Description

During the Soviet Coup of 1991 (19 August 1991) also known as the August Putsch, Vodka Putsch or
August Coup, a group of members of the Soviet government briefly deposed Soviet president Mikhail
Gorbachev and attempted to take control of the country. The coup leaders were radical state capitalists who felt that Gorbachev's reform program had gone too far and that a new union treaty that he had negotiated dispersed too much of the central government's power to the republics. Although the coup
collapsed in only three days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event crushed the Soviet leader's
hopes that the union could be held together in at least a decentralized form.