History glossary
Emergency Committee
the group of Soviet hardliners who attempted the August 1991 coup.
- Category
- Political group
- Region
- Soviet Union
- Date range
- 1991
What it means
The Emergency Committee, known by its Russian initials GKChP, was the group of Soviet hardliners who announced emergency rule in August 1991. Its failure destroyed much of the remaining authority of the Soviet state.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
From Gorbachev’s reforms to the lowering of the Soviet flag over the Kremlin, this story traces the rapid unravelling of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.
The French Revolution
From royal debt and social inequality to republic, terror, and Napoleon, the French Revolution dismantled the old order and produced the political ideas of citizenship, rights, and nationalism that defined the modern world.
