“We are dealing with a rightist, reactionary, anti-constitutional coup.”
– Boris Yeltsin
The Week That Shook The World: The Soviet Coup – ABC News (1991) – 1:04:32
Posted on YouTube by
York Vid
August 18,1991
“Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces.” – History.com
August 19, 1991
“In a televised broadcast, the eight coup plotters, who include the heads of the army, the KGB and the police, said they were saving the country from a “national catastrophe.” – BBC
“And Boris Yeltsin, the new president of the Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic, decided to go out and speak to the soldiers and people outside the parliament building. He climbed up on a tank and rallied opposition to the coup.” – Cato.org
“On August 19, 1991, a military coup was attempted in Moscow. Instead of reporting on the event, Soviet television broadcast the ballet, Swan Lake.” – Radio Free Europe
August 20, 1991
“When tanks and armored personnel carriers roared into the Soviet capital Monday after the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, people put up barricades to block their way, pulled trolley buses across their paths and showered verbal abuse on the bewildered young soldiers inside the military vehicles.” – UPI
Night of August 20–21, 1991
“Shortly after midnight on the morning of 21 August, a column of military vehicles approached the barricades around the White House. Clashes ensued. Two protestors attempting to block the vehicles’ way were shot, a third was crushed under tank treads. Crowds swarmed the vehicles. One armored personnel carrier was set on fire. The others soon retreated. The coup had collapsed.” – Radio Free Europe
August 21, 1991
“The coup collapsed, and the plotters were arrested while trying to flee. The U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet reinstated Gorbachev and annulled all the decrees of the Emergency Committee. Yeltsin decreed that all enterprises in Russia were under his government’s control.” – Britannica
August 22, 1991
“On August 22 Gorbachev and his family returned to Moscow. Pugo shot his wife, though not fatally, and then killed himself. Later Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev, an adviser to Gorbachev and a former chief of the General Staff, hanged himself, and Nikolay Kruchina, who had been the party’s administrator of affairs, also committed suicide. Other deaths followed, and rumours circulated that these suicides were actually murders that had been carried out in retribution.” – Britannica
August 1991 Coup Attempt – Russian Life
The story of an unsuccessful coup: Why the USSR was beyond saving – Russia Beyond
AP was There: 1991 Soviet Coup – Associated Press
Moscow coup 1991: With Boris Yeltsin on the tank – BBC
The August Coup: The Soviet Plan to Overthrow Gorbachev – The Collector
Gorbachev’s Revolution – Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center
Questions about the failed 1991 Soviet coup – Meduza.io
What Happened to the August 1991 Soviet Coup Plotters? – Radio Free Europe
Attempted coup against Gorbachev collapses – History.com
1991 Soviet coup attempt – Britannica
1991 Soviet coup attempt – Grokipedia
Aftermath
“The August coup brought the general crisis to its ultimate limit. The most damaging thing about this crisis is the breakup of the statehood.” – Mikhail Gorbachev, December 25, 1991.
The Undoing of the USSR – Radio Free Europe
The Soviet Collapse – OSU.edu
The End of the Soviet Union 1991 – National Security Archives
The Collapse of the Soviet Union – Office of the Historian.gov
Dissolution of the Soviet Union – Grokipedia
