231 Dissolution of the USSR
37.2.5: Dissolution of the USSR
An unintended consequence of the expanding reform within the USSR was the destruction of the very system it was designed to save.
Learning Objective
Summarize the chain of events that resulted in the dissolution of the USSR
Key Points
- Since 1985, General Secretary Gorbachev instituted liberalizing policies broadly referred to as glasnost and perestroika. As a result of his push towards liberalization, dissidents were welcomed back in the USSR and pro-independence movements became more vocal in the regional republics.
- Gorbachev continued to radically expand the scope of glasnost during the late 1980s, stating that no subject was off limits for open discussion in the media.
- On March 17, 1991, in a Union-wide referendum, 76.4% of voters endorsed retention of a reformed Soviet Union.
- On June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin won 57% of the popular vote in democratic elections for the newly created post of President of the Russian SFSR, defeating Gorbachev’s preferred candidate. In his election campaign, Yeltsin criticized the “dictatorship of the center”.
- Faced with growing separatism, Gorbachev sought to restructure the Soviet Union into a less-centralized state. On August 20, 1991, the Russian SFSR was scheduled to sign a New Union Treaty that would have converted the Soviet Union into a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy, and military. But more radical reformists were increasingly convinced that a rapid transition to a market economy was required.
- On August 19, 1991, Gorbachev’s vice president, Gennady Yanayev, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, and other senior officials acted to prevent the union treaty from being signed by forming the “General Committee on the State Emergency”, which put Gorbachev under house arrest and cut off his communications.
- After three days, the coup collapsed. The organizers were detained and Gorbachev returned as president, albeit with his power depleted.
- On August 24, 1991, Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee of the CPSU, resigned as the party’s general secretary, and dissolved all party units in the government. Five days later, the Supreme Soviet indefinitely suspended all CPSU activity on Soviet territory, effectively ending Communist rule in the Soviet Union and dissolving the only remaining unifying force in the country. The Soviet Union collapsed with dramatic speed in the last quarter of 1991.
- Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia underwent a radical transformation, moving from a centrally planned economy to a globally integrated market economy. Corrupt and haphazard privatization processes turned major state-owned firms over to politically connected “oligarchs,” which left equity ownership highly concentrated.
Key Terms
- perestroika
- Literally “restructuring” in Russian, a political movement for reform within the Communist Par