Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Participants in a rally in support of democracy and USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev near the Mossovet building on Sovetskaya Square during an attempted coup d'etat. In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was 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 USSR President from power and created the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP). Andrei Solovyov, Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS