Canadian Slavonic Papers

Revue Canadienne des Slavistes

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Review Article

David R. Marples

To cite this article: David R. Marples (2011) Review Article, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 53:2-4,
461-473, DOI: 10.1080/00085006.2011.11092684

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 REVIEW ARTICLE NOTE CRITIQUE
David R. Marples

Revisiting the Collapse of the USSR1

INTRODUCTION
There was a remarkable lack of accurate prognoses by Western scholars about the
end of the Soviet Union, especially Kremlinologists. In November 1991, a banquet
speaker at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement
of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Miami examined the question of the survival of the
Soviet Union and concluded that it was in no danger of collapse. In fact, he argued,
Gorbachev was firmly in power and able to manipulate Boris Yeltsin, the president
of the RSFSR. During the question period the same speaker also predicted that there
would be civil war in Ukraine, similar to that in the former Yugoslavia, if it should
become independent. The question is why? Why was it such a surprise? The
answer, perhaps, is that when empires fall, and I think the Soviet Union can be
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accurately called an empire, they do not collapse from a single cause but because of
the confluence of many factors, all or some of which need to be in place at the same
time. In the case of the USSR, my view—it has changed slightly over time, but not
fundamentally—is that there were a number of key factors that did meet this
criterion.
The economy was in deep crisis, its problems exacerbated for a number of
reasons including a costly and unsuccessful war in Afghanistan that ended only in
1988–1989, the enormous expenses of dealing with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster
and its aftermath, an earthquake that devastated Armenia in 1988, decentralization
of the Union leading to shortages of funds in the central budget, economic
experiments that were essentially half-hearted and incomplete—starting with the
anti-alcohol campaign in 1985 that depleted state revenues while rendering the
government unpopular, and the undermined authority of the Communist party, and
later the KGB, thereby removing not only the structure of power but also the threat
and/or usage of force in times of perceived crisis. Also of importance and linked to
the above were ideological stagnation and the gradual de-legitimization of
Marxism-Leninism, and especially of Stalinism as a result of glasnost' and new
revelations about so-called “blank spots” in Soviet history. Among these must be
included Stalin’s Purges and NKVD massacres carried out at the centre and in the
republics, and ultimately a fundamental reinvestigation of the legacy of the Soviet
founder, V. I. Lenin.

1
The author presented an earlier version of this paper at the Danish Institute of International
Studies, Copenhagen, on 24 November 2011.

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There has also been a plethora of books written in the West that claim or imply
that the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of the lengthy Cold War and particularly
its arms build-up.2 These sometimes take the form of “triumphalism,” i.e., that the
West and the United States proved victorious in the Cold War, partly because the
USSR was unable to keep up and had embarked on expensive arms build-ups that
could not be sustained technically or financially, such as the Strategic Defense
Initiative or Star Wars. The latter of course never got off the table in the United
States either, but was perceived a dire threat, at least based on Gorbachev’s
comments at his early summits with Ronald Reagan, particularly the one in
Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986.3
However, it can be argued that the Cold War theorists are seriously misguided
for one obvious reason, namely that in the summer and fall of 1991, Gorbachev
regarded the United States, as well as the states of Western Europe, as his most
reliable friends. By this time he was far happier in their capital cities than he was in
Moscow, and considerably more popular. Newly released documents in the United
States National Archives suggest that President George H. W. Bush was somewhat
ambivalent toward Gorbachev at first,4 but if that is true he certainly warmed up
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later.5 On 20 June, US ambassador Jack Matlock, acting on instructions from his

president who had received a tip from the mayor of Moscow, warned Gorbachev

2
See, for example, John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin,
2006); and Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (New
York: Harper Perennial, 2007). More amusingly, the introduction to the “Cold War
Museum” Web site states the following: “In December of 1991 as the world watched in
amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was
hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and
evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its
formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered
over these two superpowers since the end of World War II.” See “Fall of the Soviet Union,”
Cold War Museum: <http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/ fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp>
(Accessed 17 December 2011).
3
See, for example, James E. Goodby, “Looking Back: The 1986 Reykjavik Summit,” Arms
Control Today September 2006: <http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_09/lookingback>
(Accessed on 17 December 2011).
4
My reference is to comments made by Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive at
the Roundtable discussion, “The August 1991 Coup and the End of the Soviet Union,”
Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
(referred to hereafter as ASEEES), Washington, DC, 19 November 2011.
5
See President Bush’s comments in Francis Fukuyama et al., “Twenty Years After the End
of History,” New Perspectives Quarterly 27.1 (2010): 14–15. Admittedly, however, there is
some dissension to this view. In his memoirs, Aleksandr Iakovlev comments that there were
some politicians, particularly in the United States, that wanted to weaken the Soviet Union
and sought only a crisis during the perestroika period. See Aleksandr Iakovlev, Omut
Pamiati (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000) 538.
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 463

