Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. President of the RSFSR Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin with the flag of the Russian Federation and State Secretary of the RSFSR Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis (in the center, left to right) on the balcony of the House of Soviets of the RSFSR during a rally dedicated to the failure of the attempt by members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP) to carry out a coup in the country. 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 Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Andrei Babushkin/TASS