World History Minute: Coup Against Gorbachev

Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin makes a V-sign at the start of the rally attended by tens of thousands of people to celebrate the failed military coup in Moscow, Thursday, Aug. 22, 1991.
Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin makes a V-sign at the start of the rally attended by tens of thousands of people to celebrate the failed military coup in Moscow, Thursday, Aug. 22, 1991. Boris Yurchenko / AP Photo
Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin makes a V-sign at the start of the rally attended by tens of thousands of people to celebrate the failed military coup in Moscow, Thursday, Aug. 22, 1991.
Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin makes a V-sign at the start of the rally attended by tens of thousands of people to celebrate the failed military coup in Moscow, Thursday, Aug. 22, 1991. Boris Yurchenko / AP Photo

World History Minute: Coup Against Gorbachev

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On August 18th, 1991, a “gang of eight” politicians and Communist Party officials placed their leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, under house arrest for being too slow with reforms in the Soviet Union. 

What followed led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Boris Yeltsin as head of the new Russian Federation. 

Historian John Schmidt walks us through the coup against Gorbachev and the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.