Dissolution of the Soviet Union - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

(USSR), resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union

Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics of the Soviet Union were ethnically-based administrative units that were subordinated directly to the Government of the Soviet Union...

between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991. The dissolution of the world's largest socialist state also marked a formal end to the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

.

In order to revive the stagnant Soviet economy

Economy of the Soviet Union

The economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning...

, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

initiated a process of increasing political liberalization (glasnost

Glasnost

Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...

/perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

) in the erstwhile totalitarian, communist one-party state. However, this liberalization led to the emergence of long-repressed nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the diverse republics of the Soviet Union. The Revolutions of 1989

Revolutions of 1989

The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...

led to the fall of the socialist states allied to the Soviet Union and 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

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

subsequently introduced direct elections, formed a new central legislature and ended its ban on political parties. Although a March 1991 referendum showed a large majority of Soviet citizens voting to retain the Union, its legitimacy was marred by a boycott from the Baltic republics. The legislatures of the Soviet republics began passing laws undermining the control of the central government and endorsing independence.

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 agitation led by Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

, then the president of the Russian SFSR

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

, 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 22, 1991 the presidents of the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met secretly and agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union, replacing it with a loose, voluntary form of union known as the Commonwealth of Independent States

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

. Increasingly powerless in the face of events, Gorbachev resigned from his office and the Soviet Union formally ended its existence on December 25, 1991. In international law

International law

Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

was recognized as the successor state

Succession of states

Succession of states is a theory and practice in international relations regarding the recognition and acceptance of a newly created sovereign state by other states, based on a perceived historical relationship the new state has with a prior state...

of the Soviet Union, and took complete possession of its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

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

Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...

, which had been the defining feature of the Cold War. It marked the fall of Marxism-Leninism

Marxism-Leninism

Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...

as a governing ideology, and the only two remaining Marxist-Leninist governments today are those of North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

and Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

(although many more non-governing parties in other countries continue to subscribe to Marxism-Leninism). These two former Soviet allies managed to survive despite the loss of the Soviet economic aid and political support on which they had depended. In the countries of the former USSR, the outcomes of the dissolution were mixed. Although the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia established democratic systems of government, Ukraine, Belarus and the Central Asian republics saw the retention of authoritarian rulers. Russia underwent a period of political instability and economic decline before achieving stability and economic growth during the presidency of Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

. Even as independent nations, the former Soviet republics

Post-Soviet states

The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...

have retained close links with Russia and formed multilateral organizations such as the Eurasian Economic Community

Eurasian Economic Community

The Eurasian Economic Community originated from the Commonwealth of Independent States customs union between Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan on 29 March 1996...

and the Union State to enhance economic and security cooperation.

Soviet Union Centre - The new General Secretary

Mikhail Gorbachev

was elected General Secretary by the Politburo

Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...

on March 11, 1985, only three hours after Konstantin Chernenko

Konstantin Chernenko

Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985...

's death. Upon his accession at age 54, he was the youngest member of the Politburo. Gorbachev's primary goal as General Secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years.

In 1985, he announced that the Soviet economy was stalled and that reorganization was needed. Gorbachev soon realized that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation. The reforms began in personnel changes. On 23 April 1985 Gorbachev brought his two proteges Yegor Ligachev

Yegor Ligachev

Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev is a Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Originally a protege of Mikhail Gorbachev, Ligachev became a challenger to his leadership.-Early life:...

, and Nikolai Ryzhkov

Nikolai Ryzhkov

Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov was a Soviet official who became a Russian politician following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He served as the last Chairman of the Council of Ministers or Premier of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991...

into the Politburo as full members, and sensibly took the opportunity to keep the 'power' ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov

Viktor Chebrikov

Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov ) was a Soviet Union public official and security administrator and head of the KGB from December 1982 to October 1988....

from candidate to full member of the Politburo, and appointing Minister of Defence Marshall Sergei Sokolov

Sergei Sokolov

Sergei Leonidovich Sokolov is a Soviet military commander.Sokolov served in the Battle of Lake Khasan during the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and also served on the Eastern Front during World War II....

a Politburo candidate member. Nikonov was brought into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.

In May 1985 in Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

Gorbachev made a speech advocating widespread reforms. One of the first reforms Gorbachev introduced was the anti-alcohol campaign, begun in May 1985, which was designed to fight widespread alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised, and their sales were restricted. It was a serious blow to the state budget-a loss of approximately 100 billion rubles according to Alexander Yakovlev

Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev

Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev was a Soviet politician and historian who was a Soviet governmental official in the 1980s and a member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

-after alcohol production migrated to the black market economy. The purpose of reform, however, was to prop up the centrally-planned economy

Planned economy

A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...

, not transition to market socialism

Market socialism

Market socialism refers to various economic systems where the means of production are either publicly owned or cooperatively owned and operated for a profit in a market economy. The profit generated by the firms system would be used to directly remunerate employees or would be the source of public...

.

On 1 July 1985 Gorbachev promoted Eduard Shevardnadze

Eduard Shevardnadze

Eduard Shevardnadze is a former Soviet, and later, Georgian statesman from the height to the end of the Cold War. He served as President of Georgia from 1995 to 2003, and as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party , from 1972 to 1985. Shevardnadze was responsible for many top decisions on...

First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party

Georgian Communist party

Georgia was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic after 25 February 1921 when the Red Army entered its capital Tbilisi and installed a communist government led by Georgian Bolshevik Filipp Makharadze. After the 1924 August Uprising in Georgia the country was...

to full member of the Politburo, and the following day appointed Shevardnadze as Minister of Foreign Affairs replacing Andrei Gromyko

Andrei Gromyko

Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...

. Gromyko, disparaged as "Mr Nyet" in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs and was considered an 'old thinker' who was kicked upstairs to the mainly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet which was officially Soviet Head of State. Also on 1 July 1985 Gorbachev took the opportunity to dispose of his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov

Grigory Romanov

Grigory Vasilyevich Romanov , was a Soviet politician and member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the CPSU. In 1985, he was considered Mikhail Gorbachev's main rival in the succession struggle after the death of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985....

from the Politburo, and brought Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

and Lev Zaikov into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.

In the Autumn Gorbachev continued his program to bring forward younger and more energetic men into government. On 27 September 1985 Nikolai Ryzhkov

Nikolai Ryzhkov

replaced 79 year old Nikolai Tikhonov

Nikolai Tikhonov

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tikhonov was a Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman during the Cold War. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1980 to 1985, and as a First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, literally First Vice Premier, from 1976 to 1980...

as Chairman of the Council of Ministers

Premier of the Soviet Union

The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...

, effectively the Soviet Prime Minister, and on 14 October 1985 Nikolai Talyzin

Nikolai Talyzin

Nikolai Vladimirovich Talyzin was a Soviet statesman, economist and head of the Gosplan, or the State Planning Committee....

replaced Nikolai Baibakov

Nikolai Baibakov

Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov was a Soviet statesman, economist and Hero of Socialist Labor. He finished secondary school in 1928 and entered the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute, from which he graduated in 1931 as a mining engineer. In 1935, he was drafted into the armed forces...

as Chairman of the State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN). At the next Central Committee meeting on 15 October 1985 Nikolai Tikhonov

Nikolai Tikhonov

retired from the Politburo and Nikolai Talyzin

Nikolai Talyzin

Nikolai Vladimirovich Talyzin was a Soviet statesman, economist and head of the Gosplan, or the State Planning Committee....

became a candidate member.

Finally on 23 December 1985 Gorbachev appointed Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party

The First Secretary of the Moscow gorkom of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the position of highest authority in the city of Moscow roughly equating to that of mayor. The position was created on November 10, 1917, following the October Revolution and abolished on August 24, 1991...

replacing Viktor Grishin

Viktor Grishin

Viktor Vasilyevich Grishin was a Soviet politician. He was a Candidate and Full Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Grishin was born in Serpukhov, Moscow Oblast. He served in the Red Army from 1938 until 1940...

Latvia – Helsinki-86 and First Demonstration

The CTAG Helsinki-86 was founded in July, 1986 in the Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

n port town of Liepāja

Liepaja

Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...

by three workers: Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss. Its name refers to the Helsinki Accords

Helsinki Accords

thumb|300px|[[Erich Honecker]] and [[Helmut Schmidt]] in Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki 1975....

and the year of its founding. Helsinki-86 was the first openly anti-Communist organization, and the first openly organized opposition to the Soviet regime in the Soviet Union, setting an example for other ethnic minorities' pro-independence movements.

In Riga, Latvia, on December 26, 1986, in the early morning hours after a rock concert, some 300 working-class 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

Kazakhstan – Jeltoqsan riots

The "Jeltoqsan

Jeltoqsan

The Jeltoqsan or "December" of 1986 were riots that took place in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan in response to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Konayev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, and the subsequent appointment of Gennady...

" or "December" or 1986 were riots that took place in Alma-Ata

Almaty

Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...

, Kazakhstan in response to General Secretary

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...