that a coup was being planned—his warnings were dismissed as naïve, but
nonetheless they were appreciated.6
On 1 August 1991, President Bush delivered what journalist William Safire
called his “Chicken Kiev” speech to a session of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet,
warning deputies of the dangers of “suicidal nationalism,”7 a sure indicator that the
Americans were very responsive to Gorbachev’s fears as well as his vision of a
revised Union agreement scheduled to be signed on 20 August. Only three weeks
later, the Ukrainian Parliament, with one dissenting vote, supported a motion in
favour of outright independence. The Americans never gave the same kind of
support and understanding to Boris Yeltsin, even after he became the president of
Russia. Ironically, given the course of the Cold War, the Americans wanted to keep
the Soviet Union intact, not least because of the danger of proliferation of nuclear
weapons, but also because of the sentiment that Gorbachev was a friend and
deserved their support.

THE CPSU
There has also been focus on Gorbachev’s growing animosity toward the
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and its old guard of Brezhnev
appointees. Although Gorbachev recognized the need for change in the party, in
effect he undercut his own position through these reforms and ultimately relied on
the revamped position of Soviet president, hitherto a largely ceremonial post. In
1990, the CPSU had 19.2 million members, over one-third of whom had a higher
education, and who constituted the elite and ruling body of Soviet society. Although
Gorbachev replaced a number of party leaders almost immediately upon taking
office in 1985, including his alleged rivals Viktor Grishin and Grigorii Romanov,
his most serious assault began with the convocation of the 19th All-Union Party
Conference in 1988, the goal of which was to elaborate a new party platform, the
first since the 1920s. The outcome also was the decision to hold new elections to
the Congress of People’s Deputies in spring 1989, leading one scholar to note that
these events signified the demise of “democratic centralism” and the development
of national-separatist political parties and movements.8
In turn, the Congress began to take on more powers, realizing Lenin’s old
dictum of “All Power to the Soviets!”, a conception hitherto largely non-existent in

6
Jack Matlock, “Foreword,” in My Six Years with Gorbachev, by Anatoly Chernyaev,
translated and edited by Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker (University Park: The
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000) xii–xiv.
7
See John-Thor Dahlburg, “Bush’s ‘Chicken Kiev’ Talk—an Ill-Fated U.S. Policy,” Los
Angeles Times 19 December 1991: <http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-19/news/mn-
1010_1_soviet-union> (Accessed 5 January 2012).
8
P. G. Pikhoia, “Pochemu raspalsia Sovetskii Soiuz?” in Tragediia velikoi derzhavy, edited
by G. N. Sevost'ianov (Moscow: Mysl', 2005) 418.

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that the party rather than the Supreme Soviet was the key institution in the state
structure for most of Soviet history. These measures effectively decentralized a
country that formerly had been based on an administrative-command system with a
hierarchical structure centred on the CPSU, its Congresses, and the ruling organ of
the Politburo, and within the latter body, the power and authority of the General
Secretary of the Central Committee.9 Henceforth, the republican parliaments would
grow in authority whereas in the Moscow centre there would be increasing
disaffection for Gorbachev, a man considered to have reneged on the system that
brought him to power. Hence, the devolution of power benefitted republican and
local soviets rather than the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, which in its post-1989
form was simply elected from within the Congress of Deputies—as indeed was
Gorbachev as president.
While all the above are clearly relevant factors, they were a prelude to what can
be considered to be the most important and immediate reasons for the Soviet
collapse. In other words, the USSR might have survived in some sort of form,
despite the arms race, financial problems, structural questions, the decline of the
CPSU, and even economic collapse, at least for a few more years. After all, there
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was an equally significant economic crisis in 1998 in the Russian Federation, but it
survived. European neighbours, as well as the United States, would have helped the
USSR to continue. Instead my chief focus will be on three topics. These include the
rise of the national republics; the failed putsch of 19–21 August 1991; and finally,
the protracted and bitter struggle between the two main protagonists, Boris Yeltsin
and Mikhail Gorbachev, which essentially ended with the meeting at Belavezha
Forest in Brest region, attended by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus,
which deprived Gorbachev of anything to rule.

