GKChP
The eight-man emergency committee of 19 August. A faction or legal office in the Soviet 1991 coup attempt file -- past politics, not a present directory.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale55
Intensity28
Duration12
Tech shift18
Political impact90
Cultural memory65
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many died?
Three civilians in Moscow on 21 August are the named dead of the street events. The systemic "death" was the union, not a battlefield.
Who was in the GKChP?
Gennady Yanayev (vice-president), Dmitry Yazov (defence), Vladimir Kryuchkov (KGB), Boris Pugo (interior) and others -- a committee of the centre's last cadres.
What did Yeltsin do?
As RSFSR president he denounced the committee, used the White House as a platform, and became the televised face of resistance. That did not make him the sole cause of failure.
Why did it fail?
Hesitation to use decisive force, elite splits, republic resistance, a public that would not treat the committee as legitimate, and plotters who looked unsure on television. This is analysis of a past failure, not a manual.
Did it end the USSR?
It accelerated an end already underway. Formal dissolution was 26 December 1991.
Tamanskaya and other divisions in Moscow, KGB units, MVD -- a historical list of who was ordered, and who hesitated. Not a present Russian ORBAT.
No foreign army landed. This was an internal committee.
Systems
Foros
Gorbachev's Crimean isolation.
Union treaty
The 20 August signing the plotters meant to stop.
Mikhail Gorbachev as centre
Isolated at Foros, then returned too late to save a union presidency.
Gennady Yanayev as legal object
The shaking-hands vice-president of the television ruin.
Civilian / alliance context
Stanislav Shushkevich (Belarus): A Belovezha signatory -- December's legal face beside Yeltsin and Kravchuk. Named as history, not as a remote-control cartoon.
Meters
Geographic / demographic scale
55
Peak political violence
28
How long it defined a period
12
Tech or method shift
18
Borders, regimes, law, alliances
90
Film, school, ritual density
65
Hotspots
Perestroika crisis
1985-91: Reform without a new union consent. Named as historical geography of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not as a targeting list.
The putsch
19-21 Aug: GKChP, tanks, White House. Named as historical geography of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not as a targeting list.
Acceleration
Aug-Dec 1991: Party banned; republics leave. Named as historical geography of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not as a targeting list.
Legal end
8-26 Dec: Belovezha to the lowered flag. Named as historical geography of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not as a targeting list.
Memory
After: Yeltsin myth, later Russian revisits. Named as historical geography of Soviet 1991 coup attempt, not as a targeting list.
Materials
Chronology (19-21 August 1991)
Soviet 1991 coup attempt is bounded as 19-21 August 1991. 1991-06 opens the usual narrative (Yeltsin elected RSFSR president); 1991-12-26 closes it (USSR flag down).
Theatre: Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics
Place is evidence. Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics is where Soviet 1991 coup attempt happened -- a map for readers, not a guide for repeating it.
Human-cost band
three civilians dead in Moscow; the USSR dissolved by December -- a low-body-count, high-system event Keep the figure as a range. Spectacle integers are not a census.
White House (Moscow)
The RSFSR parliament Yeltsin used as a stage. A material of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt vocabulary, dated to 19-21 August 1991.
Hesitation is described as what happened, not as a training point for future plotters or preventers beyond the civic lesson that legitimacy matters.
Three civilian dead remain on the ledger.