Gennady Yanayev took over and addressed the nation as their new president, being clearly drunk as he reported that Gorbachev was killed by a “radical Lativan sepratist.” What the plotters didn’t account for was Ruslan Khasbulatov, president of the Russian SFSR. A dissident communist economist in the 1980s, Khasbulatov took over the reformist faction of the CPSU after Yeltstin’s unfortunate death.
As tanks went through Moscow, mass citizen protests erupted as they demanded the end of the coup, with the White House being barricaded by civilians and major parts of the Soviet army. Inside the Wihte House, Khasbulatov was able to make calls to world leaders and even Yanayev himself. After several clashes between troops loyal to Khasbulatov and troops loyal to Yanayev, it was clear that the coup was falling apart as Soviet society rose against it.
Upon the resignation of Yanayev, acting Prime Minister and Khasbulatov loyalist Ivan Silayev took over as Acting President, but it was clear whose orders Silayev was taking ahead of the 1992 Sovereign Union presidential election. The remaining coup plotters were arrested, with the exception of Boris Pugo (who killed himself), and KGB Director Vladimir Kryuchkov, who used his friendship with publisher Robert Maxwell to secure his way out of prison. In exchange for his release and a series of KGB documents involving Maxwell conveniently disappearing, Maxwell would secure much needed loans for the Sovereign Union through Prime Minister Gow and Defense Secretary John Tower. Shortly before securing the deals, Maxwell passed away peacefully from a long term illness.
The 1992 Sovereign Union Presidential Election would be a landslide victory for the Independent Candidates Ruslan Khasbultov and his Vice President Alexander Rutskoy (a sop to the Military forces who had supported Ruslan, despite hand wringing from various Democrats) against the remnants of the CPSU lead by Ryzhkov and the bizarrely named Liberal Democratic of the Sovereign Union lead by Right Wing Populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Ruslan Khasbulatov’s main aim was to help fix the stagnating Union’s economy and deal with the rising Nationalist movements in the Caucasus. Even Ruslan’s Chechan heritage wouldn’t stop Dzhokhar Dudayev declaring independence in 1991 and after a failure of negotiation, Ruslan would send tanks into the nation in 1993 whilst urging for order from his countrymen. Whilst there would be fighting from Nationalist groups, for the most part fighting was sparse as most citizens trusted their USS leader. Dzhokhar Dudayev would leave the country for Tanai’s Afghanistan and whilst there would guerrilla warfare in the mountains for the years to come, Ruslan Khasbultov had managed to secure his Presidency. Not long afterwards in 1993, he would begin forming the Soyuz Sotsial-Demokratov or Union of Social Democrats, a big tent of Centre Left politicians ranging from Pro-European Liberals like Grigory Yavlinsky to Social Democrats like Gavriil Popov to the seeming Democratic Socialists like Sergey Glazyev.
The SSD would become Ruslan Khasbultov’s base from which he would reform the Post-Soviet USS. The industries would be partially denationalised with some going into Private Hands entirely (like Oil and Gas) while elements like the health services and other items were kept in USS hands. Generally Ruslan would seek support for his ventures from the EU, Scandinavia countries, Britain, and also China. Zhao’s support of the burgeoning nation allowed it to deal with their economic crisis sooner than expected as Russia’s natural resources helped the rapidly industrializing nation.