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Coup Against Mikhail Gorbachev
The 1991 Soviet coup attempt, also known as the August Coup, was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the CPSU at the time. The coup leaders consisted of top military and civilian officials, including Vice President Gennady Yanayev, who together formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (). They opposed Gorbachev's reform program, were angry at the loss of control over Eastern European states and fearful of the New Union Treaty, which was on the verge of being signed by the Soviet Union (USSR). The treaty was to decentralize much of the central Soviet government's power and distribute it among its fifteen republics; Boris Yeltsin's demand for more autonomy to the republics opened a window for the plotters to organize the coup. The GKChP hardliners dispatched KGB agents who detained Gorbachev at his dacha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis
In September and October 1993, a constitutional crisis arose in the Russian Federation from a conflict between the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the country's parliament. Yeltsin performed a self-coup, dissolving parliament and instituting a presidential rule by decree system. The crisis ended with Yeltsin using military force to attack Moscow's House of Soviets and arrest the lawmakers. In Russia, the events are known as the "October Coup" () or "Black October" (). With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic turned into an independent country, the Russian Federation. The Soviet-era 1978 Russian constitution remained in effect, though it had been amended in April 1991 to install a president independent of the parliament. Boris Yeltsin, elected president in July 1991, began assuming increasing powers, leading to a political standoff with Russia's parliament, which in 1993 was composed of the Congress o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