Mikhail Gorbachev

's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Konayev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, and the subsequent appointment of Gennady Kolbin

Gennady Kolbin

Gennady Kolbin was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakh SSR from December 16, 1986 to June 22, 1989.Kolbin had not worked in the Kazakh SSR prior to his appointment...

, an outsider from the Russian SFSR. Demonstrations started in the morning of December 17, 1986 as an initial number of 200–300 students gathered in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev square to protest the decision of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

(CPSU) to replace Kunayev with Kolbin. The number of protesters increased to 1,000–5,000 as students from universities and institutes joined the crowd on Brezhnev square. As a response, the CPK Central Committee ordered troops from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, druzhiniki (volunteers), cadets, policemen and the KGB to cordon the square and videotape the participants. The situation escalated around 5 pm, as troops were ordered to disperse the protesters. Clashes between the security forces and the demonstrators continued throughout the night in the square and in different parts of Almaty. The second day, protests turned into civil unrest as clashes in the streets, universities and dormitories between troops, volunteers and militia units and Kazakh students turned into a wide-scale confrontation. The clashes could only be controlled on the third day. The Almaty events were followed by smaller protests and demonstrations in Shymkent

Shymkent

Shymkent , formerly known as Chimkent , is the capital city of South Kazakhstan Province, the most populated region in Kazakhstan. It is the third most populous city in Kazakhstan behind Almaty and Astana with a population of 629,600 . A major railroad junction on the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, the...

, Pavlodar

Pavlodar

Pavlodar is a city in northeastern Kazakhstan and the capital of Pavlodar Province. It is located 350 km northeast of the national capital Astana, and 400 km southeast of the Russian city of Omsk along the Irtysh River. , the city has a population of 331710...

, Karaganda

Karaganda

Karagandy , more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda, , is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty , Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 471,800 . In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic...

and Taldykorgan

Taldykorgan

Taldykorgan , formerly known as Taldy-Kurgan , is the administrative center of Almaty Province, Kazakhstan. It has a population of 118,400 . Most of the people are Kazakhs.-Education:...

. Reports from Kazakh SSR authorities estimated that the riots drew 3,000 people. Other estimates are of at least 30,000 to 40,000 protestors with 5,000 arrested and jailed, and an unknown number of casualties. Jeltoqsan leaders say over sixty thousand Kazakhs

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

participated in the protests. According to the Kazakh SSR government, there were two deaths during the riots, including a volunteer police worker and a student. Both of them had died due to blows to the head. About 100 others were detained and several others were sentenced to terms in labor camps. Sources cited by Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

claim that at least 200 people died or were summarily executed soon after. Some accounts estimate casualties at more than 1,000. The writer Mukhtar Shakhanov claimed that a KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

officer testified that 168 protesters were killed, but that figure remains unconfirmed as most material about Jeltoksan is in Moscow, locked in CPSU and KGB archives.

Soviet Union Centre – One-Party Democracy

In January 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev announced the new policy of 'democratization

Democratization

Democratization is the transition to a more democratic political regime. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic...

' under which future Soviet elections would offer the electorate a choice between multiple candidates per position, although all candidates would continue to be CPSU members. The concept was introduced by Gorbachev to enable him to circumvent the CPSU hardliners who resisted his perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

and glasnost

Glasnost

reform campaigns, while still maintaining the Soviet Union as a single-party

Single-party state

A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...

communist state

Communist state

A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...

.

On May 6, 1987 Pamyat

Pamyat

Pamyat is a Russian nationalist organization identifying itself as the "People's National-patriotic Orthodox Christian movement." The group's stated focus is preserving Russian culture.- History :...

a Russian Nationalist group held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow which the authorities did not break up by force. Later, the police kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an apparently impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

, head of the Moscow Communist Party and at that time one of Mikhail Gorbachev's closest allies in the ruling Politburo.
On July 25, 1987 a group of 300 Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...

, calling for the right to return to the Crimean homeland from which they were deported in 1944, staged a noisy demonstration for several hours near the Kremlin Wall as dozens of police and soldiers looked on.

Baltic Republics – First Molotov Pact Protests

On August 23, 1987, on the 48th anniversary of the secret protocols of Molotov Pact between Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

and Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

that ceded the three independent Baltic states to the Soviet Union in 1940, thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the capitals of all three Baltic Republics to sing anthems of independence and to hear defiant speeches honoring the victims of Stalin. The gatherings were sharply denounced in the official press and closely watched by the police, but they were not interrupted.

Latvia – Taking the Lead

In Latvia on June 14, 1987 about 5,000 people gathered at the Freedom Monument to commemorate the victims of the Soviet regime and to lay flowers.

Armenia – Environmental and Nagorno Karabakh Demonstrations

On October 17, 1987 3,000 Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan complaining about the condition of Lake Sevan

Lake Sevan

Lake Sevan is the largest lake in Armenia and the Caucasus region. It is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the world.Lake Sevan is situated in the central part of the Republic of Armenia, inside the Gegharkunik Province, at the altitude of 1,900m above sea level...

, the Nairit chemicals plant, and the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant

Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant

The Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant , also known as Oktemberyan or Medzamor, was built during the 1970s, about thirty kilometres west of the Armenian capital of Yerevan in the city of Metsamor. The plant was constructed with two VVER-440 Model V230 nuclear reactors...

, and air pollution in Yerevan. Police tried to prevent the protest but took no action to stop it once the march was underway. The demonstration was led by Armenian writers such as Silva Kaputikian, Zori Balayan and Maro Margarian and leaders from the National Survival organization. The march originated at the Opera Plaza after speakers, mainly intellectuals, addressed the crowd.

The following day 1,000 Armenians participated in another demonstration calling for Armenian national rights in Karabagh. The demonstrators demanded the annexation of Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...

to Armenia, and carried placards to that effect. The police tried to physically prevent the march and after a few incidents, dispersed the demonstrators. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh would blow up into violence the following year.

Soviet Union Centre – Starting to Lose Control

In 1988 Gorbachev started to lose control in two small but troublesome regions of the Soviet empire, as the Baltic states were captured by their Popular Fronts, and the Caucasus descended into violence and civil war.

On 1 July 1988, the fourth and last day of the 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 of the Soviet Union

Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union

The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991.-Background:...

. Frustrated by the 'old guard's resistance to his attempts to liberalise Gorbachev had changed tack and embarked upon a set of constitutional changes to try to separate party and state, and thereby isolate his conservative opponents. Detailed proposals for the new Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union

Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union

The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991.-Background:...

were published for public consultation on 2 October 1988, and to enable the creation of the new legislature the Supreme Soviet, during its 29 November to 1 December 1988 session, implemented the necessary amendments to the 1977 Soviet Constitution

1977 Soviet Constitution

At the Seventh Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Ninth Convocation on October 7, 1977, the third and last Soviet Constitution, also known as the "Brezhnev Constitution", was unanimously adopted...

, 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 to jam all foreign radio stations, allowing Soviet Citizens for the first time to have access to unrestricted news sources beyond Communist control

Baltic republics – The Singing Revolution

In 1986 and 1987 Latvia had been in the vanguard of the three Baltic states in pressing for reform. In 1988 Estonia took over the lead role with the foundation of the Soviet Unions first Popular Front and starting to influence state policy.

Estonia – Estonian Popular Front

The Estonian Popular Front was founded in April 1988, On June 16, 1988 Gorbachev replaced Karl Vaino

Karl Vaino

Karl Vaino is a former Estonian SSR politician. 1978–1988 he was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Estonia.-References:...

the 'old guard' leader of the Communist Party of Estonia

Communist Party of Estonia

Communist Party of Estonia was a political party in Estonia.EKP was formed November 5, 1920, as the Central Committee of the Estonian Sections of the Russian Communist Party was separated from its mother party. During the first half of 1920s the hopes to an immediate world revolution were still...

with the relatively liberal Vaino Väljas

Vaino Väljas

Vaino Väljas is a former Soviet politician. He was the Chairman of the 6th Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR from 18 April 1963 to 19 March 1967, first secretary of communist party of Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic from 16 June 1988 to April 1990 and chairman of the party from April 1990 to...

Soviet ambassador to Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. In late June 1988 Väljas bowed to pressure from the Estonian Popular Front and legalized the flying of the former National Flag of independent Estonia, and agreed a new state language law that made Estonian the official language of the Republic.

On October 2 the Popular Front formally launched its political platform at a two day congress which Vaino Väljas

Vaino 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 November 16, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of national sovereignty under which Estonian laws should have precedence over those of the Soviet Union. Estonia's parliament also laid claim to the republic's natural resources: land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, municipal services, etc. in the territory of Estonia's borders.

Latvia – Latvian Popular Front

The Latvian Popular Front was founded in June 1988, On October 4, 1988 Gorbachev replaced Boriss Pugo the 'old guard' leader of the Communist Party of Latvia

Communist Party of Latvia

Communist Party of Latvia was a political party in Latvia.- Latvian Social-Democracy prior to 1919 :The party was founded at a congress in June 1904. Initially the party was known as the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party . During its second party congress in 1905 it adopted the programme of...

with the more liberal Jānis Vagris. In October 1988 Vagris bowed to pressure from the Latvian Popular Front and legalized the flying of the former National Flag of independent Latvia, and agreed on October 6 a new state language law that made Latvian the official language of the Republic.

