Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin during a rally in the park near the House of Soviets of the RSFSR, dedicated to the victory of democracy after the attempted coup d'état by members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP). In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was supposed to replace the USSR with a new federation of sovereign states, representatives of the highest Soviet leadership, headed by USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the president of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Roman Denisov/TASS