Yanayev, Gennady (1937– )

Soviet communist politician, vice-president of the USSR 1990–91. He led the August 1991 anti-Gorbachev attempted coup, after which he was arrested and charged with treason. He was released in 1994 under an amnesty.

Yanayev rose in the ranks as a traditional, conservative-minded communist bureaucrat to become a member of the Politburo and Secretariat, and head of the official Soviet trade-union movement from 1990. In December 1990 he was President Gorbachev's surprise choice for vice-president. In August 1991, however, Yanayev became titular head of the eight-member ‘emergency committee’ that launched the reactionary coup against Gorbachev.