Word: putsch
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...Mikhail Gorbachev was summering in the Crimea, dark forces opposed to Gorbachev and his stop-start reforms tried to stage a coup. Yeltsin's political instincts were still sharp, and he raced to the scene, outside Russia's White House. He climbed atop a tank and urged defiance. The putsch failed. Gorby returned to Moscow, but when he declared his unshaken faith in the Soviet state, Russia was Yeltsin's. By Christmas, the U.S.S.R. was done. An era of change had begun...
...Yeltsin's political instincts were still sharp, and he raced to the scene outside of Russia's White House. He memorably climbed atop a rebel tank and urged defiance. Troops involved in the attempted power grab defected, and the putsch failed. Gorbachev returned to Moscow and, remarkably, declared that he still believed in communism. Russia was suddenly Yeltsin's. The Soviet system crumbled and by Christmas day of that year, the Soviet Union itself was finished. The era of reform had begun...
...Boris Yeltsin, 1931-2007 --> "But no, I don't recall anything heroic about him, because there has never been any heroism. Not even when he climbed that tank in Moscow in August 1991 to thwart the hard-liners' putsch. There has been an enormous and stunning political intuition and cunning. He always felt how things would turn out - and that was why he was always capable of turning the situation his way. August 1991 was no exception: he had instinctive grasp of things. He felt instinctively what he had to do to win. At the time, he knew as instinctively...
...that ruled India, attacked his officers and called on his fellow soldiers to join him. He was apparently incensed by the army's new gun cartridges, which were rumored to be coated with the grease of pigs and cows, thereby forcing him to violate his Hindu beliefs. Pandey's putsch failed; he was court-martialed and executed. But the rebellion spread, with soldiers rising up across India and proclaiming an aging Mughal ruler as Emperor. The British brutally won back city after city, and extinguished the mutiny. But when the Indians finally threw the British out 90 years later, they...
...these signs of discomfort could point to a very real eruption: sources close to the military tell TIME that an unknown number of retired and active officers are considering a putsch in which a self-appointed council would take power for up to three years before holding a new election. The plan, the sources say, isn't fully formed: apparently the group has yet to find a political figure to lead the charge. Possible candidates such as former President Fidel V. Ramos and longtime Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile scoff at the coup rumors. "Who is going...