Lithuania – Sąjūdis

The Popular Front of Lithuania called Sąjūdis

Sajudis

Sąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...

was founded in May 1988, On October 19, 1988 Gorbachev replaced Ringaudas Songaila the 'old guard' leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania

Communist Party of Lithuania

The Communist Party of Lithuania was a communist party in Lithuania, established in early October 1918. The party was banned in December 1926.-History:...

with the relatively liberal Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas. In October 1988 Brazauskas bowed to pressure from Sąjūdis and legalized the flying of the former National Flag of independent Lithuania, and then in November 1988 agreed a new state language law that made Lithuanian the official language of the Republic.

Azerbaijan – Descent into Violence

In February 20, 1988, after a week of growing demonstrations in Stepanakert

Stepanakert

Stepanakert is the largest city and capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent republic, though is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan...

, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast

Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was an autonomous oblast within the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR, mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians and created on July 7, 1923. According to Karl R. DeRouen it was created as an enclave so that a narrow strip of land would separate it from Armenia proper....

(the Armenian majority area within Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic), the Regional Soviet voted to secede and join with the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. This local vote in a small virtually unknown part of the Soviet Union was unprecedented and made headlines throughout the world – a part of the Soviet system of government had on its own initiative dared to defy not only its own Republic's authorities but that of Moscow as well. On February 22, 1988 in what became known as the Askeran clash

Askeran clash

The Askeran clash on 22—23 February 1988 in the town of Askeran was one of the starting points of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, which triggered the Nagorno-Karabakh War.- Background and clash :...

two Azerbaijanis were killed in clashes with Karabakh Armenians. The announcement of these deaths on state radio led to the Sumgait Pogrom

Sumgait Pogrom

The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the seaside town of Sumgait in Soviet Azerbaijan during February 1988...

where between February 26 and March 1 the city of Sumgait was subjected to four days of violent anti-Armenian riots during which 32 people were killed. The authorities totally lost control of events and finally had to occupy the city with paratroopers and tanks. Almost all the 14,000 Armenian population of Sumgait fled the city.

Gorbachev refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno Karabakh which remained part of Azerbaijan. He instead sacked the Communist Party Leaders in both Republics – on May 21, 1988 Kamran Baghirov

Kamran Baghirov

Kamran Baghirov Mammad oglu , was the 12th First Secretary of Azerbaijan Communist Party.From December 3, 1982 through May 21, 1988, Baghirov served as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan SSR. After start and escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,...

was replaced by Abdulrahman Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party

Azerbaijan Communist Party

The Azerbaijan Communist Party was the ruling political party in the Azerbaijan SSR, making it effectively a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

. From July 23, 1988 through to September 1988 a group of Azerbaijani intellectuals began working on a programme for a new organisation called the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, which was loosely based on the Estonian Popular Front. On September 17, 1988 when gunbattles broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis near Stepanakert, 2 soldiers were killed and more than 2 dozen people were injured. This led to almost complete ethnic polarisation in Nagorno-Karabakhs two main towns as the Azerbaijani minority were expelled from the Armenian majority capital of Stepanakert

Stepanakert

Stepanakert is the largest city and capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent republic, though is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan...

, and the Armenian minority was expelled from the Azerbaijani majority former-capital of Shusha

Shusha

Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...

. On November 17, 1988, in response to the exodus of tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, a rolling series of mass demonstrations started in Lenin Square, Baku, which lasted 18 days and regularly attracted half a million demonstraters – until the Soviet militia finally moved in, cleared the square by force on 5 December 1988, and imposed a curfew which lasted 10 months.

Armenia – The People Rise

The rebellion of their fellow Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...

had an immediate effect in Armenia. Daily demonstrations which began in Yerevan on February 18 with the usual ecological slogans initially attracted few people, but each day the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...

became more prominent and the numbers swelled. On February 20 30,000 demonstrated in Theatre Square, by February 22 there were 100,000, the next day 300,000 and a transport strike was declared, by February 25 there were close to a million demonstrators – a staggering quarter of the population of the entire republic. This was the first occurrence of the huge peaceful people power demonstrations that were later to become a feature of the overthrow of communism from Prague, to Berlin, to Moscow. At this time the 11 member Karabakh Committee

Karabakh Committee

Karabakh Committee was a group of Armenian intellectuals recognized by many Armenians as their de facto leaders in the late 1980s. The Committee was formed in 1988 with the stated objective of the reunification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia...

was formed by leading Armenian intellectuals and nationalists, including future first President of independent Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian

Levon Ter-Petrossian

Levon Ter-Petrossian , sometimes transliterated Levon Ter-Petrosyan or Ter-Petrosian , was the first President of Armenia from 1991 to 1998...

, to lead and organise the new Armenian mass movement.

Gorbachev refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno Karabakh which remained part of Azerbaijan. He instead sacked the Communist Party Leaders in both Republics – on May 21, 1988 Karen Demirchian was replaced by Suren Harutyunyan as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia. However Harutyunyan quickly decided to run before the nationalist wind and on May 28, 1988 allowed the outlawed flag of the First Armenian Republic to be unfurled for the first time in almost 70 years in Yerevan. On June 15, 1988 the Supreme Soviet in Yerevan adopted a resolution in which it formally gave its approval to the idea of Nagorno Karabakh joining Armenia. Armenia, formerly one of the most loyal Republics, had suddenly turned into the leading rebel in the Soviet Union. On July 5, 1988 when a contingent of troops was sent in to remove demonstrators by force from Yerevan's Zvarnots Airport shots were fired and one student protester died. In September 1988 further large demonstrations in Yerevan led to the deployment of armoured vehicles onto the streets. In the autumn of 1988 almost all the 200,000 Azerbaijani minority in Armenia was expelled by Armenian Nationalists, with over 100 killed in the process On November 25, 1988 a military commandant took control of the Armenian capital as the Soviet Government moved to prevent further ethnic violence. Then on December 7, 1988 Armenia was hit by the Spitak earthquake which killed 25,000 people – when Gorbachev rushed to the scene from a visit to the United States he was so angered when even during this national tragedy he was confronted by Armenian protesters calling for Nagorno-Karabakh to be made part of the Armenian Republic, that on December 11, 1988 he ordered the arrest of the entire Karabakh Committee

Georgia – First Demonstrations

In November 1988 in Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

, capital of Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, large numbers of demonstrators camped out in front of the republic's legislature in support of Estonia's declaration of sovereignty.

Moldavia - Democratic Movement of Moldova

The Democratic Movement of Moldova organized public meetings, demonstrations, and song festivals fiom February 1988, which gradually grew in size and intensity. In the streets, the center of public manifestations was the Stephen the Great Monument in Chişinău, and the adjacent park harboring Aleea Clasicilor ( The Alee of the Classics [of the Literature]). On January 15, 1988, in a tribute to Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...

at his bust on the Aleea Clasicilor, Anatol Şalaru

Anatol Şalaru

Anatol Şalaru is a Moldovan politician. He is the current Transport and Road Infrastructure Minister in the Vlad Filat Cabinet.- Biography :...

submitted the proposal to continue the meetings. In the public discourse, the movement called for national awakening, freedom of speech, revival of Moldavian traditions, and for attainment of official status for the Moldovan language and return of it to the Latin script. The transition from "movement" (informal association) to "front" (formal association) was regarded by its sympathizers as a natural "upgrade" once the movement has gained momentum with the public, and the Soviet authorities could no longer crack down on it.

Ukraine - Lviv Leads

On 26 April 1988 some 500 people participate in a march organized by the Ukrainian Culturological Club on Kyiv's Khreschatyk to mark the second anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, carrying placards with slogans such as "Openness and Democracy to the End."
Between May and June 1988 Ukrainian Catholics in western Ukraine celebrate the Millennium of Christianity in Kyivan Rus' in secret by holding services in the forests of Buniv, Kalush, Hoshiv, Zarvantysia and other sites. On 5 June 1988 as the official celebrations of the Millennium are held in Moscow, the Ukrainian Culturological Club hosts its own observances in Kyiv at the monument to St. Volodymyr the Great, the grand prince of Kyivan Rus'.

On 16 June 1988 between 6,000 and 8,000 people gather in Lviv to hear speakers declare no confidence in the local list of delegates to the 19th Communist Party conference to begin on 29 June 1988. On 21 June a rally in Lviv attracts 50,000 people who hear discussion of a revised list of delegates to the party conference. Authorities attempt to disperse the rally held in front of the Druzhba Stadium. On 7 July 1988 a crowd of 10,000 to 20,000 witnesses the launching in Lviv of the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. On 17 July 1988 a group of 10,000 faithful gather in Zarvanytsia for Millennium services celebrated by Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk. Militia try to disperse the people - the largest gathering of Ukrainian Catholics in the USSR since the Stalin regime outlawed the Church in 1946. On 4 August 1988, on what came to be known as "Bloody Thursday," local authorities use violent methods to disband a gathering of tens of thousands organized by the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. Forty-one people are detained and fined or sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. On 1 September 1988 local authorities once again use force against 5,000 participants gathered silently in front of Ivan Franko State University in Lviv for a public meeting held without official permission.

