<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, also known as the August Coup (Russian: Августовский путч, tr . Avgustovskiy Putch "August Putsch"), was an attempt by members of the government of the USSR to take control of the country from Soviet President and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev . The coup leaders were hard - line members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) who were opposed to Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he had negotiated which decentralized much of the central government's power to the republics . They were opposed, mainly in Moscow, by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who had been both an ally and critic of Gorbachev . Although the coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event destabilized the USSR and is widely considered to have contributed to both the demise of the CPSU and the dissolution of the USSR . </P> <P> After the capitulation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), popularly referred to as the "Gang of Eight", both the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev described their actions as a coup attempt . </P>

Who organized the august 1991 coup attempt in the soviet union