachev's tenure, hardline communists within the USSR had begun to conspire to stop his decentralizing reforms. On 11 December 1990, KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov met with Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Premier Valentin Pavlov, Vice-President Gennady Yanayev, Defense Council deputy chief Oleg Baklanov, secretariat head Valery Boldin, and CPSU Central Committee Secretary Oleg Shenin and brought them into a KGB plot to prepare a plan of measures that could be taken in case a state of emergency was declared in the USSR. They formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), and they hoped that Gorbachev would declare a state of emergency and restore order. On 23 July 1991, a number of CPSU figures published an anti-Perestroika manifesto in the hardline newpaper Sovetskaya Rossiya, and, six days later, Gorbachev, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed the possibility of replacing the hardliners with more liberal figures. Kryuchkov, who had placed Gorbachev under KGB surveillance, eventually got wind of the conversation, and plotted a coup, the last attempt at saving the USSR.
Coup[]
The GKChP leaders at a press conference
On 4 August, Gorbachev went to his summer resort at Foros in Crimea, and he planned to return to Moscow to sign the New Union Treaty on 20 August 1991. On 17 August, members of the GKChP met at a KGB guesthouse in Moscow and studied the treaty document, deciding that it would pave the way to the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. The next day, the GKChP leaders Baklanov, Boldin, Shenin, and Deputy Defense Minister Valentin Varennikov met with Gorbachev in Crimea, demanding that he either declare a state of emergency or resign and name Yanayev acting president. Gorbachev opposed this, and he said, "Damn you. Do what you want. But report my opinion!" With Gorbachev's refusal, the frightened conspirators decided to confine him to his resort, and KGB security guards were sent to guard the home. The members of the GKChP ordered 250,000 pairs of handcuffs from a factory in Pskov and 300,000 arrest forms, and Kryuchkov doubled the pay of all KGB personnel, called them back from holiday, and placed them on alert. The GKChP then met in the Kremlin, where they announced the creation of the "State Committee of the State of Emergency", and Yanayev named himself acting USSR president due to Gorbachev's "illness". All newspapers in Moscow but nine party-controlled newspapers were banned, and the GKChP pledged to restore the honor and dignity of the Soviet man.
19 August[]
Soviet tanks in Moscow
All of the GKChP documents were broadcast over radio and television at 7:00 AM, and two Soviet Army armored divisions rolled into Moscow along with paratroops. The conspirators considered detaining Russian president Yeltsin after he returned from a visit to Kazakhstan, but they failed to do so, proving fatal to their plans. Yeltsin arrived at the White House parliament building at 9:00 AM, and he, Prime Minister Ivan Silayev, and Supreme Soviet chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov condemned the GKChP's actions as a reactionary anti-constitutional coup. The military was urged not to take part in the coup, and Yeltsin called for a general strike with the demand of Gorbachev's release. The citizens of Moscow began to erect barricades around the White House, and Yanayev declared a state of emergency at 4:00 PM. That same day, a Tamanskaya Division tank battalion defected to Yeltsin, who climbed one of the tanks and addressed the crowd.
20 August[]
Yeltsin supporters at the White House
At noon on 20 August, General Nikolai Vasilyevich Kalinin declared a curfew in preparation for an attack on the White House. The unarmed defenders of the White House prepared themselves, and General Konstantin Kobets prepared a makeshift defense headquarters. In the afternoon, the GKChP forces finally decided to attack the White House. However, airborne troops general Alexander Lebed, with the consent of his superior Pavel Grachev, warned Yeltsin that the attack would begin at 2:00 AM. At the same time, Estonia declared its independence.
21 August[]
Stamps commemorating Ilya Krichevsky, Dmitry Komar, and Vladimir Usov, the three killed protesters
At 1:00 AM, trolleyhouses and street cleaning machines barricaded a tunnel against oncoming Taman Guards IFVs, and three men (including an Afghanistan veteran) were shot dead by the soldiers during the incident, with many more being wounded. Both sides were so horrified by the deaths that it halted the plot, and Yazov ordered the troops to pull out from Moscow. Gorbachev refused to meet the GKChP leaders when they arrived in Crimea, and, with Gorbachev's communications to Moscow restored, he declared all of the GKChP's decisions void and dismissed its members from their state offices. At the same time, Latvia declared its independence.
22 August[]
The toppled Dzerzhinsky statue
Gorbachev and the GKChP delegation flew to Moscow, where Kryuchkov, Yazov, and Tizyakov were arrested upon arrival. Pavlov, Starodubtsev, Baklanov, Boldin, and Shenin were all arrested within the next 48 hours. That same day, the Supreme Soviet decided to replace the Russian communist flag with the old imperial flag, and, on 24 August, the Felix Dzherzhinsky statue in Lubianka Square was dismantled, and Gorbachev posthumously awarded the three dead protesters with the title "Hero of the Soviet Union".
Aftermath[]
Gorbachev's televised resignation speech
Gorbachev resigned as CPSU General Secretary on 24 August, and, on 29 August, the Supreme Soviet terminated all party activities in Soviet territory. At the same time, Yeltsin nationalized the CPSU's assets, and he terminated and banned all party activities on Russian soil and closed the Central Committee building in Staraya Square.
On 25 August, Belarus declared its indepedence, and, on 27 August, Moldova formally left the USSR, followed by Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan on 30 and 31 August. On 6 September, the Baltic states were recognized as independent, and Tajikistan declared independence on 9 September, Armenia on 21 September, and Turkmenistan on 27 October. By November, only Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan remained in the USSR, and, on 8 December, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords, declaring that the USSR had ceased to exist in international law and as a geopolitical entity. On 24 December, the now-renamed Russian Federation informed the United Nations that it would inherit the USSR's membership in the UN, including its permanent Security Council seat. On 25 December, Gorbachev announced his resignation as Soviet president, and the red hammer and sickle flag of Soviet Russia was lowered from the Senate building in the Kremlin and replaced with the tricolor flag of Russia. On 26 December, the Council of Republics, the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet, formally voted the USSR out of existence.