On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved and ceased to exist as a sovereign state. It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political and economic stagnation.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted from several factors: chronic economic stagnation, the unsustainable financial burden of the arms race with the United States and foreign conflicts, intense ethnic nationalism and separatism within its union republics, and the destabilizing effects of Gorbachev's reforms (particularly glasnost and perestroika).
The process began with growing unrest in the country's union republics developing into an incessant political and legislative conflict between them and the central government. Until its final years, the Soviet Union was made up of 15 union republics that served as the homelands of different ethnic groups. Estonia was the first union republic to declare state sovereignty on 16 November 1988. Lithuania was the first republic to declare independence, in March 1990.
During the failed 1991 August coup, communist hardliners attempted to overthrow Gorbachev and reverse his reforms. However, the turmoil caused the central government in Moscow to lose influence, ultimately leading many republics to declare independence in the following days and months. On 8 December 1991, the leaders of its three founding republics—the Russian SFSR, the Byelorussian SSR, and the Ukrainian SSR—signed the Belovezha Accords and declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics joined the declaration shortly thereafter. The Belovezha Accords also established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union as a community. Kazakhstan was the last republic to declare independence, on 16 December. All post-Soviet states, with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic states, joined the CIS on 21 December by signing the Alma-Ata Protocol. Russia, as by far the largest and most populous republic, became the Soviet Union's recognized successor state.
On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and transferred his presidential powers—including control of the nuclear launch codes—to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. That evening, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Moscow Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the Russian tricolor. The following day, the Soviet of the Republics, the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, formally dissolved the Soviet Union by adopting Declaration No. 142-N. The dissolution marked the culmination of the Revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, several of the post-Soviet states have retained close links with Russia and formed multilateral organizations such as the CIS and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). A few, notably the Baltic states, moved out of the Russian sphere of influence and towards the West.
Background
1985: Gorbachev elected
Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on 11 March 1985, just over four hours after his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko died at the age of 73. Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the stagnating Soviet economy, and he realized that doing so would require reforming underlying political and social structures. The reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On 23 April 1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the "power" ministries favorable by promoting KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and appointing Minister of Defence Marshal Sergei Sokolov as a Politburo candidate.
The freedom of speech brought by Gorbachev's reforms allowed nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union to be expressed and grow into dominant political movements. It also led indirectly to the revolutions of 1989 in which Soviet-imposed socialist regimes of the Warsaw Pact were toppled peacefully (with the notable exception of Romania), which in turn increased pressure on Gorbachev to introduce greater democracy and autonomy for the Soviet Union's constituent republics. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, the Congress of People's Deputies (although the ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990).
On 1 July 1985, Gorbachev sidelined his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov from the Politburo and brought Boris Yeltsin into the Central Committee Secretariat. On 23 December 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, replacing Viktor Grishin.
1986: Sakharov returns
Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization. On 23 December 1986 Andrei Sakharov, the most prominent Soviet dissident, returned to Moscow shortly after receiving a personal telephone call from Gorbachev telling him that after almost seven years his internal exile for defying the authorities was over.
1987: One-party democracy
At the 28–30 January Central Committee plenum, Gorbachev suggested a new policy of demokratizatsiya, or "democratization", throughout Soviet society. He proposed that future Communist Party elections should offer a choice between multiple candidates, elected by secret ballot. However, the party delegates at the Plenum watered down Gorbachev's proposal, and democratic choice within the Communist Party was never significantly implemented.
Gorbachev also radically expanded the scope of glasnost, and stated that no subject was off limits for open discussion in the media. On 7 February, dozens of political prisoners were freed in the first group release since the Khrushchev thaw in the mid-1950s.
On 10 September, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev. At the 27 October plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter, criticized the slow pace of reform, and servility to the general secretary. In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility".
Nevertheless, news of Yeltsin's insubordination and "secret speech" spread, and soon samizdat versions began to circulate. That marked the beginning of Yeltsin's rebranding as a rebel and rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure. The following four years of political struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev played a large role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 11 November, Yeltsin was fired from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Protest activity (1986–1987)
In the years leading up to the dissolution, various protests and resistance movements occurred or took hold throughout the Soviet Union, which were variously suppressed or tolerated.
In the Baltics, several protest groups were established against Soviet rule, such as Helsinki-86, the Popular Front of Latvia, Sąjūdis (Lithuania), and the Popular Front of Estonia. Helsinki-86 was the first openly anti-Communist organization in the Soviet Union, and the first openly organized opposition to the Soviet regime, setting an example for other ethnic minorities' pro-independence movements.
On 26 December 1986, 300 Latvian youths gathered in Riga's Cathedral Square and marched down Lenin Avenue toward the Freedom Monument, shouting, "Soviet Russia out! Free Latvia!" Security forces confronted the marchers, and several police vehicles were overturned.
