THE SOVIET COLLAPSE

With its economy in tatters and the Warsaw Pact extinct, political discontent triggers an unsuccessful coup d’etat in Moscow by Soviet hardliners to topple Mikhail Gorbachev. Although it fails, the consequence is the dissolution of the

Soviet Union into a ‘commonwealth’ of newly independent republics and further economic chaos in Russia.

Even as tanks surround the Kremlin a shambolic popular resistance ensures the Soviets loose their final gamble