RISE OF THE NATIONAL REPUBLICS

Gorbachev’s most important mistake was his apparent failure to recognize how his
policy of glasnost' complicated and provoked the nationalities question in the
Soviet Union. Almost as soon as he took office, problems emerged in the republics,
albeit not of a separatist nature. The more tolerant public atmosphere in the media
and the rapid development of civil society and formation of so-called informal
associations also played a role in increasing ethnic tensions and reviving some old
animosities between ethnic groups. Soviet nationalities policy had a chequered
history. Lenin’s dictum that national republics could be “national in form, socialist
in content” was the clearest exposition and lay at the heart of the formation of the
USSR in December 1922. The decade of the 1920s thus saw a flowering of national
cultures in republics like Ukraine and Belarus, and especially the growing
importance of national languages. The general slogan that the Communist party
deployed for this transformation was “indigenization.” However, by the early
1930s, the policy had been largely abandoned as the new leader Stalin sought to

9
Pikhoia 419.
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 465

concentrate more power in the centre of the country, though national differences
remained and to some extent were recognized as the USSR continued to expand.
At the end of Stalin’s leadership in March 1953, Lavrentii Beria returned to the
question of the rights of the national republics and demanded an end to what he
termed “Russian chauvinism” (a phrase used also by Lenin), but his period of pre-
eminence was short-lived. Still, the Khrushchev years relaxed the attacks on
“bourgeois nationalism” that had taken place under Stalin. Under Brezhnev, the
country pursued the policy of the “merger of nations,” the idea that a “New Soviet
Man” could arise and national differences would be subsumed to a pervading all-
Union identity. Although this goal remained no more than a pipedream, the
elevation of Russian to the prevailing language in most republics continued.
Moreover, the vast majority of publications were in Russian and education also was
predominantly in that language.
Surprisingly, Gorbachev, who grew up in one of the more ethnically diverse
regions of the USSR—the Caucasus—believed that this policy had been successful,
and that the national question had been resolved. He was soon to be disillusioned.
Chronologically, matters began with mass riots in Alma-Ata following the
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appointment of an ethnic Russian, Gennadii Kolbin as party leader after the

departure of Dinmukhamed Kunaev on 16 December 1986, and perhaps more
crucially a brutal war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-
Karabakh in February 1988. The two antagonists tried to resolve the issue through
existing institutions, but once the decision of the Armenian Supreme Soviet to
transfer the enclave from Azerbaijan to Armenia had met with a rejection by the
Azeri parliament in Baku, conflict broke out and the mediation of Moscow did little
to alter the situation. The war itself is not relevant to our question, other than that it
reflected the growing enfeeblement of the “centre.”
However, it was in the Baltic States that difficulties for the Union really
emerged. The Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the summer of
1940 was a source of discontent because it had been undertaken by military threats.
These three small republics enjoyed a higher standard of living than the rest of the
USSR, but they remained bitterly resentful—particularly the intellectual elites in
Latvia and Estonia—of the intrusion of Slavs into their major cities, regarding it as
a threat to national survival. The Slavs tended to settle in the urban areas,
embracing a separate culture and refusing to learn the native languages of their
respective republics.
Protests first focused on the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact and its
consequences. The Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians had long regarded this Pact
as illegal. Soviet propaganda simply ignored the period of Soviet collusion with
Hitler, but it was a potential problem in that the westward expansion of Ukraine and
Belarus had also occurred because of the Pact. Gorbachev could conceivably have
allowed the Baltic States to leave the USSR and kept the Union in place. Instead, he
demurred, and the few acts of real violence that may be attributed to Gorbachev

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took place in Lithuania and Latvia in January 1991. Meanwhile, the national elites
of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania took more control over their republics gradually,
creating interest in other, more cautious republics. These protests also took on
patterns that became familiar in many republics. For simplification they can be
divided into five main currents.
ƒ Protests against nuclear power following the Chernobyl disaster of April
1986 and an expansive program to build Russian-made reactors across the
USSR, as well as
ƒ against other environmentally dangerous industries. These led directly to
demands for more control over decision-making in the republics and
ultimately economic sovereignty.10
ƒ Democratization of the media leading almost immediately to attacks on
Stalinism and revelations about past crimes, which received
encouragement from the Gorbachev leadership. The ostensible goal was to
continue the path taken by Nikita Khrushchev, rehabilitate innocent
victims of the Purges of 1937–1941 and return to the “correct” path of V.
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I. Lenin. Yet inevitably such inquiries undermined the legitimacy of the

