Il August 21, 1991, exactly 31 years ago, ended in bankruptcy the attempted coup in the Soviet Union against Mikhail Gorbachev. It was organized by some representatives of the government, the Communist Party and the armed forces, who aimed to depose the president (kidnapped in his vacation home in the Crimea) to take control of the Union and preserve it from the onset of autonomism, countering the weakening of the central power and of the CPSU.
The crisis of the USSR
At the time, the USSR was going through a difficult period economic and political crisis, which had made the regime now incapable of dealing with the centrifugal thrusts born within the country: the first claims had come from the Baltic republics (Latvia, Estonia e Lithuania), who demanded complete independence from Moscow.
The failure of the coup
In this scenario, the putschists hoped to ride out the discontent of the population and perhaps also counted on the support (direct or indirect) of Gorbachev. However, their calculations turned out to be all wrong the coup d'état, clearly set up without the right preparation, it failed spectacularly for two reasons: popular protest, completely unforeseen by the conspirators, e the lack of support from the army. In Moscow, between 19 and 20 August, a large crowd gathered to defend the newly conquered free institutions, placing the putschists before the choice between a bloody repression and a shameful retreat.
The rise of Yeltsin
The situation was unblocked by the intervention of the President of the Republic, Boris Yeltsin, who, after leading the popular resistance and having imposed the release of Gorbachev, presented himself as the true holder of power, relegating the Soviet president himself to the background.
The fall of the USSR
The failure of the August coup it swept away what was left of communist power Soviet (the activities of the CPSU were suspended and its assets requisitioned) and further accelerated the crisis of central authority. The separatist thrusts became increasingly pressing: after the three Baltic republics, whose independence was no longer in question, unilaterally proclaimed their secession from the USSR, also the Georgia,Armenia, Moldova andUkraine.
Four months after the failure of the coup d'état, on 21 December 1991, in Alma Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, the representatives of 11 republics of the 15 that had been part of the USSR gave life to the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and sanctioned the death of the Soviet Union.
