Dissolution of The Soviet Union

Dissolution Of The Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally dissolved on 26 December 1991 by declaration № 142-H of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. This declaration acknowledged the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union following the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On the previous day, 25 December 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, declaring his office extinct, and handed over the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That same evening at 7:32 P.M. the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the Russian tricolor. The dissolution of the world's first and largest Communist state also marked an end to the Cold War.

In order to revive the stagnant Soviet economy, in 1985 new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began a process of increasing political liberalization (glasnost/perestroika) in the totalitarian, communist one-party state. However, this liberalization led to the emergence from 1986 onwards of nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the diverse republics of the Soviet Union. It also led to the revolutions of 1989 which saw the mainly peaceful (Romania excepted) toppling of the Soviet imposed Communist regimes of the Warsaw Pact, 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 in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, the Congress of Peoples Deputies, although the ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990. The 17 March 1991 referendum showed 76.4% of Soviet citizens voting to retain the Union, however its legitimacy was undermined by the fact that six republics refused to participate (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Georgia and Armenia). Beginning in Estonia in November 1988 the legislatures of the Soviet republics began passing laws undermining the control of the central government and endorsing greater independence within the Soviet Union On 11 March 1990 Lithuania was the first Soviet Republic to declare outright independence and secede from the USSR.

The increasing political unrest led the conservative establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party to attempt a coup d'état to oust Gorbachev and re-establish an authoritarian and strong central regime in August 1991. Although foiled by popular resistance led by Boris Yeltsin, then the president of the Russian SFSR, the coup attempt led to heightened fears that the reforms would be reversed, and most of the constituent republics began declaring outright independence. On December 8, 1991 the presidents of the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met secretly and signed the Belavezha Accords agreeing to dissolve the Soviet Union, and replace it with a loose, voluntary union, the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Two weeks later, 11 of the remaining 12 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. Increasingly powerless in the face of events, Gorbachev resigned from his office on December 25, and the Soviet Union formally ended its existence the next day. In international law, Russia was recognized as the successor state of the Soviet Union, and took complete possession of its arsenal of nuclear weapons after the signing of the Lisbon Protocol. The Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to the end of decades-long hostility between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which had been the defining feature of the Cold War. In the countries of the former USSR, the outcomes of the dissolution were mixed. Only the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia established fully democratic systems of government. Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia, and Moldova have maintained some democratic freedoms, but Belarus, Azerbaijan and the Central Asian republics have for many years had authoritarian rulers. Russia itself underwent a period of political instability and economic decline before reverting to authoritarianism under the presidency of Vladimir Putin

Many former Soviet republics have retained close links with Russia and formed multilateral organizations such as the Eurasian Economic Community, the Union State, the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia and the Eurasian Union to enhance economic and security cooperation, and extend greater Russian influence over its former empire.