USSR since many of its key achievements and particularly the victory
over Hitler’s Germany in 1941–1945, occurred under the leadership of
Stalin. In addition, one of the constant dilemmas of glasnost' was the
extent to which it could be taken. Did it mean, for example, that Lenin
should also come under review? When precisely had the USSR veered
from the correct course?
ƒ Splits in local Communist parties between pro-reformers and statists that
began to occur from 1988 in the Baltic States and a year later in the Slavic
republics and the Caucasus. They were also clearly evident in the Russian
heartland as Gorbachev took on what he termed “stagnation.”
Concomitantly, there were demands for the removal from the 1977 Soviet
Constitution of Article 6, which declared the primacy of the Communist
party in public life.
ƒ The formation of Popular Fronts made up of party and non-party personnel
that were focused on gaining more authority for the republics vis-à-vis the
Moscow centre as well as taking part in local and all-Union elections.
Again the Baltic States led the way. Formation of similar organizations in
Ukraine and Belarus proved much more difficult, despite the fact that they

10
The key factor was Soviet secrecy about the nature and extent of the disaster and the fact
that control over the plant as well as the clean-up of the disaster remained entirely in the
hands of Moscow-based ministries. For a recent account of these issues, see Alla
Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment (Piscataway: Transaction Publishers,
2011).
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 467

were supportive of Gorbachev’s perestroika. Indeed the Ukrainian Rukh’s

official designation was the Popular Movement in Support of Perestroika.
However, when Gorbachev belatedly convoked a Plenum on national
policy in September 1989, one of the voiced complaints of delegates was
that “extreme nationalist” sentiments had developed that were a departure
from the official state policy of “socialism.”11
ƒ By 1990, there were declarations of state sovereignty and demands for
even more rights for the republics. The most important of these, at least in
terms of their contributions to the Soviet economy, were Russia and
Ukraine. Both now began to transfer more power to their own parliaments.
Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan also followed suit.

By early 1991, Gorbachev belatedly tried to rectify the situation with a

referendum on a revised union. It was already too late to try to keep the Baltic
States within the USSR. The Communist parties there, like the Popular Fronts,
supported independence. On 9 February 1991, Lithuania put the question of
independence to a popular vote, with more than 90 percent supporting the notion,
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and a turnout of more than 84 percent.12 The Estonians and Latvians did the same
thing on 3 March, with 79 percent and 74 percent respectively in favour of
independence—likely a reflection of the reticence of these republics’ sizeable
Slavic populations on this issue. Gorbachev tried to save what was left. On 6
February, he had appeared on Soviet television to announce the referendum on a
new Union Treaty that would endorse a new Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
The new treaty anticipated extensive concessions to the republics, which would be
recognized as sovereign, determine their forms of governments, and be allowed to
negotiate directly with foreign countries (though not on foreign policy). The
Moscow central government requested the right to legislate foreign and defence
policies, and to remain in charge of taxation—this was a key issue because it would
later lead to funds flowing into the budget of the Russian Federation rather than the
USSR.
During this same period, Russia introduced its own presidency, arguably the
most direct threat to Soviet rule to date. Whereas Gorbachev’s election as president
was through the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in March 1990, the new Russian
president, Boris Yeltsin, had won a democratic election in which all eligible voters
could take part. In this way, he acquired a legitimacy that Gorbachev did not
possess. In this same period, late 1990 and early 1991, many of the known

11
Pravda 24 September 1989.
12
Lithuania had declared independence on 12 March 1990. However, there was a muted
international response, particularly from the United States, which had never accepted its
annexation by the Soviet Union, but was unwilling to embarrass Mikhail Gorbachev by
recognizing it.

