ABSTRACT: The 23rd of August 1991, a few hours after the failure of the coup, the first secretary of the Radical Party, Sergio Stanzoni, launches an appeal in favour of the abolition of the death penalty in the Soviet Union. The appeal has been supported also in the USSR where up to today it has been signed by 57 deputies, who are members of the Soviet Supreme and of the URSS, of the Republic of Russia and the Ukraine, of the Lensoviet and the Mossoviet, of Kiev and the Malgobek and by many personalities of the cultural and scientific sectors.

"We, the undersigned, call upon the Presidents of the Republics of the Soviet Union, and President Gorbachev in particular, to follow the great victory that they and the Russian people have won in the last few days, by carrying out an act that would reinforce their democratic and nonviolent choice, and serve as an example to the entire world.

We call upon President Gorbachev and the other Russian leaders to suspend all existing death sentences immediately, and to take formal action to abolish the death penalty in the Soviet Union now.

We ask that the coup leaders be justly tried, but without the death penalty being applied should it still exist at the time of their trial.

Abolishing the death penalty is both courageous and revolutionary, but it is a choice that democracies throughout the world are expecting from the Russians, who acted with such tremendous civil and human awareness during the recent dramatic events."