Yes, they are.

We are very happy that the coup failed because we have now really destroyed the communist empire, the Soviet state, and of course, as
Ronald Reagan said, it was indeed an evil empire and we are glad that it
is gone from the earth.

– Andrei Kozyrev, Yeltsin Foreign Minister, speaking to ABC’s Sam Donaldson, after the communist hard-liners coup attempt failed in 1991.