The treaty would make the Soviet Union a federation of independent republics called the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics with a common president, foreign policy, and military. Following negotiations, eight of the nine republics (except Ukraine) approved the New Union Treaty with some conditions. In the unionwide referendum on 17 March 1991, boycotted by the Baltic states, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova, the supermajority of the residents of the rest of the republics expressed the desire to retain the renewed Soviet Union, with 77.85% voting in favor.

The Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR adopted laws that contradicted Soviet laws (the so-called War of Laws). Russia declared its sovereignty on 12 June 1990 and thereafter limited the application of Soviet laws, in particular the laws concerning finance and the economy, on Russian territory.

There were continuing armed ethnic conflicts in Nagorno Karabakh and South Ossetia. About a week later, there was a similar attempt by local pro-Soviet forces to overthrow the Latvian authorities. In January 1991, there was an attempt to return Lithuania to the Soviet Union by force. In 1990, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Armenia had already declared the restoration of their independence from the Soviet Union. Scarcity of food, medicine, and other consumables was widespread, people had to stand in long lines to buy even essential goods, fuel stocks were up to 50% less than the estimated need for the approaching winter, and inflation was over 300% per year, with factories lacking in cash needed to pay salaries. In 1991, the Soviet Union was in a severe economic and political crisis.

Specifically, nationalist agitation on the part of the Soviet Union's non- Russian minorities grew, and there were fears that some or all of the union republics might secede. The reforms also unleashed some forces and movements that Gorbachev did not expect. These moves prompted resistance and suspicion on the part of hardline members of the nomenklatura. Since assuming power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev had embarked on an ambitious program of reform, embodied in the twin concepts of perestroika and glasnost, meaning economic/political restructuring and openness, respectively.

5.6 Supranational bodies and organizations.

4.5 Commemoration of the civilians killed.

4.3 Beginning of radical economic reforms in Russia.

The failed coup led to both the immediate collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the USSR four months later.ДЇollowing the capitulation of the GKChP, popularly referred to as the 'Gang of Eight', both the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev described their actions as a coup attempt. Yeltsin became the dominant leader and Gorbachev lost much of his influence. The coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to office, while all the plotters lost office. They met defeat by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance, mainly in Moscow, led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who had been both an ally and critic of Gorbachev. The hard-liners were very poorly organized. The treaty decentralized much of the central government's power to the 15 republics. They were hard-line opponents of Gorbachev's reform program, angry at the loss of control over Eastern European states, and fearful of the new union treaty that was about to be signed. The coup leaders consisted of top military and civilian officials who formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP). The 1991 Soviet coup d'Г©tat attempt, also known as the August Coup, was a failed attempt made by communist hard-liners of the Soviet Union to take control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the party.

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