In 1991, the leader of the Soviet Union, Michail Gorbachev, found himself in a pretty difficult situation.

The program of soft political and economic reforms which he had started wasn’t as effective as he had expected it to be, and the country was approaching a deep crisis. One of many reasons for such misfortune was the split of the governing Communist party. Young regional leaders longing for changes were pressing down on Gorbachev from one side. On the other, there was a pretty strong conservative fraction in the Central Committee of the CPSU. It was the CPSU who hit first.

On August 19th, 1991, when the President of the USSR, Michail Gorbahev, was out of Moscow, a group of conservators announced the establishment of the State Committee on the State of Emergency that was intended to become the governing organization. SCSE proposed its own program aimed at overcoming the crisis. It included the following: the removal of the legitimately elected President, widening the powers of the KGB, limitation of freedom of speech and information and meetings, forcing the students and upper school pupils to work at farms, and limitation of free enterprise…

The whole country was in a terrible tension for two days; the opposition leaders under the command of Boris Yeltsin called their supporters out on the streets of Moscow. They chose the so-called Moscow “White House” to be their headquarters and were getting ready to defend it. They were even planning to erect barricades and anti-tank obstacles in the city center.

Luckily, the revolution finished with small loss – contradiction was tearing apart not only the Communist party but also the Soviet Army, and several major generals didn’t acknowledge the legality of the SCSE and its orders. None of the politicians wanted to turn Moscow into a battlefield.

The members of the SCSE who had been counting on the usual drift and blind submission of the people were so shocked by the development of the events that they lost all the initiative and let their opponents gain forces.

As the result, it all was over on August 21st: the members of the SCSE were arrested, President Gorbachev came back home from vacation (which actually looked more like forced exile during the Putsch), and Boris Yeltsin gained fantastic popularity as the leader of the opposition. Yeltsin standing on top of the armored troop carrier became the symbol of the new epoch just like Vladimir Lenin standing on top of the armored car had become the symbol of communism in 1917.

However, now Yeltsin had to decide what to do next, decide how to prevent new attempts to reestablish the old regime and develop his own success…

On December 8th, 1991, the leaders of the republics that had proclaimed their independence (S. Shushkevitch from Belarus, B. Yeltsin from Russia, and L. Kravchuk from Ukraine) got together in the state palace, “Viskuli”, in the Belovezhskaya Puscha and announced the breakup of the Soviet Union. Soon the large-scale economic integration of all post-Soviet republics made them establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), though the formation with the same economic but different political territories.

We can judge the events that made these three leaders get together in Belovezhskaya Puscha the way we want to. Some people say that the research scientist, Shushkevitch, just wanted experiment a little; Kravchuk was trying to become the liberating hero who would make his people’s ancient dream of independence come true; and Russian President Yeltsin was eager to gain full power not limited by the Soviet heads of the government. We can wonder about their perception of this decision and its results; and their ability to decide the fate of 12(!) republics forming the USSR on their own. Either way, the decision was made and de facto marked the beginning of the new era.