Twenty years ago, on Aug. 18, conservative Soviet officials, who feared that a draft new Union Treaty among the Soviet republics would break up the Soviet Union, confined President Mikhail Gorbachev and his family, who were on vacation, to his dacha in Foros in the Crimea.
The next day, eight Communist Party Politburo and Soviet government officials, with KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov playing the central role, declared the establishment of the Committee of the State Emergency.
They announced that Mr. Gorbachev was ill and unable to act as Soviet president. Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin denounced the Gang of Eight's actions, calling them a coup d'etat. The image of his speech atop the turret of a tank at the time became famous.