Today marks 30 years since dramatic political events in Russia - the failed coup in 1991 that brought the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. But as Charles Maynes reports from Moscow, attitudes ...

Gennady Yanayev, 73, a leader of the abortive 1991 Soviet coup who briefly declared himself president, replacing Mikhail Gorbachev, died Sept. 24 in Moscow. No cause of death was reported. In one of ...

Individual liberty and representative democracy as complementary forms of personal and political self-government are precious aspects of shared social life. Given the political and economic events ...

Lithuanian citizens who lost relatives during the Soviet Union’s crackdown on their country’s attempt to reach independence, on Thursday sued former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the ...

Sheila Fitzpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

Thirty years ago on Dec. 25, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the leader of the USSR, stepped down. And Boris Yeltsin became president of a newly independent Russia. Host ...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hardline communists opposed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms staged a coup in August 1991, but the putsch failed two days later and ultimately hastened the collapse of ...

LONDON (Reuters) - They were standing in a close huddle like a knot of naughty boys in the school yard, up to no good, turning silent as I walked past. Only this was no schoolyard, but the walled ...

As dawn broke on Aug. 19, 1991, tanks and armored cars converged on Moscow and Soviet citizens received the stunning news that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been overthrown in a coup. At 6:06 a.m., ...

Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or Flash plugin. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. On August 19, 1991, Russians awoke to ...