Video: 'CNN - Soviet coup (first reports)' (coverage begins Aug. 18, 1991, at 11:27 p.m. EDT)

(Monday, August 19, 1991, state of emergency declared at 5:57 a.m. Eastern European Summer Time; during the 1991 Soviet coup d’état attempt; part of the Revolutions of 1989 and Dissolution of the Soviet Union) — Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was tentatively ousted from power today by military and K.G.B. authorities while he was on vacation in the distant Crimea.

The coup began this morning at 4:00 a.m. EEST when General Igor Maltsev ordered the Crimean Airport to close and warships are anchored near Kap Foros, which is located near Gorbachev’s summer villa.

Video: 'Soviet Coup 1991: Day One - ABC News - August 19'

Kremlin officials then declared a state of emergency at 5:57 a.m. EEST, saying Gorbachev, who was about to proceed into a new era of power sharing with the nation’s republics, was in ill health and was being replaced by Vice President Gennady Yanayev.

The coup leaders, the top military and civilian leaders just below Gorbachev, 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 treaty decentralized much of the central government’s power to the 15 republics.

Video: 'The Week That Shook The World: The Soviet Coup — ABC News (1991)'

The hard-liners were very poorly organized. 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 coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to office, while all the plotters lost office.
Yeltsin became the dominant leader and Gorbachev lost much of his influence.

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.