The coup attempt by Yevgeny Prigozhin, if it was a full-fledged coup, has fizzled. The consensus among analysts and Russia specialists is that Vladimir Putin has been weakened, and that his future hold on power is uncertain: as is often the case with dictators, once their aura of invincibility is punctured, the end comes rather quickly.

The Prigozhin affair is reminiscent of events three decades ago.

Thirty years ago, disgruntled members of the Russian military, intelligence and police organizations attempted to topple Boris Yeltsin, who was the president of the Russian Federation — or the Russian Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) as it was called while the Soviet Union was still in existence.

The attempted coup lasted three days, from 19 to 22 August 1991, and was orchestrated by a group of high-ranking Soviet government officials who opposed Yeltsin’s political and economic reforms.

At that time, the Soviet Union was disintegrating. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the President of the Soviet Union, was pursuing a policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) aimed at reforming the Soviet system. These reforms faced strong opposition from conservative elements within the Communist Party and the Soviet government.

Gorbachev was facing harsh criticism from the other direction, too – from those who argued that his reforms were not deep or broad enough, and that the pace of their implementation was too slow. Yeltsin was a vocal supporter of democratic and market-oriented reforms, and soon became a prominent figure in the democratic, market-reform opposition to Gorbachev’s policies.

On 18 August 1991, a group of high-ranking officials, including members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (known as the “Gang of Eight”), declared a state of emergency in the Soviet Union and attempted to remove Gorbachev and seize power. They claimed that Gorbachev was ill and unable to perform his duties, and they aimed to restore the centralized control of the Communist Party.

Yeltsin, who was in the Russian White House in Moscow, where the offices of the Russian Federation were located, seized the moment and played a crucial role in opposing the coup – but also using the moment to sideline Gorbachev.

He rallied public support and called for a general strike and protests against the coup. Thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow to defend democracy and show their support for Yeltsin.