On 13 November 1988 approximately 10,000 people attend an officially sanctioned meeting, organized by the cultural heritage organization Spadschyna, the Kyiv University student club Hromada, and the environmental groups Zelenyi Svit (Green World) and Noosfera, to focus on ecological issues. From 14–18 November 1988 fifteen Ukrainian rights activists are among the 100 human, national and religious rights advocates invited to participate in talks on human rights issues with Soviet officials and a visiting delegation of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission). On 10 December 1988 hundreds gather in Kyiv to observe International Human Rights Day at a rally organized by the Democratic Union. The unauthorized gathering results in detention of local activists.

Byelorussia - Kurapaty

The Partyja BPF(Belarusian Popular Front) was established in 1988 as both a political party and a cultural movement pushing for democracy and independence, following the examples of the Baltic Popular Fronts. Its first leader was Zianon Pazniak

Zianon Pazniak

Zianon Pazniak is a Belarusian nationalist politician, one of the founders of the Belarusian Popular Front and leader of the Christian Conservative Party of the BPF...

. The discovery of mass graves filled with executed bodies in Kuropaty outside Minsk

Minsk

- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

by historian Zyanon Paznyak and exhumation of the remains, gave an added momentum to the pro-democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

and pro-independence

Independence

Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....

movement in Belarus. The Front claimed that the NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

performed its secret killings in Kuropaty. Initially the Front had significant visibility because of its numerous active public actions almost always ended in clashes with police and KGB

KGB

Soviet Union Centre – Democratic Explosion

The spring of 1989 saw the people of the Soviet Union exercising a democratic choice, albeit limited, for the first time since 1917, when they elected the new Congress of Peoples Deputies. As important was the uncensored live TV coverage of the legislature's deliberations - where the amazed people witnessed the previously feared and untouchable Communist leadership being questioned and held to account. This example fueled the limited experiment with democracy in Poland which quickly led to the toppling of the Communist government in Warsaw by the summer, which in turn sparked peoples uprisings which overthrew communism in the other five Warsaw Pact countries before the end of a truly historic year. In short this was the year when Gorbachev completely lost control of events - to his shock he discovered the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did not support his drive to modernise and thereby save Communism, instead they wanted to destroy it.

1989 was also the year that CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

became the first non-Soviet broadcaster to be allowed to beam its news programmes into Moscow. It was officially only available to foreign guests in the Savoy Hotel, but muscovites quickly learned how to rig their own aerial's to pick up the signals on their home TV`s - this had a huge impact on how Russians saw events in their own country, and made censorship of news almost impossible.

Congress of Peoples Deputies

The month-long nomination of candidates for the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR lasted until 24 January 1989. For the next month, selection among the 7,531 districts nominees took place at meetings organized by constituency-level electoral commissions. On 7 March, a final list of 5,074 candidates was published; approximately 85% of these were Communist Party members.

In the two weeks prior to the 1,500 districts polls, elections to fill 750 reserved seats of public organizations, contested by 880 candidates, were held. Of these seats, 100 were allocated to the CPSU, 100 to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Union, 75 to the Communist Youth Union (Komsomol), 75 to the Soviet Women's Committee, 75 to the War and Labour Veterans' Organization, and 325 to other organizations such as the Academy of Sciences. The selection process was ultimately completed in April.

In the 26 March general elections, voter participation was reported at 89.8%. With this polling, 1,958 – including 1,225 district seats – of the 2,250 CPD seats were filled. In the district races, run-off elections were held in 76 constituencies on 2 and 9 April and fresh elections were organized on 20 April and 14 to 23 May in the 199 remaining constituencies where the required absolute majority was not attained.

While the majority of CPSU-endorsed candidates were elected over 300 candidates won out over the endorsed candidates. Among them were Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

, physicist Andrei Sakharov

Andrei Sakharov

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...

, and lawyer Anatoly Sobchak

Anatoly Sobchak

Anatoly Alexandrovich Sobchak was a Russian politician, a co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg, and a mentor and teacher of both Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev....

.

The first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies opened on 25 May 1989. Although hardliners retained control of the chamber, the reformers used the legislature as a platform to debate and criticize the Soviet system, with the state media broadcasting their comments live and uncensored on television which held the population transfixed because nothing like this freedom of debate had ever been witnessed in the USSR. On 29 May Yeltsin managed to secure a seat on the Supreme Soviet, and in the summer formed the first opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group, comprising Russian nationalists

Russian nationalism

Russian nationalism is a term referring to a Russian form of nationalism. Russian nationalism has a long history dating from the days of Muscovy to Russian Empire, and continued in some form in the Soviet Union. It is closely related to Pan-Slavism...

and liberals

Liberalism in Russia

This article gives an overview of liberalism in Russia. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, namely those that have had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in the scheme. The listed parties didn't necessarily label themselves as...

. As it was the final legislative group in the Soviet Union, those elected in 1989 played a vital part in continuing reforms and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union over the next two years.

Loss of Outer Empire

The six Warsaw Pact

Warsaw Pact

countries of Eastern Europe, whilst nominally independent, were widely recognised in the international community to be part of the Soviet Unions outer empire between 1945 and 1989. All had been occupied by the Soviet Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

in 1945, had Soviet style totalitarian communist governments imposed upon them, and had very restricted freedom of action in either domestic or international affairs. Any moves towards real independence were suppressed with military force, such as happened in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring

Prague Spring

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...

in 1968.

Gorbachev abandoned the oppressive and expensive Brezhnev Doctrine

Brezhnev Doctrine

The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...

in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies, termed in October 1989 the Sinatra Doctrine

Sinatra Doctrine

"Sinatra Doctrine" was the name that the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev used jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw Pact nations to determine their own internal affairs...

in a joking reference to the Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

song "My Way

My Way (song)

"My Way" is a song popularized by Frank Sinatra. Its lyrics were written by Paul Anka and set to music based on the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed in 1967 by Claude François and Jacques Revaux, with lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibault. Anka's English lyrics are unrelated to the...

".

The revolutions of 1989

Revolutions of 1989

overthrew the communist regimes in European countries.

Baltic Republics - The Chain of Freedom

The Baltic Way or Baltic Chain (also Chain of Freedom, , , ) was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on August 23, 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain

Human chain

A human chain is a form of demonstration in which people link their arms as a show of political solidarity.The number of demonstrators involved in a human chain is often disputed; the organizers of the human chain often report higher numbers than governmental authorities.Notable human chains, in...

spanning over 600 kilometres (372.8 mi) across the three Baltic states

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

– Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR

Latvian SSR

The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Latvian SSR for short, was one of the republics that made up the Soviet Union. Established on 21 July 1940 as a puppet state during World War II in the territory of the previously independent Republic of Latvia after it had been occupied by...

, and Lithuanian SSR

Lithuanian SSR

The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Lithuanian SSR, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union...

, republics of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. The pact and its secret protocols divided Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940.

In December 1989, the Congress of People's Deputies accepted, and Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

signed, the report by Yakovlev's

Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev

commission condemning the secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Lithuania - The Communist Party Splits

On 7 December 1989 the Communist Party of Lithuania

Communist Party of Lithuania

The Communist Party of Lithuania was a communist party in Lithuania, established in early October 1918. The party was banned in December 1926.-History:...

under the leadership of Algirdas Brazauskas

Algirdas Brazauskas

Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas was the first President of a newly independent post-Soviet Union Lithuania from 1993 to 1998 and Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006....

split from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

and ended its claim to have a constitutional `leading role`. A smaller loyalist faction of the Communist Party headed by Mykolas Burokevičius

Mykolas Burokevicius

Mykolas Burokevičius is a communist political leader in Lithuania. After the Communist Party of Lithuania separated from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , he established alternative pro-CPSU Communist Party of Lithuania in early 1990, and led it as the First Secretary of Central Committee...

was established and remained affiliated to the CPSU. However the governing Communist Party of a Soviet Republic was now formally independent of Moscow`s control for the first time. This was a political earthquake which lead to Gorbachev immediately arranging a visit to Lithuania the next month to try to bring the local party back under CPSU control - he was to fail.

Azerbaijan – Blockade

On 16 July 1989 the Popular Front of Azerbaijan held its first congress and elected as Chairman Abulfaz Elchibey, a future President of independent Azerbaijan. On 19 August 600,000 protesters jammed Lenin square in Baku demanding political prisoners be released by the authorities. In the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh the second half of 1989 began with the handing out of weapons, and as Karabakhis got hold of small arms to replace their hunting rifles and crossbows casualties began to mount - bridges were blown up, roads were blockaded and the first hostages taken. In a new and very effective tactic the Popular Front in late summer launched a rail blockade on Armenia. Eighty-five percent of Armenia`s rail traffic came from Azerbaijan, and this embargo caused shortages of petrol and food in Armenia. Under pressure from the Popular Front the Communist authorities in Azerbaijan started making concessions. On 25 September a law on sovereignty was passed giving Azerbaijani law precedence over Soviet Law, and on 4 October the Popular Front was permitted to be registered as a legal organization on condition it raised the blockade. However transport communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia never fully recovered. Tensions continued to escalate and on 29 December Popular Front activists seized local party offices in Jalilabad wounding dozens of people.

