Some 30 years ago last month, a group of communist hardliners seized control of Moscow and placed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest at his holiday home in Crimea.
They opposed Gorbachev’s economic and political reforms — perestroika and glasnost — and sought to topple his government. Within three days, however, the coup imploded. By the end of that year, so had the Soviet Union.
During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 20 years in power, the meaning of that act of subversion has been inverted. Now, the attempted coup is portrayed as an effort by Russian forces to preserve the state, thwarted by anti-Soviet sentiment.