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Episode details

World Service,19 Aug 2010,10 mins

Coup against Gorbachev

Witness History

Available for over a year

An attempted coup against President Gorbachev was one of the key events in the fall of the Soviet Union. Communist hard-liners tried to force out the president, but their failure ultimately paved the way for even more radical reforms. Alan Johnston speaks to a BBC journalist who was inside the beseiged parliament building in Moscow.

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