Armenia – Nationalist Leaders Released

On 31 May 1989 the 11 members of the Karabakh Committee, who had been imprisoned without trial in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow, were released and returned to Yerevan to a hero`s welcome. Levon Ter-Petrossian

Levon Ter-Petrossian

Levon Ter-Petrossian , sometimes transliterated Levon Ter-Petrosyan or Ter-Petrosian , was the first President of Armenia from 1991 to 1998...

soon after his release was elected chairman of the anti-communist opposition Pan-Armenian National Movement

Pan-Armenian National Movement

The Pan-Armenian National Movement or Armenian Allnational Movement is a political party representing Armenian national movement in Armenia Presently without parliamentary representation.It was founded by Levon Ter-Petrossian in 1989 and became the ruling party when it swept the 1990 elections...

, and later stated that it was in 1989 that he first began to consider the idea of complete Armenian independence from the USSR.

Georgia - Massacre in Tbilisi

On 7 April 1989 troops and armored personnel carriers were sent onto the streets of Tbilisi after more than 100,000 people gathered in front of the Government and Communist Party headquarters, many with banners calling for Georgia to secede from the Soviet Union and urging the full integration into Georgia of the autonomous region of Abkhazia

Abkhazia

Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...

. On 9 April 1989 at least sixteen people were killed and more than 200 hurt when troops attacked the peaceful demonstrators. This event radicalised Georgian politics, prompting many to conclude that independence was preferable to continued Soviet rule. On 14 April 1989 Gorbachev removed Jumber Patiashvili

Jumber Patiashvili

Jumber Patiashvili is a Georgian politician. A current member of parliament, he was the Communist leader of the Georgian SSR from 1985 to 1989....

as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party

First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party

The First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party was the leading position in the Georgian Communist party during the Soviet era. Its leaders were responsible for many of the affairs in Georgia and were considered the leader of the Georgian SSR...

for his poor handling of the April events, and replaced him with the former Georgian KGB

KGB

chief Givi Gumbaridze.

On 16 July 1989 in Sukhumi

1989 Sukhumi riots

The Sukhumi riot was a riot in Sukhumi, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union, in July 1989, triggered by an increasing inter-ethnic tensions between the Abkhaz and Georgian communities and followed by several days of street fighting and civil unrest in Sukhumi and throughout Abkhazia.The riots...

capital of Abkhazia

Abkhazia

a protest against the opening of a Georgian university branch in the town led to violence that quickly degenerated into a large-scale inter-ethnic confrontation in which 18 died and hundreds were injured before Soviet troops restored order. This riot marked the start of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

Moldavia - Popular Front of Moldova

The Popular Front of Moldova

Popular Front of Moldova

The Popular Front of Moldova was a political movement in the Moldavian SSR, one of the 15 union republics of the former Soviet Union, and in the newly-independent Republic of Moldova. Formally, the Front existed from 1989 to 1992...

founding congress took place on 20 May 1989. During the second congress (30 June - 1 July 1989), Ion Hadârcă

Ion Hadârcă

- Biography :Ion Hadârcă was born on July 17, 1949 in Sîngerei, Sîngerei District. Between 1968-1970, he carried out the compulsory military service in the Soviet army. He wast the first president of the Popular Front of Moldova...

was elected as president of the Front.
A series of demonstrations that became known as the Grand National Assembly was the first major achievement of the Popular Front. Mass demonstrations organized by its activists, including one attended by 300,000 participants on August 27, were of critical importance in convincing the Moldavian Supreme Soviet to adopt a new language law on 31 August 1989 which made the Moldovan

Moldovan language

Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...

the official state language, and replaced the Cyrillic script with the Latin script.

Ukraine - Rukh

On 22 January 1989 Lviv and Kyiv both mark Ukrainian Independence Day for the first time in decades. In Lviv, thousands gather for an unauthorized moleben in front of St. George Cathedral; in Kyiv, 60 activists meet in a Kyiv apartment to commemorate the historic event of 1918 when the independent Ukrainian National Republic was proclaimed. On 11–12 February 1989 the Ukrainian Language Society holds its founding congress. On 15 February 1989 the formation of the Initiative Committee for the Renewal of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church is announced. The program and statutes of the movement were proposed by the Writers Association of Ukraine and were published in the journal Literary Ukraine (Literaturna Ukraina) on February 16, 1989. The organization took its roots in Ukrainian dissidents such as Vyacheslav Chornovil

Vyacheslav Chornovil

Viacheslav Chornovil was a Ukrainian politician. A prominent Ukrainian dissident to the Soviet policies, he was arrested multiple times in the 1960s and 1970s for his political views...

. From 19–21 February 1989 large public rallies take place in Kyiv to protest the election laws on the eve of the March 26 elections to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies and to call for the resignation of the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Volodymyr Scherbytsky, often referred to as "the mastodon of stagnation." The demonstrations coincide with a visit to Ukraine by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. On 26 February 1989 between 20,000 and 30,000 people participate in an unsanctioned ecumenical memorial service in Lviv marking the 128th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko's death.

On 4 March 1989 the Memorial Society, committed to honoring the victims of Stalinism and cleansing society of its Soviet vestiges, is founded in Kyiv. A public rally is held the next day. On 12 March 1989 A pre-elections meeting organized in Lviv by the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and the Marian Society Myloserdia (Compassion) is violently dispersed, and nearly 300 people are detained. On 26 March 1989 elections are held to the 2,250-member USSR Congress of People's Deputies; bye-elections are held on April 9, May 14 and May 21. Out of the total of 225 deputies representing Ukraine, 175 are elected in the four rounds of elections. Most are conservatives, though a handful of progressives do make the cut.

From 20–23 April 1989 pre-elections meetings are held in Lviv for four consecutive days, drawing crowds of up to 25,000. The action includes an hourlong warning strike at eight local factories and institutions. It is the first labor strike in Lviv since 1944. On 3 May 1989 a pre-elections rally attracts 30,000 in Lviv. On 7 May 1989 The Memorial Society organizes a mass meeting at Bykivnia, site of a mass grave of Stalin's victims. After a march from Kyiv to the site, a memorial service is offered. From Mid-May to September 1989 Ukrainian Greek-Catholic hunger strikers stage protests on Moscow's Arbat to call attention to the plight of their Church. They are especially active during the July session of the World Council of Churches held in Moscow. The protest is ended with the arrests of the group on September 18. On 27 May 1989 the founding conference of the Lviv regional Memorial Society is held. On 18 Jun 1989 approximately 100,000 faithful participate in public religious services in Ivano-Frankivsk, responding to Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's call for an international day of prayer.

On 19 August 1989 the Russian Orthodox Parish of Ss. Peter and Paul announces it is switching to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. On 2 September 1989 tens of thousands in cities across Ukraine protest the draft election law that reserves special seats for the Communist Party and other official organizations: 50,000 in Lviv, 40,000 in Kyiv, 10,000 in Zhytomyr, 5,000 each in Dniprodzerzhynsk and Chervonohrad and 2,000 in Kharkiv. From 8–10 September 1989 writer Ivan Drach

Ivan Drach

Ivan Drach is a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, literary critic, politician dissident, and political activist....

is elected to head Rukh, the Popular Movement of Ukraine for Peredudova, at its founding congress in Kyiv. On 17 September between 150,000 and 200,000 march in Lviv to demand the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. It is the largest demonstration of Ukrainian Catholics since World War II. On 21 September 1989 exhumation of a mass grave begins in Demianiv Laz, a nature preserve south of Ivano-Frankivsk. On 28 September First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukraine Volodymyr Shcherbytsky

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky

Volodymyr Vasylyovych Shcherbytsky was a Ukrainian and Soviet politician. He was a leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1972 to 1989....

, a holdover from the Brezhnev era, is replaced by Gorbachev by Vladimir Ivashko

Vladimir Ivashko

Vladimir Antonovich Ivashko , was briefly the acting General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the period from 24 August 1991 to 29 August 1991. On 24 August Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, and on 29 August the CPSU was suspended by the Supreme Soviet...

.

