Hardline coup set the stage for Soviet collapse 30 years ago

The world held its breath 30 years ago when a group of top Communist officials ousted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and flooded Moscow with tanks

MOSCOW -- The world held its breath 30 years ago when a group of top Communist officials ousted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and flooded Moscow with tanks. But instead of bringing a rollback of liberal reforms and a return to Cold War confrontations, the August 1991 coup collapsed in just three days and precipitated the breakup of the Soviet Union a few months later, an event the plotters claimed they were trying to prevent. The putsch began when several of Gorbachev's top lieutenants arrived at his Black Sea vacation home on Aug. 18 to urge him to impose a nationwide state of emergency. They were trying to stop the signing of a union treaty between Soviet republics set for two days later, which Gorbachev saw as a way to shore up the crumbling Soviet Union. After he refused to endorse the state of emergency, the coup plotters cut off the Soviet leader's communications and left him isolated at his residence.