Dmitry Timofeevich Yazov - Marshal of the Soviet Union, Minister of Defense of the USSR - was one of the opponents of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. In 1991, he became part of the State Emergency Committee from the very first day of its creation: tanks and other heavy equipment were brought into Moscow by order of D. T. Yazov; a plan was discussed to storm the White House, where Boris Yeltsin and his supporters were located. However, the assault was never carried out, the army units were withdrawn to the barracks, which allowed B. Yeltsin to win a victory that became a disaster for the USSR. In his book, D. T. Yazov answers the question that has occupied many for twenty years: why the Soviet army allowed the “democrats” to deal a fatal blow to the state that she was obliged to defend? What is the reason for her indecisive actions and who influenced them? The book is based on materials from the personal archive of D. T. Yazov and his diaries.