Word: putsches
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...Boris Godunov. The Soviet leader's personality clashes with Russian populist Boris Yeltsin, their pendulum swings from angry betrayal to wary reconciliation, were as important for the process of perestroika as finding the right mechanisms for a free-market economy. Then came the high drama of the August putsch and the final unraveling of the union. Given his turbulent career, the Soviet leader probably never suspected that everything would come tumbling down just because three republic leaders decided to hold a weekend summit in Belorussia...
None of the "conspirators" in that peaceful second putsch could bring themselves to deliver the final political coup de grace. Instead the Soviet President was left to go through the motions of office while Yeltsin methodically chipped away at his powers, placing the entire territory of the Kremlin under Russian control, and pro-Yeltsin television commentators made daily calls for Gorbachev to step down...
...course, exactly what would have happened had they never tried their putsch. But quite likely their continued presence in the government would have forced repeated compromises that would have kept a brake on reform and democratization of Soviet society. The new treaty of union the putschists acted to forestall would have been signed and kept at least some of the bigger republics in a union with a weakened but functioning central government. The Communist Party, though declining, might have retained considerable influence...
...period. The conservatives and reactionaries, after their defeat, are gathering strength and hoping to take advantage of the country's difficulties. There is a lot of discontent, which can be channeled in a certain direction. But they will be unable to get the army to rise up in a putsch...
Since joining the resistance to the putsch attempt in August, Shevardnadze has been watching from the sidelines as the power of the central government has drained away to the ascendant republics. His decision to rejoin Mikhail Gorbachev is likely to lend credibility to the Soviet President's efforts to reconstruct a union and to solicit Western aid for the ailing economy...