On 1 October 1989 a peaceful demonstration of 10,000 to 15,000 is violently dispersed by militia when the people protest in front of Lviv's Druzhba Stadium, where a concert celebrating the Soviet "reunification" of Ukrainian lands is held. On 3 October 1989 nearly 30,000 Lviv residents rally to protest the violence of October 1; a two-hour work strike also is held. On 10 October 1989 Ivano-Frankivsk is the site of a pre-elections protest attended by 30,000. On 15 October 1989 several thousand gather in Chervonohrad, Chernivtsi, Rivne and Zhytomyr, 500 in Dnipropetrovsk and 30,000 in Lviv to protest the elections law. On 20 October 1989 faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church participate in a sobor in Lviv - the first since that Church's forced liquidation in the 1930s. On 24 October 1989 the all-union Supreme Soviet passes a law eliminating special seats for Communist Party and other official organizations' representatives. On 26 October 1989 twenty factories and institutions in Lviv hold strikes and meetings to once again protest the October 1 police brutality in the city and the authorities' unwillingness to prosecute those responsible. From 26–28 October 1989 the Zelenyi Svit environmental association holds its founding congress. On 27 October 1989 the Ukrainian SSR Supreme Soviet passes a law "On Elections of People's Deputies of the Ukrainian SSR," eliminating the special status of party and other official organizations. On 28 October 1989 the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet decrees that from January 1, 1990, Ukrainian will be the state language of Ukraine, while Russian will be used for communication between nationality groups. On the same day The Congregation of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lviv leaves the Russian Orthodox Church and proclaims itself a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. The following day thousands attend a memorial service at Demianiv Laz and a temporary marker is placed to indicate that a monument to the "victims of the represssions of 1939-1941" will soon be erected on the site.

In mid-November The Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society is officially registered. On 19 November 1989 a public gathering in Kyiv attracts thousands of mourners, friends and family to the reburial in Ukraine of three inmates of the infamous Camp No. 36 in Perm in the Urals: rights activists Vasyl Stus, Oleksiy Tykhy and Yuriy Lytvyn. Their remains are reinterred in Baikiv Cemetery. On 26 November 1989 a day of prayer and fasting is proclaimed by Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, thousands of faithful in western Ukraine participate in liturgies and molebens on the eve of a meeting between Pope John Paul II and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. On 28 November 1989 the Ukrainian SSR's Council for Religious Affairs issues a decree permitting registration of Ukrainian Catholic congregations. The decree is proclaimed on December 1, coinciding with a meeting at the Vatican between the pope and the Soviet president.

On 10 December 1989 the first officially sanctioned observance of International Human Rights Day is held in Lviv. On 17 December 1989 a public meeting organized in Kyiv by Rukh is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Andrei Sakharov, human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate; 30,000 attend. On 26 December 1989 the Supreme Soviet of Ukrainian SSR adopts a law making Christmas, Easter and the Feast of the Holy Trinity holidays in the republic.

Byelorussia - Kurapaty

On 24 January 1989 the Soviet authorities in Byelorussia finally agreed to the demand of the democratic opposition to build a monument to thousands of people shot by Stalin's police in the Kuropaty Forest near Minsk in the 1930s On 30 September 1989 thousands of Byelorussians, denouncing local leaders, marched through the center of Minsk to demand further measures to clean up the aftermath of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. Up to 15,000 protesters wearing armbands with radioactivity symbols and carrying the banned red-and-white Byelorussian national flag filed through torrential rain in defiance of a ban by the local authorities. Later, they gathered in the city center near Government headquarters, where speakers demanded the resignation of the republic's Communist Party leader, Yefrem Y. Sokolov, and called for the evacuation of half a million people from contaminated zones.

Uzbekistan – Fergana Riots

Thousands of Soviet troops were sent to the Fergana Valley, southeast of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, to re-established order after clashes in which local Uzbeks hunted down members of the Meskhetian minority in several days of rioting between 4–11 June 1989 during which about 100 people were killed. On 23 June 1989 Gorbachev removed Rafiq Nishonov

Rafiq Nishonov

Rafiq Nishonovich Nishonov served as the twelfth First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR....

as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR for his poor handling of the June events, and replaced him with Islam Karimov who went on to lead Uzbekistan as a Soviet Republic and subsequently as an independent state for decades.

Kazakhstan – Novy Uhzen

In Kazakhstan on 19 June 1989 young men carrying guns, fire bombs, iron bars and stones rioted in Novy Uzhen causing a number of deaths. The youths tried to seize a police station and a water supply station. They brought public transportation to a halt and shut down various shops and industries. By June 25, 1989 rioting had spread to five other towns near the Caspian Sea. A mob of about 150 people armed with sticks, stones and metal rods attacked the police station in Mangishlak, about 90 miles from Novy Uzen before they were dispersed by Government troops flown in by helicopters. Mobs of young people also rampaged through the towns of Yeraliev, Shepke, Fort Shevchenko and Kulsary, where they poured flammable liquid on trains housing temporary workers and set them afire.

On 22 June 1989 Gorbachev removed Gennady Kolbin

Gennady Kolbin

(the ethnic Russian whose appointment caused the riots of December 1986) as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan

Communist Party of Kazakhstan

The Communist Party of Kazakhstan is a political party in Kazakhstan. -Origin:The Communist Party of Kazakhstan was founded 1936 when Kazakhstan was granted a Union Republic status within the Soviet Union...

for his poor handling of the June events, and replaced him with Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...

, an ethnic Kazakh who went on to lead Kazakhstan as a Soviet Republic and subsequently as an independent state for decades.

Soviet Union Centre – Six Republics Lost

On February 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the CPSU accepted the recommendation of Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

that the party give up its 70-year-long monopoly of political power. During 1990 all fifteen constituent republics of the USSR held their first competitive elections, and reformers and ethnic nationalists won many of the seats. The CPSU lost the elections in the following six republics;

Lithuania
Lithuanian parliamentary election, 1990
The Lithuanian legislative elections for 141 seats in the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR were held in the Lithuanian SSR on 24 February with run-off elections on 4, 7, 8 and 10 March 1990. In six constituencies voter turnout was below required minimum, therefore a third round was held on...

on 24 February 1990 (with run-off elections on 4, 7, 8 and 10 March 1990) to Sajudis
Sajudis
Sąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...
Moldova
Moldovan parliamentary election, 1990
A parliamentary election took place in Moldova in February-March 1990.- Results :Elections to the Moldovan Supreme Soviet were held in February-March 1990; while the Communist Party of Moldova was the only one registered for this contest, opposition candidates were allowed to run as individuals....

on 25 February 1990 to the Popular Front of Moldova
Popular Front of Moldova
The Popular Front of Moldova was a political movement in the Moldavian SSR, one of the 15 union republics of the former Soviet Union, and in the newly-independent Republic of Moldova. Formally, the Front existed from 1989 to 1992...
Estonia
Estonian Supreme Soviet election, 1990
Legislative elections were held in the Estonian SSR on March 18, 1990. It was the first free parliamentary election in Estonia since 1930s. A total of 105 deputies were elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR, of which 4 were from military districts. Altogether 392 candidates competed for...

on 18 March 1990 to the Estonian Popular Front
Latvia
Latvian parliamentary election, 1990
Legislative elections were held in the Latvian SSR on 18 March 1990. It was the first free parliamentary election in Latvia since 1930s. A total of 201 deputies were elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR, 170 of them in the first round. Run-off elections were held on 25 March, 1 April...

on 18 March 1990 (with run-off elections on 25 March, 1 April and 29 April 1990) to the Latvian Popular Front
Armenia
Armenian parliamentary election, 1990
Parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on 20 May 1990, although further rounds were held on 3 June and 15 July due to low turnouts invalidating earlier results and by 21 July 64 seats were still unfilled, with 16 still unfilled in February the following year. The result was a victory for the...

on 20 May 1990 (with run-off elections on 3 June and 15 July 1990) to the Pan-Armenian National Movement
Pan-Armenian National Movement
The Pan-Armenian National Movement or Armenian Allnational Movement is a political party representing Armenian national movement in Armenia Presently without parliamentary representation.It was founded by Levon Ter-Petrossian in 1989 and became the ruling party when it swept the 1990 elections...
Georgia
Georgian legislative election, 1990
Parliamentary elections were held in the Georgian SSR on 28 October 1990, with a second round on 11 November. They were the first free parliamentary election in since 1919, and saw Round Table-Free Georgia emerge as the largest party in Parliament, with 155 of the 250 seats...

on 28 October 1990 (with a run-off election on 11 November 1990) to Round Table-Free Georgia

The constituent republics began to declare their national sovereignty and started a "war of laws" with the Moscow central government, wherein the governments of the constituent republics rejected union-wide legislation where it conflicted with local laws, asserting control over their local economies and refusing to pay tax revenue to the central Moscow government. This strife caused economic dislocation as supply lines in the economy were severed, and caused the Soviet economy to decline further.

Estonia

On 25 March 1990 the Estonian Communist Party voted to split from the CPSU after a 6 month transition

On March 30, 1990, the Estonian Supreme Council declared Soviet power in Estonian SSR since 1940 to have been illegal, and started a process to reestablish Estonia as an independent state.

Latvia

Latvia declared restoration of independence

On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia

The Declaration "On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia" was adopted on 4 May 1990, by the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR...

on May 4, 1990, with the declaration stipulating a transitional period to complete independence.

Lithuania

A visit by President Mikhail Gorbachev in January 1990 to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, provoked a pro-independence rally of around 250,000 people.

On March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian SSR, led by Chairman of the Supreme Council Vytautas Landsbergis

Vytautas Landsbergis

Professor Vytautas Landsbergis is a Lithuanian conservative politician and Member of the European Parliament. He was the first head of state of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union, and served as the Head of the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas...

