Title: Moscow, December 25, 1991
Description: The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking "bulldozer," wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt by hardline communists shook Gorbachev's authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin. Conor O'Clery has written a truly suspenseful thriller of the Cold War's final act: the internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future. - Publisher.
Subjects: Politics and government, Social conditions, Biography, History, Sovetskaja Associacija Mezdunarodnogo Prava, Zusammenbruch, Moscow (russia), history, Russia (federation), social conditions, Russia (federation), politics and government, Russia (federation), biography, Gorbachev, mikhail sergeevich, 1931-, Yeltsin, boris nikolayevich, 1931-2007, Soviet union, history, 1953-1991, Soviet union, politics and government, 1985-1991
Places: Moscow (Russia), Soviet Union
People: Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev (1931-), Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1931-2007)
Time periods: 20th century, 1985-1991