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I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnick talks to New York contributor Masha Lipman.

In 1991, both covered an attempted coup in the Soviet Union that threw the already chaotic country into disarray.

Mingling with the rush hour traffic, Red Army armored personnel carriers on the streets of Moscow this morning, heading to the Kremlin. They first moved in at 4 a.m., the first sign of the coup d'etat that removed Mikhail Gorbachev from power.

With tanks in red square.

25 summers ago in August of 1991, I had been a foreign correspondent in Moscow for nearly four years for the Washington Post.

Mikhail Gorbachev as the head of the Soviet Union had gone about dismantling the old communist ideology and state control over everything

from the economy to poetry. And the old guard was increasingly furious. There had been rumors of a coup

for months, and finally, on August 19th, it happened. Tanks in Moscow, Gorbachev under house arrest, and without exaggeration,

the fate of the world as we'd known it for decades hung in the balance.

President Bush calls the coup a disturbing development, which could have serious consequences

on relations with the Soviet Union. Experts say the stage is now set for civil war.

But when it was all said and done, the coup failed, almost comically, colossally, more Marx

brothers than Dostoevsky. It was over in just three days, and that was the last gasp of old

...