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BOOK review: How the Soviet Union Died. The August Coup, by Robert Service
In August 1991, a group of hardliners inside the Soviet leadership launched a desperate bid to save the USSR. Led by the head of the KGB, they placed Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest, declared a state of emergency, and attempted to reverse the reforms of perestroika and glasnost.
Instead, they accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This week on History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss historian Robert Service's gripping new account of the August Coup: the dramatic three days that changed the course of world history.
They explore:
Why Gorbachev's reforms…
The skinny
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