Soviet-Russian Politician, Conspirator. He was one of the "Gang of Eight", a group of hardline communists who attempted a coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. The unsuccessful plot triggered the demise of the USSR. Born in Volovchick, Russia, Starodubtsev was trained in agriculture and for many years headed a prosperous collective farm in the Novomoskovsk District. He rose to political prominence under Gorbachev, becoming Chairman of the All-Union Committee of Collective Farms (1986), of the RSFSR Agrarian Union (1990) and the Peasant Union of the USSR (1990). Gorbachev's reforms had touched off a groundswell of nationalism that ended Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe and divided the Communist Party at home. Alarmed by these developments, Starodubtsev joined a cabal of high-ranking officials styling themselves the "State Committee of the State of Emergency", and plotted to help them usurp government control. On August 19, 1991, they launched the coup in Moscow while Gorbachev was away on vacation, declaring at a press conference that he could no longer lead due to "health reasons". A reporter asked Starodubtsev, who had the lowest profile of the group, "Who are you? Who invited you here?" - the first sign of their lack of strict media control, one of many factors that would prove their undoing. They also failed to arrest several key reformist leaders - most crucially, RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin, who rallied opposition to the takeover and urged a general strike throughout Russia. Planned military support for the putschists was withdrawn in the face of massive civil resistance and by August 21 the coup had fallen apart. Most agree that the "Gang of Eight" hastened the downfall of the regime they had hoped to save. Although Gorbachev returned to office, the failed coup enabled Yeltsin to seize autonomous power within Russia and destabilized the already shaky Soviet power structure beyond repair. Gorbachev resigned as USSR President on December 25, 1991, and one day later the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist. All but one of the conspirators were charged with treason (Interior Minister Boris Pugo committed suicide to avoid arrest) but were granted amnesty in 1994. Starodubtsev was the first to be released from custody in June 1992, on the condition that he would not run for political office. He ignored the terms, winning election to the Federation Council of Russia (serving from 1993 to 1996), as Governor of the Tula Oblast (serving from 1997 to 2005), and to the State Duma (serving from 2007 to 2011), and was a major player in the new Russian Communist Party. Under President Vladimir Putin he was nominated for the Russian Federation's "Governor of the Year" award in 2002. A wealthy capitalist in later years, Starodubtsev never modified his political views. In an interview, shortly before his death, he called Gorbachev "a traitor."