The Jeltoqsan ('December') of 1986 were riots in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, sparked by Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, who was replaced with Gennady Kolbin, an outsider from the Russian SFSR. Demonstrations started in the morning of 17 December 1986, with 200 to 300 students in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev Square. On the next day, 18 December, protests turned into civil unrest as clashes between troops, volunteers, militia units, and Kazakh students turned into a wide-scale confrontation. The clashes could only be controlled on the third day.
On 6 May 1987, Pamyat, a Russian nationalist group, held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow. The authorities did not break up the demonstration and even kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin.
On 14 June 1987, about 5,000 people gathered again at Freedom Monument in Riga, and laid flowers to commemorate the anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation of Latvians in 1941. The authorities did not crack down on demonstrators, which encouraged more and larger demonstrations throughout the Baltic States. On 18 November 1987, hundreds of police and civilian militiamen cordoned off the central square to prevent any demonstration at Freedom Monument, but thousands lined the streets of Riga in silent protest regardless.
On 25 July 1987, 300 Crimean Tatars staged a noisy demonstration near the Kremlin Wall for several hours, calling for the right to return to their homeland, from which they were deported in 1944; police and soldiers looked on.
On 23 August 1987, the 48th anniversary of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov Pact, thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the three Baltic capitals to sing independence songs and attend speeches commemorating Stalin's victims. The gatherings were sharply denounced in the official press and closely watched by the police but were not interrupted.
On 17 October 1987, a protest held in Armenia SSR was underway. The following day 1,000 Armenians participated in another demonstration calling for Armenian national rights in Karabakh, and the proposed unification of both Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The police tried to physically prevent the march and after a few incidents, dispersed the demonstrators.
Timeline
1988
Moscow loses control
In 1988, Gorbachev started to lose control of two regions of the Soviet Union, as the Baltic republics were now leaning towards independence, and the Caucasus descended into violence and civil war.
On 1 July 1988, the fourth and last day of a bruising 19th Party Conference, Gorbachev won the backing of the tired delegates for his last-minute proposal to create a new supreme legislative body called the Congress of People's Deputies. Frustrated by the old guard's resistance, Gorbachev embarked on a set of constitutional changes to attempt separation of party and state, thereby isolating his Party opponents. Detailed proposals for the new Congress of People's Deputies were published on 2 October 1988, and to enable the creation of the new legislature. The Supreme Soviet, during its 29 November – 1 December 1988, session, implemented amendments to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, enacted a law on electoral reform, and set the date of the election for 26 March 1989.
On 29 November 1988, the Soviet Union ceased jamming all foreign radio stations, allowing Soviet citizens – for the first time since a brief period in the 1960s – to have unrestricted access to news sources beyond Communist Party control.
Baltic republics
In 1986 and 1987, Latvia had been in the vanguard of the Baltic states in pressing for reform. In 1988, Estonia took over the lead role with the foundation of the Soviet Union's first popular front and starting to influence state policy.
The Popular Front of Estonia was founded in April 1988. On 16 June 1988, Gorbachev replaced Karl Vaino, the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Estonia, with the comparatively liberal Vaino Väljas. In late June 1988, Väljas bowed to pressure from the Estonian Popular Front and legalized the flying of the old blue-black-white flag of Estonia, and agreed to a new state language law that made Estonian the official language of the Republic.
On 2 October, the Popular Front formally launched its political platform at a two-day congress. Väljas attended, gambling that the Front could help Estonia become a model of economic and political revival, while moderating separatist and other radical tendencies. On 16 November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of national sovereignty under which Estonian laws would take precedence over those of the Soviet Union. Estonia's parliament also laid claim to the republic's natural resources including land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits, and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, and municipal services within the territory of Estonia's borders. At the same time the Estonian Citizens' Committees started registration of citizens of the Republic of Estonia to carry out the elections of the Congress of Estonia.
The Popular Front of Latvia was founded in June 1988. On 4 October, Gorbachev replaced Boris Pugo, the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Latvia, with the more liberal Jānis Vagris. In October 1988 Vagris bowed to pressure from the Latvian Popular Front and legalized flying the former carmine red-and-white flag of independent Latvia, and on 6 October he passed a law making Latvian the country's official language.
The Popular Front of Lithuania, called Sąjūdis ("Movement"), was founded in May 1988. On 19 October 1988, Gorbachev replaced Ringaudas Songaila, the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania – who had been in office for nearly a year – with the relatively liberal Algirdas Brazauskas. In October 1988, Brazauskas bowed to pressure from Sąjūdis members, and legalized the flying of the historic yellow-green-red flag of independent Lithuania, and in November 1988 he passed a law making Lithuanian the country's official language; also, the former national anthem, "Tautiška giesmė", was later reinstated. Following a violent protest action in the capital on 28 October, many of Songalia's remaining holdovers within the CPL either resigned or retired in protest of the police brutality of that day.