The day itself: history has made its first move, and the next one is yours.
Briefing
19 August 1991. The State Committee on the State of Emergency has announced that Gorbachev cannot serve "for health reasons" and declared a state of emergency. Yeltsin calls for resistance from a tank outside the White House. The new Union Treaty was to be signed tomorrow. The Baltics, Georgia and Moldova push for independence; Yugoslavia is already at war. Save the Union, break it up or build something else – every country and republic is playable.
Real history stays a strong tendency: what happened later is planned for its date – until your actions change the world.
You govern: the orders are the state's.
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The world on 19 August 1991
Early on 19 August 1991 Soviet radio announces that Mikhail Gorbachev cannot carry out his duties "for reasons of health" and that a State Committee on the State of Emergency has taken power, led by Vice-President Gennady Yanayev with the heads of the KGB, the army and the interior ministry. Gorbachev is held at his dacha at Foros in the Crimea, and tanks roll into Moscow.
The plotters want to stop the new Union Treaty, due to be signed on 20 August, which would hand much of Moscow's power to the republics. Boris Yeltsin, elected President of Russia in June, refuses to obey: from a tank outside the Russian parliament, the White House, he calls for resistance, and crowds begin to build barricades. The Baltic republics, Georgia and others have already declared independence or are moving towards it.
Abroad the Cold War is ending. Germany was reunited last October, the Warsaw Pact dissolved in July, and the Soviet shops are short of food and goods. Western governments have backed Gorbachev's reforms with words and credit. Whether the army obeys the committee, whether the republics follow Moscow or Yeltsin, and how the world answers will decide what becomes of the Union.