Coup De Grace

The curtain rose last week on what could prove the final act in a drama of tragicomic ineptitude: the "vodka putsch." Remember the three days in August 1991 when a dozen communist leaders imprisoned Mikhail Gorbachev and seized control of the Soviet Union? After the scheme fell apart, one conspirator drank himself into a stupor, another shot himself dead, and a third made a break for the airport -- where he was arrested with the key to his new Kremlin office still in his pocket.

The long-awaited trial of 12 plotters accused of staging the ill-fated coup finally began in Moscow last week. The group's defense will be that its bid for power was not an act of treason but rather a patriotic effort to prevent the breakup of the U.S.S.R. While many Russians appear ready to believe them -- or at least pardon them -- the defendants could be sentenced to death if found guilty. In Russia that means a bullet to the back of the head -- an unfunny finale to one of history's most riveting farces.