About the book: 2014 / Documents revealing the secret springs of the events of August 1991, which led to the collapse of the USSR, the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, mainly are inaccessible to the modern reader, and it is unlikely that they will ever become known in full. Realizing this, leading journalists from the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, the central organ of the USSR-Russian Ministry of Defense, tried to obtain first-hand information: from the organizers and participants of the events, right down to members of the State Emergency Committee D.T. Yazov and V.A. Kryuchkov, military leaders, command and fighters of the special forces of the KGB of the USSR, leaders of the “White House defense”, statesmen, scientists and political scientists. The book, composed of analytical materials and poignant interviews, allows the reader to get an idea of ​​the deep processes in Soviet society that led to the degradation and collapse of the system, the direction of the efforts of the “reformers” and “destroyers,” the real results of their actions and the prospects for modern development Russia. Declassified archival documents are presented as appendices, shedding light on the events of that dramatic time. The book uses materials from the newspaper “Red Star”».