That refusal of the generals to fire on the mercenaries that paved the way for the rebels to ride

Putin’s era could close in the same way that the last blow in the tail of the Soviet apparatus ended. In August 1991, when tanks occupied Moscow and tried to choke the move from communism to democracy, paratroopers said no to orders to fire into the crowd. A refusal that made the coup of the Red Army fail and marked the triumph of Boris Yeltsin.