Reform, Coup and Collapse: The End of the Soviet State

Page 5 of 6

• 1. Setting the scene
• 2. Transformations begin
• 3. Changes in policy
• 4. Empire disintegrates
• 5. End of the Union
• 6. Find out more
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End of the Union

The coup failed for many reasons, among them divisions within the military and the KGB. Within a few days the principal putschists were under arrest. Gorbachev, who had been elected President of the Soviet Union in March 1990, not by the citizenry as a whole but indirectly by the Congress of People's Deputies, was enormously weakened by the revolt against him by people he had appointed to high office. Yeltsin wasted no time in taking advantage of his new position of strength. Conscious of the fact that with no Union there would be no Gorbachev in the Kremlin, he proceeded to wind up the USSR in conjunction with the leaders of the two other Slavic republics of Belarus and Ukraine. On 25 December 1991 the red flag was lowered from the Kremlin and by the end of the month the Soviet Union had passed into history. Fifteen new states stood where one mighty superpower had recently held sway.

Neither the system nor the Union had to disappear in this particular way. Before liberalisation and democratisation from above, only a handful of dissidents dared voice their grievances and demands in public. A different leader from Gorbachev might have resorted to old-style coercion the moment he saw that reform was leading to loss of control. A different leader from Yeltsin might have strived to preserve the boundaries of a 'greater Russia' rather than accept borders that had never, historically, been those of his country and which, moreover, meant that 25 million Russians found themselves all of a sudden living 'abroad'. Each of the five great transformations interacted with and influenced the others.

'Fifteen new states stood where one mighty superpower had recently held sway.'

But the sequence was that the Soviet Union was first reformed, then transformed, and then disintegrated all within the space of six-and-a-half years. It had ceased to be a communist system in any meaningful sense from the time of the state-wide contested elections of the spring of 1989. Inside the Communist Party, vigorous public debate had replaced 'democratic centralism'. Moreover, the basic principle of the party's 'leading role' within the political system and society was being challenged from all sides as new political organisations sprang up. In March 1990 the Communist Party's monopoly of power was removed from the Soviet Constitution, formal recognition of what had been the reality on the ground for the past year.

Seldom, if ever, has a highly authoritarian political system, deploying military means sufficient to destroy life on earth, been dismantled so peacefully. Never has an empire disintegrated with so little bloodshed. Although huge difficulties remained for the successor states, the way Soviet communism came to an end was one of the great success stories of 20th century politics.

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Published: 2001-10-12