Can the Soviet Union survive? Nationwide referendum is Sunday
March 13, 1991
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MOSCOW - Think of the USA in the tumultuous 1960s, add the problems of a Third World economy and throw in political instability for good measure.
This is the state of the Soviet Union today.
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Somber May Day; Proletariat on the march for real change
May 2, 1991
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MOSCOW - The colors in Red Square told the tale.
The Communist Party red that dominated May Day celebrations in previous years no longer stood alone.
Instead, Red Square blazed Wednesday with banners of green, yellow and blue.
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Gorbachev Deposed; Hardliners engineer coup
Apr. 19, 1991
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Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted as president Monday in a coup by hardline right-wingers and replaced by Soviet Vice President Gennady Yanayev.
An official announcement carried by the Tass news agency said Gorbachev was replaced for what the new government called unspecified health reasons and his "inability to perform his duties."
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Blood is spilled; Civilians shot by soldiers; 2 coup leaders 'ill,' resign
Aug. 21, 1991
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The Soviet Union's bloodless coup turned bloody early today as at least three - possibly more - civilians died in Moscow while hundreds of thousands from city streets to Siberia protested the new Kremlin dictatorship.
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Soviet crisis; Not ready for capitalism? In U.S.S.R., free markets frighten many
Aug. 21, 1991
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A six-week stay last winter in Moscow, where store shelves were bare and taxi drivers demanded cartons of cigarettes before they'd pick up passengers, convinced economist Kim Rupert of one thing.
"The only way those people will ever successfully convert to capitalism is if they nuke the country and start all over again. And I'm not even sure that would work," says Rupert, of consultants MMS International Inc.
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'Old fogies' paid for blunders
Aug. 22, 1991
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Hard-line Communists failed to topple Mikhail Gorbachev because of mistakes and ignorance of how democracy changed the nation.
The coup, says ex-CIA Director William Colby, "was run by a bunch of old fogies who thought that if you take the government at the top, the whole thing follows."
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'Healthy' Gorbachev returns as coup fails
Aug. 22, 1991
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Mikhail Gorbachev - ending three days that scared the world - reclaimed power in the Soviet Union today as his would-be successors scrambled for their lives.
"Society must know, the entire world must know, what they were up to and what they wanted to do with me and what they wanted from me and did not get from me," Gorbachev told Soviet television.
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Bush: Don't underestimate the 'power of the people'; 'Provincial' politician is new hero
Aug. 22, 1991
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Inside Boris Yeltsin's Moscow stronghold late Wednesday, elation and triumph replaced the dread that gripped the resistance for three days.
"Sunset over Moscow is beautiful," a Yeltsin government official faxed to Allen Weinstein at Washington's Center for Democracy.
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3 days as a prisoner; Coup attempt took its toll on Gorbachev
Aug. 23, 1991
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"I picked up one of the telephones I have and it wasn't working. I picked up a second, a third, a fourth. ... Everything was cut off."
That is how Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, at 4:50 p.m. local time Sunday, learned he had been deposed.
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Soviet split accelerates; Republics join rush to independence
Aug. 26, 1991
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MOSCOW - Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev met privately with their advisers Sunday - Yeltsin to plot new decrees for today and Gorbachev to cling to what's left of the Soviet presidency.
A special meeting of the Supreme Soviet today could result in official independence for the Baltic republics.
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Soviet economy in chaos; Gorbachev's slow reforms leave a void
Sept. 4, 1991
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Oh, those lines of weary Soviets. They're all over TV and newspapers. Lines for shoes and furniture. Lines for sausage that looks like soap. Lines for soap that smells like sausage.
How did those lines really get there? And can anybody make them go away?
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'The Soviet Union is finished'; Baltics on Baker trip
Sept. 6, 1991
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MOSCOW - The Soviet Union today begins the process of re-creating itself after a historic vote to transfer power from the central government to newly sovereign republics.
The interim State Council - President Mikhail Gorbachev and leaders of 10 republics - meets today for the first time.
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Soviet Union 'no longer exists'; 3 republics unite; Gorbachev 'obsolete'
Dec. 9, 1991
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MOSCOW - The Soviet Union's three powerful Slavic republics forged a new alliance Sunday, declaring the death of Mikhail Gorbachev's beleaguered government.
Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine, comprising 75% of the Soviet Union's 290 million people and most of its economic power, formed a "commonwealth of independent states" - sodruzhestvo (so DRU zhest vor) in Russian.
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Soviet Union to officially die Jan. 1
Dec. 18, 1991
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MOSCOW - The red flag of the Soviet Union, with its gold hammer and sickle, comes down from atop the Kremlin on New Year's Eve.
That's when the Kremlin itself will be in the hands of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
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Gorbachev resigns; 'A savior who lost his country'
Dec. 26, 1991
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev may be the only man in history to earn the world's admiration for losing an empire.
Gorbachev resigned Wednesday as president of a Soviet Union that no longer exists, ending the 75-year experiment known as the Bolshevik Revolution, changing the world's political map in the most profound way since World War II.
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Bush recognizes Russia, 5 others
Dec. 26, 1991
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MOSCOW - Mikhail Gorbachev, whose stubbornness made him the last remnant of the once mighty Soviet empire, gave up his presidency Wednesday.
"If you have to go, you have to go. It's that time," he said to no one in particular minutes before appearing on worldwide TV to give a 12-minute resignation speech.
