BOOK review: How the Soviet Union Died. The August Coup, by Robert Service

In August 1991, a group of hardliners inside the Soviet leadership launched a desperate bid to save the USSR. Led by the head of the KGB, they placed Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest, declared a state of emergency, and attempted to reverse the reforms of perestroika and glasnost.

Instead, they accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This week on History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss historian Robert Service's gripping new account of the August Coup: the dramatic three days that changed the course of world history.

They explore:

• Why Gorbachev's reforms destabilised the Soviet system
• The secret KGB recordings that helped trigger the coup
• Boris Yeltsin's famous stand on a tank
• Why the plotters failed to act decisively
• How the coup directly led to the dissolution of the USSR
• Whether the roots of Putinism can be found in 1991
• Why history may judge Yeltsin more kindly than it does today

Along the way they discuss Soviet decline, Russian nationalism, the Baltic states, corruption, and the extraordinary speed with which a superpower disappeared.

Robert Service – The August Coup: The Plot to Overthrow Gorbachev
Buy the book here

Featured Book