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This cartoon shows Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev looking in dismay at a massive stone hammer and sickle,
now shattered into many parts. Gorbachev found himself faced with reforming the remnants of the former Soviet
power.
(Library of Congress)
ished. By 1991, with the economy in shambles and a vibrant democratic politi-
cal culture taking shape, the preservation of the union was at the top of his
agenda. His proposed treaty for a new Union of Sovereign States would have sig-
nificantly altered the nature of the Soviet Union, making it a more truly federal
and voluntary union, but it was never signed because other, more pressing
events intervened.
On August 19, 1991, a conservative Communist backlash took place in
Moscow while Gorbachev was on vacation in Crimea. Headed by men whom
Gorbachev had placed in power over the previous year, the attempted coup
was poorly planned and executed. Within days, street protests, army defec-
tions, and Yeltsin's heroic leadership combined to defeat the “August putsch,”
as it became known. Freed from house arrest, Gorbachev returned to Moscow
to a changed country and promptly resigned as general secretary of the Com-
munist Party. He continued to seek a new federal union, but the Soviet Union
was rapidly losing its member republics with all but Russia and Kazakhstan
declaring independence by October 1991. His power rapidly declining, Gor-
bachev was unable to stop the leaders from the Russian Federation, Ukraine,
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