The president of the Soviet Union, officially the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, abbreviated as president of the USSR, was the head of state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991.
The 1991 Soviet coup attempt, also known as the August Coup, was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the CPSU at the time. The coup leaders consisted of top military and civilian officials, including Vice President Gennady Yanayev, who together formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP). They opposed Gorbachev's reform program, were angry at the loss of control over Eastern European states and fearful of the New Union Treaty, which was on the verge of being signed by the Soviet Union (USSR). The treaty was to decentralize much of the central Soviet government's power and distribute it among its fifteen republics; Yeltsin's demand for more autonomy to the republics opened a window for the plotters to organize the coup.
Ivan Stepanovich Silayev was a Soviet and Russian politician. He served as Prime Minister of the Soviet Union through the offices of chairman of the Committee on the Operational Management of the Soviet economy and chairman of the Inter-republican Economic Committee. Responsible for overseeing the economy of the Soviet Union during the late Gorbachev era, he was the last head of government of the Soviet Union, succeeding Valentin Pavlov.
Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev was a Soviet politician and disputed President of the Soviet Union for three days. Yanayev's political career spanned the rules of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, and culminated during the Gorbachev years. Yanayev was born in Perevoz, Gorky Oblast. After years in local politics, he rose to prominence as Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, but he also held other lesser posts such as deputy of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov was a Soviet lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
The State Committee on the State of Emergency, abbreviated as GKChP and nicknamed the Gang of Eight, was a self-proclaimed political body in the Soviet Union that existed from 19 to 21 August 1991. It included a group of eight high-level Soviet officials within the Soviet government, the Communist Party, and the KGB, who attempted a coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev on 19 August 1991. The coup ultimately failed, with the provisional government collapsing by 22 August 1991 and several of the conspirators being prosecuted by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
A referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991. An overwhelming majority of 92% of voters approved the declaration of independence made by the Verkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991.
Anatoly Ivanovich Lukyanov was a Russian Communist politician who was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR between 15 March 1990 and 4 September 1991. One of the founders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in 1993, he was described by its leader Gennady Zyuganov as having been the Deng Xiaoping of the party. He published books of poetry under his own name and under the pseudonyms Osenev (Осенев) and Dneprov (Днепров).
The Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR and since 1992 Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation was the supreme government institution in the Russian SFSR and in the Russian Federation from 16 May 1990 to 21 September 1993. Elected on 4 March 1990 for a period of five years, it was dissolved by presidential decree during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 and ended de facto when the Russian White House was attacked on 4 October 1993. The Congress played an important role in some of the most important events in the history of Russia during this period, such as the declaration of state sovereignty of Russia within the USSR, the rise of Boris Yeltsin, and economic reforms.
Committee for operative management of national economy of the Soviet Union was the official name for the provisional office of state administration of the Soviet Union with government functions following dismissal of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Soviet Union on 28 August 1991.
Arkady Volsky was a Soviet politician and businessman. He served as a senior aide to three Soviet General Secretaries, including Mikhail Gorbachev, and was one of three Deputy Prime Ministers in the last government of the Soviet Union between August and December 1991. He was founder and the first head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as the homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members, the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the union.
Events from the year 1993 in Russia.
The following lists events that happened during 1988 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Yeltsin. Three Days in August is a political drama directed by Alexander Mokhov of the Moscow events of August 1991.
The presidency of Boris Yeltsin began with his first inauguration on 10 July 1991, and ended on 31 December 1999 when he announced his resignation. A referendum held on 17 March 1991 approved the creation of the post of president of Russia; Yeltsin was elected Russia's first president in a presidential election held on 12 June 1991.
The 1991 presidential campaign of Boris Yeltsin, was the successful campaign by then-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia in Russia's first presidential election. Yeltsin ran as an independent candidate. His running mate was People's Deputy and former soldier Alexander Rutskoy.
The following lists events that happened during 1990 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Chechen Revolution was a series of anti-government protests in the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic against the local Communist Party officials.
On 30 August 2022, Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader and president of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, died after a long illness at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital in Russia. Gorbachev was the last living Soviet leader following the death of Georgy Malenkov in 1988, was the only one to have been born during the Soviet Union's existence, and the only one to have died after its dissolution. At the age of 91 years old, Gorbachev is the longest-lived ruler of Russia to date, having lived longer than Alexander Kerensky and Vasili Kuznetsov, who both died at 89 years old. On 3 September, a funeral was held for Gorbachev, and he was buried later that day.
