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 demonstration on Kalinin Avenue against the attempt by members of the State Emergency Committee (SEC) to carry out a coup d'etat. 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 USSR president from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Oleg Buldakov/TASS