Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Leningrad. Supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin during a spontaneous rally near the Mariinsky Palace on St Isaac's Square in support of democracy after the announcement of a state of emergency 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 USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the president of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Yuri Belinsky, Sergei Smolsky/TASS