VII.

Breakup of the Soviet Union

Gorbachev’s policies eroded the Communist regime’s authoritarian controls without putting any solid alternative structure in their place. Politically, he was caught between conflicting forces: on the one hand, his reforms went too far for conservative elements in the Soviet Communist Party and government bureaucracy, and on the other hand, they did not go far enough to suit the more radically minded. By late 1990 Gorbachev faced competing pressures from both these camps, and also from secessionists within the 15 republics that comprised the USSR. In the face of these pressures, a weakening Soviet economy, and growing political instability, Gorbachev allied himself temporarily with party conservatives and security organs within the Soviet government.

In theory, the USSR had since its inception been a federation; in reality, however, central government institutions had always held the bulk of power within the Soviet Union. After the Soviet republics held democratic elections in 1990, their new governments one by one adopted resolutions proclaiming their sovereignty. Although the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were the first to challenge the Soviet leadership, the most dangerous threat came from the Russian republic, which contained more than half of the USSR’s population. In May 1990 Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev’s leading radical critic, was chosen to be chairman of the Russian parliament. In June 1991 Yeltsin was voted president of Russia in a direct public election.

Unwilling to use force to quell his opponents within the constituent republics, Gorbachev tried to draw the republics voluntarily into a new “Union Treaty” of federation, which would update the original treaty that established the USSR in 1922. A preliminary version of such a treaty was to be initialled by a number of the republics on August 20, 1991. That signing never took place, however, for on August 19, a group of Gorbachev’s closest associates—all Communist conservatives at the highest levels of government—attempted a coup against Gorbachev by declaring a national state of emergency. Gorbachev, under guard at his summer home, refused to endorse the plot, which quickly crumbled in the face of street protests in Moscow spearheaded by Russian president Yeltsin—who emerged as the hero of the hour—and other pro-democracy politicians. Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but his leadership had been severely discredited by the crisis. On August 24 Gorbachev resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party. Within several days, party activities had been suspended.

Over the next four months, Gorbachev struggled to salvage a weak federal union, a transitional central government, and some place in it for himself, but he was unable to reach any kind of lasting agreement. By October, all of the Soviet republics except for Russia and Kazakhstan had declared their independence from the USSR. Then, on December 8, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared the USSR defunct and announced that they were forming a loose alliance called the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president on December 25 in a solemn television address, and the USSR ceased to exist (see Communism, Collapse of).