, declared restoration of independence

Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania

The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of March 11 was an independence declaration by the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted on March 11, 1990...

. However, the Soviet Army

Soviet Army

The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

attempted to suppress the movement

January Events

The January Events took place in Lithuania between January 11 and 13, 1991 in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. As a result of Soviet military actions, 14 civilians were killed and more than 1000 injured...

. The Soviet Union initiated an economic blockade of Lithuania and kept troops there "to secure the rights of ethnic Russians."

Azerbaijan – Black January

During the first week of January 1990 in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan, the Popular Front led crowds in the storming and destruction of the frontier fences and watchtowers along the border with Iran, and thousands of Soviet Azerbaijanis crossed the border to meet their ethnic cousins in Iranian Azerbaijan. For the first time the Soviet Union had lost control of its external border.

On 9 January 1990, after the Armenian parliament voted to include Nagorno-Karabakh within its budget, renewed fighting broke out, hostages were taken and four Soviet Troops were killed. On 11 Jan Popular Front radicals stormed party buildings and effectively overthrew Communist power in in the southern town of Lenkoran. On 13 January 1990 murderous anti-Armenian violence overwhelmed Baku, around ninety Armenians were beaten to death or thrown from balconies, before Soviet troops were able to evacuate the remaining Armenian population of Baku, thereby completing the mutual ethnic cleansing of Armenia and Azerbaijan of each other`s populations.

Gorbachev now resolved to regain control of Azerbaijan. Late at night on 19 January 1990, after blowing up of the central television station and the termination of phone and radio lines by Soviet special forces, 26,000 Soviet troops entered Baku, smashing through the barricades in order to crush the Popular Front. In the course of the storming, the troops attacked the protesters, firing into the crowds. More than 130 people died from wounds received that night and during subsequent violent confrontations and incidents that lasted until February; the majority of these were civilians killed by Soviet soldiers. More than 700 civilians were wounded. Hundreds of people were detained, only a handful of whom were put on trial for alleged criminal offenses. Civil liberties were severely curtailed. Soviet Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov

Dmitry Yazov

Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov was the last Marshal of the Soviet Union to be appointed before the collapse of the Soviet Union . He was the only Marshal of the Soviet Union to be born in Siberia....

stated that the use of force in Baku was intended to prevent the de facto takeover of the Azerbaijani government by the noncommunist opposition, to prevent their victory in upcoming free elections (scheduled for March 1990), to destroy them as a political force, and to ensure that the Communist government remained in power. The shooting continued for three days. For the first time the Soviet Army had taken one of its own cities by force.

The army had gained physical control of Baku but by 20 January 1990 essentially lost Azerbaijan - almost the whole population of the city turned out for the mass funerals of the victims who became the first "martyrs" to be buried in the Alley of Martyrs on the top of the hill in Baku.Thousands of Communist Party members publicly burned their party cards. First Secretary Vezirov had decamped to Moscow suffering from nervous exhaustion, so Ayaz Mutalibov was appointed his successor in a free vote of party officials, the ethnic Russian Viktor Polyanichko remained second secretary and the power behind the throne.

Following the hard line takeover the elections held on 30 September 1990, with runoffs on 14 October 1990, were characterized by intimidation, including the jailing of several Popular Front candidates and the murder of two others, and the unabashed stuffing of ballot boxes even in the presence of Western observers. The election results reflected the nature of this environment and in a body of 350 members, 280 were Communists and only 45 opposition candidates from the Popular Front and other non-communist groups, who together formed a Democratic Bloc ("Dembloc"). In May 1990 Ayaz Mutalibov was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet without allowing any opponents to stand against him.

Crisis - January–August 1991

On January 14, 1991 Nikolai Ryzhkov

Nikolai Ryzhkov

resigned from his post as Chairman

Premier of the Soviet Union

The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...

of the Council of Ministers, literally Premier of the Soviet Union, and was succeeded by Valentin Pavlov

Valentin Pavlov

Valentin Sergeyevich Pavlov was a Soviet official who became a Russian banker following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Born in the city of Moscow, then part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Pavlov began his political career in the Ministry of Finance in 1959...

in the newly-established post of Prime Minister of the Soviet Union.

On March 17, 1991, in a Union-wide referendum

Soviet Union referendum, 1991

A referendum on the future of the Soviet Union was held on 17 March 1991. The question put to voters wasDo you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any...

76.4% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form. The Baltics, Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

, Georgia, Chechnya

Chechnya

The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

(a region within Russia had a strong desire for independence, and which was by now referring to itself as Ichkeria) and Moldova

Moldavian SSR

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...

boycotted the referendum. In each of the other nine republics, a majority of the voters supported the retention of the renewed Soviet Union.

The August 1991 coup

Faced with growing republic separatism, Gorbachev attempted to restructure the Soviet Union into a less centralized state. On August 20, 1991, the Russian SFSR was scheduled to sign the New Union Treaty

New Union Treaty

Union of Sovereign States was the proposed name of a reorganization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into a new confederation body. Proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev, the proposal was an attempt to avert the collapse of the Soviet Union. The proposal was never implemented in the wake of the...

, which was to convert the Soviet Union into a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy and military. The new treaty was strongly supported by the Central Asian republics, which needed the economic power and common markets of the other Soviet republics to prosper. However, this meant the preservation of the Communist Party's control over economic and social life.

The more radical reformists were increasingly convinced that a rapid transition to a market economy was required, even if the eventual outcome included the disintegration of the Soviet Union into several independent nation-states. Disintegration of the USSR also accorded with the desires of Yeltsin's presidency of the Russian Federation as well as regional and local authorities, to establish full power over their territories and get rid of pervasive Moscow ideological control. In contrast to the reformers' lukewarm approach to the new treaty, the conservatives and remaining 'patriots' and Russian nationalists of the USSR, still strong within the CPSU and military establishment, were opposed to anything that might contribute to the weakening of the Soviet state and its centralized power base.

On August 19, 1991, Gorbachev's vice president Gennady Yanayev

Gennady Yanayev

Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev was a Soviet Russian politician and statesman whose career spanned the rules of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, and culminated during the Gorbachev years. Yanayev was born in Perevoz, Gorky Oblast...

, prime minister Valentin Pavlov

Valentin Pavlov

, defense minister Dmitry Yazov

Dmitry Yazov

Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov was the last Marshal of the Soviet Union to be appointed before the collapse of the Soviet Union . He was the only Marshal of the Soviet Union to be born in Siberia....

, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov

Vladimir Kryuchkov

Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov was a former Soviet politician and Communist Party member, having been in the organization from 1944 until he was dismissed in 1991...

, and other senior officials acted to prevent the signing of the union treaty by forming the "General Committee on the State Emergency." The "Committee" put Gorbachev (on holiday in Foros

Foros, Ukraine

Foros is a resort townlet in Crimea, Ukraine. Located at around near Cape Sarych, Foros is the southernmost resort in the Crimea.The settlement was founded and named by medieval Greek merchants. It was rediscovered in the late 19th century by Alexander Kuznetsov, a Russian "tea king" who had his...

, Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

) under house arrest, reintroduced political censorship, and attempted to stop the perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

. The coup leaders quickly issued an emergency decree suspending political activity and banning most newspapers.

While coup organizers expected some popular support for their actions, the public sympathy in large cities and in republics was largely against them, manifesting itself in a campaign of civil resistance

Civil resistance

The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...

, especially in Moscow. Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin was quick to condemn the coup and grab popular support for himself.

Thousands of people in Moscow came out to defend the White House

White House, Moscow

The White House , also known as the Russian White House, is a government building in Moscow. It stands on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. Construction started in 1965 and ended in 1981. Originally called The House of Soviets, it was designed by the architects Dmitry Chechulin and P. Shteller...

(the Russian Federation's parliament and Yeltsin's office), then the symbolic seat of Russian sovereignty. The organizers tried but ultimately failed to arrest Yeltsin, who rallied mass opposition to the coup. The special forces dispatched by the coup leaders took up positions near the White House, but would not storm the barricaded building.

After three days, on August 21, the coup collapsed, the organizers were detained, and Gorbachev returned as president of the Soviet Union. However, Gorbachev's powers were now compromised, as neither the Union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands.

The fall - August–December 1991

Between August and December, 10 republics declared their independence, largely out of fear of another coup. Also during this time, Russia began taking over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Kremlin. The final round of the Soviet Union's collapse took place following the Ukrainian popular referendum on December 1, 1991, wherein 90% of voters opted for independence. The leaders of the three principal Slavic republics (the Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs) agreed to meet for a discussion of possible forms of relationship, alternative to Gorbachev's struggle for a union.

On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian

Byelorussian SSR

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...

republics met in Belavezhskaya Pushcha and signed the Belavezha Accords

Belavezha Accords

The Belavezha Accords is the agreement which declared the Soviet Union effectively dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place...

declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replacing it with the Commonwealth of Independent States

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

(CIS). Gorbachev described this as an unconstitutional coup, but it soon became clear that the development could not be halted.

