Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. The body of activist Vladimir Aleksandrovich Usov (foreground), who died during a clash between supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin and a column of armored vehicles of the Taman Division in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel on the Garden Ring after a state of emergency was declared in the country 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 president of the USSR from power and created the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP). Andrei Solovyov/TASS