This is a clip from a 1995 program called "The Internet Show". Most of it is pretty painful to watch now, but this bit is fascinating. In 1991, a bunch of old party hardliners staged a coup while Gorbachev was on vacation. They shut down the newspapers, TV, radio, telephone system and telegraph. But they didn't know about the Internet and Relcom's 56k dedicated line to Finland. Yeltsen could communicate to the West and had more information than the hardliners.