The Soviet Coup: News And Views As It Happened 30 Years Ago
A column of Soviet tanks in Moscow on August 20 was commanded by officers who backed the Kremlin coup leaders.
News of a change in power in the U.S.S.R. emerged early on August 19 when the state-run TASS news agency announced that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was unable to fulfill his duties for "health reasons." In fact, Gorbachev had been detained the day before while vacationing in Crimea and was being held there as a prisoner.
Portent from nature? Just as the failed Soviet coup was launched on August 18, a dead whale washed ashore in front of U.S. President George Bush's house in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush was on holiday there at the time. By the end of the year, the Soviet Union would no longer exist.
Signs of the coup became visible in central Moscow with the deployment of armored military vehicles on August 19.
As Soviet tanks rolled through the capital in support of the coup leaders, this elderly woman cried out: "Oh my Lord, why the tanks? People, stop the tanks!"
Seven of the "Group of Eight" Kremlin coup leaders who formed a "State Emergency Committee" and named Gennady Yanayev as "acting Soviet president" to replace Gorbachev.
Demonstrators began to gather outside the Russian Federation parliament building after Soviet tanks surrounded Russian President Boris Yeltsin and other allies of Gorbachev there on August 19.
An AP photo caption correction on August 19 was issued to clarify that barricades around the Russian parliament building were being erected by supporters of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
In Lithuania -- which had declared independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990 -- citizens responded to news of the Kremlin coup by erecting concrete barricades to protect the parliament in Vilnius from a Soviet deployment.
In August 1991, some 200,000 Soviet troops were still deployed in territory that just months earlier had been known as East Germany.
Residents of Warsaw scramble for newspapers on August 19 to get the latest information about the events unfolding in Moscow.
Yeltsin on August 19 used a press conference inside the Russian Federation parliament to call on people to take part in a general strike.
Yeltsin's August 19 speech to demonstrators from the back of an armored vehicle became an iconic image of defiance against the Kremlin coup leaders.
After nightfall on August 19, some Soviet soldiers in armored vehicles broke ranks with their unit to support Yeltsin and Gorbachev. They were welcomed as heroes by anti-coup demonstrators.
Soldiers from the Tamanskaya tank division help protect the anti-coup leaders and demonstrators on August 20.
A Moscow resident tries on August 20 to convince Soviet soldiers who were still supporting the coup leaders to instead support the people.
A tank commander from the Tamanskaya division outside the Russian parliament building on August 20.
Anti-coup demonstrators fill the streets outside the Moscow city-council building on August 20.
Yeltsin uses a microphone to address thousands of supporters gathered outside the Russian parliament building on August 20.
Demonstrators offer food to Soviet soldiers who broke away from their unit to support the anti-coup leaders.
On August 21, Yeltsin declared in a speech in the Russian parliament that the Soviet coup leaders were trying to leave Moscow.
A Soviet armored personnel carrier is in flames after attempting to advance on the barricades around the Russian parliament building on August 21. Three men killed in the violence were quickly deemed "victims of the coup."
Former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on August 21 visits the site where three anti-coup demonstrators were killed by Soviet forces
Gorbachev returned to Moscow on August 22 after being held captive for three days in Crimea.
Moscow residents celebrate the failure of the coup on August 22.
Thousands of Russian demonstrators celebrated victory against the Soviet coup leaders on August 22 by parading a giant white, red, and blue Russian flag.
Moscow demonstrators topple a statue of Soviet secret service founder Feliks Dzerzhinsky on August 23.
A funeral attended by thousands on August 24 marked the deaths of the three coup victims in Moscow.
Within a week of the failure of the Kremlin coup, Moldova became the seventh Soviet republic to declare its independence. The Soviet Union would cease to exist by the end of 1991.