The August Coup: The Destruction of the Soviet Union and the Making of New Russia 1985-1991 Author: Robert Service ISBN-13: 9781529065787Publisher: PanMacmillan Guideline Price: £30; 432ppAn introductory six-page glossary of public USSR figures gives an idea of the level of detail within Robert Service’s terrific new work on the coup against Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev. Eight high-ranking members of the Russian government, led by head of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov, declared a state of emergency in August 1991, with the idea of restoring stability following the turbulent period of “glasnost” (openness in society and politics) and “perestroika” (economic and government reform) under Gorbachev. The plotters imagined their authoritarian ambitions would salvage some form of the Union, but its abysmal failure merely pushed it towards faster collapse. Another consequence of the coup’s failure saw the increased standing of that other charismatic figure who loomed large during the last days of Soviet communism: Boris Yeltsin. If the coup cut the legs from under Gorbachev, then it “cleared the ground for Yeltsin and Russia to dominate the public arena, leaving Gorbachev a helpless spectator”, writes Service, a fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, who has written extensively on Soviet history. With the KGB deactivated, the Red Army demobilised, and the communist party outlawed, “there could have been no more favourable conditions for breaking up the Soviet Union”. Service believes Yeltsin, despite all his failings, deserves a more positive reputation ”as an astute handler of a volatile political situation”, even if he remained too circumspect when alive in who he anointed as his successor in Russian politics and regarding the country’s subsequent direction of travel.[ Putin: His Life and Times by Philip ShortOpens in new window ]Gorbachev ending one-party rule and easing social conditions, and his role in cooling the Cold War, were extraordinary achievements of course, although Service says he “sleepwalked towards one of the most corrupt variants of capitalism imaginable”.“Was he right to concentrate on certain key elements of policy at the expense of others equally important?” he wonders. “Could a less ambitious shift in communist policy have worked… was the Chinese road to a capitalist economy desired or practicable?” As for the putschists? “They were overly self-assured and utterly incompetent,” writes Service.The August Coup is a masterly piece of scholarship, written like a political thriller (which the episode was), and the density of detail from Service’s research means it’s likely to become a definitive account of a key moment in the last days of the Soviet Union.NJ McGarrigle is a journalist and critic from Co Tyrone