Start | Thomas Hoepker | Daniel Biskup
Soviet Union | Yugoslavia | Kosovo
In 1991 a power struggle broke out in the Soviet Union between supporters and opponents of reform. In the so-called August Putsch, orthodox Communists wanted to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev and take power. After a few days the putsch was defeated through opposition by the army and the population. Nevertheless, Gorbachev stepped down at the end of the year, and the Soviet Union was dissolved. Its place was taken by the Russian Federation under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. He touched off a constitutional crisis in the fall of 1993 that brought Russia to the brink of a civil war. Members of the Congress of People’s Deputies that had been dissolved by Yeltsin barricaded themselves in the Moscow parliamentary building, the White House, which was besieged and fired upon by the army, which supported Yeltsin. The conflicts between Yeltsin’s opponents and supporters lasted for several days and claimed the lives of 187 people. On 5 October the resistance collapsed, and Boris Yeltsin emerged as the victor.
