Overview

From acclaimed historian and author of Kremlin Winter and Blood on the Snow, a dramatic and expertly researched account of an extraordinary moment in Russia's recent history: the August Coup. In the summer of 1991, a group of eight plotters came together to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachëv, then the president of the USSR. These ruthless conspirators, who occupied positions of high office, declared a state of emergency to restore stability through authoritarian rule. The reality turned out to be a shambolic failure which hastened the fall of the USSR and a pivotal shift from communism to capitalism. Beginning with a minute-by-minute re-enactment of Gorbachëv's capture in his holiday home in Crimea, Robert Service follows the plot from its inception to its humiliating collapse. The troubling side effects of Gorbachëv's well-meant reforms in the Soviet Union - business fraud, government corruption, organized crime and interethnic conflict - increased exponentially, and a New Russia was born. Fathered by Boris Yeltsin, it brought lamentably less benefit to the Russian economy or its people than he had promised. Linking the years from the coup itself to today's Russia under Vladimir Putin, The August Coup is a thoroughly compelling and original chronicle of a moment that changed Russian and global politics for ever.

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9781529065787

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Reviews

Robert Service ingeniously and meticulously disentangles the extraordinary web of intrigue, criminality, naive ambition and fortuitous events that marked the collapse of the USSR -- Professor Donald Rayfield, author of <i>A Seditious and Sinister Tribe</i> Robert Service’s gripping narrative and brilliant research takes us behind the scenes, reliving the drama and banality, courage and cowardice, hopes and fallacies manifested during those fateful days of August 1991 and lowering the final curtain on the communist era in Europe -- Professor Amir Weiner, author of <i>Making Sense of War</i> Robert Service has a historian's rare and welcome capacity to dig deep, without losing sight of the big picture. He tells the story of a three-day drama in unprecedented detail, while placing it clearly within the context of the failure of Gorbachev's reform project, making it a must-read for those fascinated by the decline and fall of the USSR and the emergence of a new Russia -- Dr Mark Galeotti, author of <i>Forged in War</i> Remarkable . . . a finely argued, carefully researched, and beautifully written account of the fall of the Soviet Union and rise of the Russian Federation. Service understands Russian affairs as few others. His ability to penetrate the murky waters of Moscow’s politics during [these] dramatic events . . . helps us understand how we ended up with Putin’s Russia -- Professor Norman M. Naimark, author of <i>Stalin and the Fate of Europe</i>

Robert Service ingeniously and meticulously disentangles the extraordinary web of intrigue, criminality, naive ambition and fortuitous events that marked the collapse of the USSR -- Donald Rayfield, author of <i>A Seditious and Sinister Tribe</i>

Author Information

Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has written several books, including the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of World Communism, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present including Kremlin Winter: Russia and the Second Coming of Vladimir Putin. Trotsky: A Biography was awarded the 2009 Duff Cooper Prize. He lives in London.

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