Russian opposition parties and movements will rally outside the Russian government building on Sunday to mark the 21st anniversary of the failed August coup of 1991, the RPR-PARNAS party said on Wednesday.

On August 19, 1991 a group of hard-line communists, the GKChP, tried to oust Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and halt his perestroika program. The attempted coup led to the break-up of the Soviet Union.

“On this day of the failed communist attempt at revenge, we suggest remembering this unique experience of civil action, when free people took their country’s history in their own hands. Ordinary people took to streets, protected the White House and prevented their country from plunging into the abyss of totalitarianism,” the Republican Party of Russia – People's Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS) said in a statement.

City authorities authorized the rally near the Russian government building, known as the Russian White House, to begin at 16:30 Moscow time (12:30 GMT) on Sunday.

The rally will gather activists of the RPR-PARNAS and Yabloko political parties, the Civil Initiative Committee think-tank, the People's Democratic Union, Solidarity, the Moscow Helsinki Group and other movements and non-governmental organizations.