Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Leningrad. Participants in a spontaneous rally near the Mariinsky Palace on St Isaac's Square in support of democracy 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 USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and created the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP). Yuri Belinsky, Sergei Smolsky/TASS