On December 12, 1991, Russia's secession from the Union was sealed, with the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR formally ratifying the Belavezha Accords and denouncing the 1922 Treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union.

On December 17, 1991, alongside 28 European countries, the European Community, and four non-European countries, twelve of the fifteen Soviet republics signed the European Energy Charter in the Hague as sovereign states.
Doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords

Belavezha Accords

The Belavezha Accords is the agreement which declared the Soviet Union effectively dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place...

to effect the dissolution of the Soviet Union, since they were signed by only five of the Soviet Republics. However, on December 21, 1991, representatives of all member republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol

Alma-Ata Protocol

The Alma-Ata Protocols are the founding declarations and principles of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It was signed soon after the Belavezha Accords on 21 December 1991, between the states of Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and...

, in which they confirmed the dissolution of the Union. That same day, all former Soviet republics agreed to join the CIS, with the exception of the three Baltic States and Georgia. The documents signed at Alma-Ata also addressed several issues raised by the Union's extinction. Notably, Russia was authorized to assume the Soviet Union's UN membership, including its permanent membership on the Security Council. The Soviet Ambassador to the UN delivered to the Secretary General a letter signed by Yeltsin, dated December 24, 1991, informing him that, in virtue of that agreement, Russia was the successor state to the USSR for purposes of UN membership. After being circulated among the other UN member states with no objection raised, the statement was declared accepted on December 31.

In the early hours of December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct and ceding all the powers still vested in it to Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin. The next day, the Council of Republics (a chamber of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union) formally recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself (another chamber of the Supreme Soviet had been unable to work during some months before this, due to absence of a quorum). By December 31, 1991, the few Soviet institutions that hadn't been taken over by Russia had ceased operations, as individual republics assumed the central government's role.

Russia

On June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

won 57% of the popular vote in the democratic elections

Russian presidential election, 1991

Presidential elections were held in the Russian Federation on 12 June 1991. It was the first presidential election in the country's history. Boris Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian SFSR. His running-mate, Alexander Rutskoi, became Vice-President....

for the post of president of the Russian SFSR, defeating Gorbachev's preferred candidate, Nikolai Ryzhkov

Nikolai Ryzhkov

, who won 16% of the vote. In his election campaign, Yeltsin criticized the "dictatorship of the centre", but did not suggest the introduction of a market economy

Market economy

A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...

. Instead, he said that he would put his head on the railtrack in the event of increased prices. Yeltsin took office on July 10.

Estonia

Estonia declared full independence on 20 August 1991 while the coup was still unfolding in Moscow.

Latvia

Attacks in Lithuania prompted Latvians to mount defense by building barricades to block access to strategically important buildings and bridges in Riga. Soviet attacks in following days resulted in six people being killed and several injured, one of whom later died.

Latvia declared full independence on 21 August 1991, following the example of Estonia of the day before, whilst the coup attempt was still unresolved in Moscow.

Lithuania

On January 13, 1991, Soviet troops, along with KGB

KGB

Spetsnaz

Spetsnaz, Specnaz tr: Voyska specialnogo naznacheniya; ) is an umbrella term for any special forces in Russian, literally "force of special purpose"...

Alpha Group

The Alpha Group , is an elite component of Russia's Spetsnaz as well as the dedicated counter-terrorism unit of the Federal Security Service...

, stormed the Vilnius TV Tower in Lithuania to suppress the nationalist media. This ended with fourteen unarmed civilians dead and hundreds more injured. On the night of July 31, 1991, Russian OMON

OMON

OMOH is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya within the Russian and earlier the Soviet MVD...

from Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, the Soviet military headquarters in the Baltics, assaulted the Lithuanian border post

Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts

Several Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts occurred in 1991, after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990. As a Soviet republic, the Lithuanian SSR did not have a state border with customs or checkpoints...

in Medininkai and killed seven Lithuanian servicemen. This event further weakened the Soviet Union's position, internationally and domestically.

Before August 1991 coup

Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

– March 11, 1990
Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

(de jure) – May 4, 1990
Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

– April 9, 1991

During August 1991 coup

Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

– August 20, 1991
Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

(de facto) – August 21, 1991

After August 1991 coup

Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

– August 24, 1991
Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

– August 25, 1991
Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

– August 27, 1991
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

– August 30, 1991
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...

– August 31, 1991
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

– September 1, 1991
Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

– September 9, 1991
Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

– September 21, 1991
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

– October 16, 1991
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

– December 16, 1991
Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

– December 24, 1991 (Yeltsin's letter to the UN informing them that, as a result of the Protocol signed at Alma-Ata, Russia should be accepted as the successor state of the Soviet Union).

Legacy

According to a 2006 poll by VCIOM

VCIOM

All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, VTsIOM, [established in 1987; till 1992 – All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion] is the oldest polling institution in the post-Soviet space and is one of the leading sociological and market research companies in Russia.-General...

66% of all Russians regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union. 50 percent of respondents in Ukraine in a similar poll held in February 2005 stated they regret the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The final collapse of the USSR was one of the most sudden and dramatic territorial losses that has befallen any state in history. Between 1990 and 1992 the Kremlin had lost direct government control over about one-third of Soviet territory – most of it acquired in the period between 1700

Great Northern War

The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...

and 1945

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

– which had about one-half of the Soviet population

Demographics of the Soviet Union

According to data from the 1989 Soviet census, the population of the Soviet Union was 70% East Slavs, 12% Turkic peoples, and all other ethnic groups below 10%. Alongside the atheist majority of 60% there were sizable minorities of Russian Orthodox followers and Muslims According to data from the...

by the time of the dissolution.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the breakdown of economic ties which followed, led to a severe economic crisis and catastrophic fall in the standards of living

Standard of living

Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods , or measures of health such as...

in the 1990s in post-Soviet states

Post-Soviet states

and the former Eastern Bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

, which was even worse than The Great Depression. Even before Russia's financial crisis of 1998, Russia's GDP was half of what it had been in the early 1990s, and some populations are still poorer as of 2009 than they were in 1989, including Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, Moldova

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

, Central Asia

Soviet Central Asia

Soviet Central Asia refers to the section of Central Asia formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, as well as the time period of Soviet administration . In terms of area, it is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan, the name for the region during the Russian Empire...

, and the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

.

The collapse of the Soviet Union hit the Cuban economy

Economy of Cuba

The economy of Cuba is a largely centrally planned economy dominated by state-run enterprises overseen by the Cuban government, though there remains significant foreign investment and private enterprise in Cuba...

severely. The country lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34 percent. Food and medicine imports stopped or severely slowed. The largest immediate impact was the loss of nearly all of the petroleum imports by the USSR.

United Nations membership

In a letter dated December 24, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, informed the United Nations Secretary-General

United Nations Secretary-General

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the Secretariat of the United Nations, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations....

that the membership of the USSR in the Security Council and all other UN organs was being continued by the Russian Federation with the support of the 11 member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The other fourteen independent states established from the former Soviet Republics were all admitted to the UN:

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic had already joined the UN as original members on October 24, 1945, together with the USSR. After declaring independence, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic changed its name to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

on August 24, 1991, and on September 19, 1991, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic informed the UN that it had changed its name to Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

.
Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, Latvia, and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

were admitted to the UN on September 17, 1991.
Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

, and Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

were admitted to the UN on March 2, 1992.
Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

was admitted to the UN on July 31, 1992.

External links

Goodbye Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the Revolution of '89 and the Collapse of Communism, Special Collections Research Center, The Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University. The exhibit contains excellent posters that relate the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as background information.
Lowering of the Soviet flag in 25 December 1991

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Soviet Union Centre - The new General Secretary

Latvia – Helsinki-86 and First Demonstration

Kazakhstan – Jeltoqsan riots

Soviet Union Centre – One-Party Democracy

Baltic Republics – First Molotov Pact Protests

Latvia – Taking the Lead

Armenia – Environmental and Nagorno Karabakh Demonstrations

Soviet Union Centre – Starting to Lose Control

Baltic republics – The Singing Revolution

Estonia – Estonian Popular Front

Latvia – Latvian Popular Front

Lithuania – Sąjūdis

Azerbaijan – Descent into Violence

Armenia – The People Rise

Georgia – First Demonstrations

Moldavia - Democratic Movement of Moldova

Ukraine - Lviv Leads

Byelorussia - Kurapaty

Soviet Union Centre – Democratic Explosion

Congress of Peoples Deputies

Loss of Outer Empire

Baltic Republics - The Chain of Freedom

Lithuania - The Communist Party Splits

Azerbaijan – Blockade

Armenia – Nationalist Leaders Released

Georgia - Massacre in Tbilisi

Moldavia - Popular Front of Moldova

Ukraine - Rukh

Byelorussia - Kurapaty

Uzbekistan – Fergana Riots

Kazakhstan – Novy Uhzen

Soviet Union Centre – Six Republics Lost

Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania

Azerbaijan – Black January

Crisis - January–August 1991

The August 1991 coup

The fall - August–December 1991

Russia

Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania

Before August 1991 coup

During August 1991 coup

After August 1991 coup

Legacy

United Nations membership

See also

Further reading

External links