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reformers left the Politburo and were replaced by people who wanted to slow down
the pace of reform, if not return entirely to the structure in place during Brezhnev’s
time. And Gorbachev was the one who appointed them. In the spring, he also tried
unsuccessfully to ban public demonstrations in Moscow, most of which, hundreds
of thousands strong, were in support of Yeltsin.
The results of the referendum of March 1991, in which nine republics
participated, appeared to be an endorsement of Gorbachev’s plan for a revised
union, with more than 76% supporting the motion for the formation of a Union of
Soviet Sovereign Republics. The highest totals were to be found in the Central
Asian republics, with lower-than-average support in the Slavic states. Russia, for
example, saw 71.3% in favour.13 However, there were often additional questions on
republican ballots, including support for sovereignty and independence. Republican
leaders did not concur with the Soviet leader that the referendum results constituted
an endorsement of his policies. In Ukraine, parliamentary leader Leonid Kravchuk
commented that the referendum in his republic had demonstrated the striving of the
population for independence.14 Gorbachev would continue to cite the results of the
referendum to defend his policies in 1991, suggesting that there was general support
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for the revised USSR. Yet, the economic situation in the country worsened and it
became plain that Yeltsin was reticent about working with the Soviet president.

THE PUTSCH OF 1991

After he became president, Yeltsin took several steps that appeared to threaten the
remaining fabric of the Soviet state. He banned the Communist party from the
workplace (4 August), demanded that enterprises on Russian territory pay taxes
directly into the coffers of the Russian Federation, and began to lay the foundations
for Russia to develop its own military and security policies. Within the USSR, a
futile attempt was made by the Supreme Soviet to reduce the powers of President
Gorbachev. However, several reformers, including Aleksandr Iakovlev, Eduard
Shevardnadze, Stanislav Shatalin, Gavriil Popov, and Anatolii Sobchak formed a
Movement for Democratic Reform.15 The key issue, however, was the confirmation

13
Izvestiia, 27 March 1991. The participating republics were Russia, Ukraine, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. Turnout was
around 80%.
14
S. V. Cheshko, “Rol' etnonatsionalizma v raspade SSSR,” in Sevost'ianov 463–464.
15
Aleksandr Nikolaevich Iakovlev (1923–2005) was the former Soviet ambassador to
Canada (1973–1983) and a close friend of Gorbachev. He is considered to be one of the
authors of glasnost' and became the secretary of the CC CPSU responsible for ideology.
Eduard Shevardnadze (b. 1927) was party leader of Georgia from 1972 to 1985 and
subsequently President of Georgia, 1995–2003. Stanislav Shatalin (1935–1997) was an
economist and one of the authors of the ambitious plan called 500 Days, the goal of which
was to transform the Soviet state economy into a market economy, but he later turned
against Gorbachev because of the attacks by Soviet Special Forces against Lithuanian
separatists in January 1991. Gavriil Popov (b. 1936) was mayor of Moscow in 1990–1992
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 469

of the new Union Treaty that was to be signed on 20 August, and would reduce
permanently the authority of the central powers in Moscow. This forthcoming
event, and Yeltsin’s push to amass his own personal power in Russia, were decisive
in the move by hard-line Communists to reverse the process of decentralization in
an attempted putsch on 19–21August. Gorbachev had promised this meeting with
those republics that remained committed—at least to some extent—to the Union
Treaty. The three Baltic States, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia wanted no part of
it. This was a critical moment because it was at this juncture that the leaders of the
power ministries, the chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet, the Vice-President of
the USSR, and the head of the KGB planned a putsch to take over the leadership of
the country.
The putsch, sometimes seen as the decisive event of 1991, was more
reminiscent of General Lavr Kornilov’s pathetic effort to take over Petrograd in
August 1917. Gorbachev, in this respect, resembles Kerenskii in his general
ineffectiveness and inability to stop a new popular force, in this instance led by
Yeltsin. On August 18, the plotters, all members of Gorbachev’s administration,
and led by KGB chief Vladimir Kriuchkov, police chief Boris Pugo, and Vice-
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President Gennadii Yanayev, placed Gorbachev under house arrest in Crimea,

where he was vacationing with his wife Raisa. Gorbachev was ordered to declare a
state of emergency in the country and to hand over power to a State Committee to
deal with the crisis. However, whatever the plotters might have promised him,
Gorbachev did not take part in these rash plans.16
The attempted putsch had little chance of success. Although tanks moved
through Moscow in the early hours of 19 August, the plotters had left far too many
loopholes to make good on their threats. Though placed under surveillance, Yeltsin
somehow managed to leave his dacha and make his way to the Russian “White
House,” where he stage-managed the resistance, at one point climbing on a tank to
express his defiance. He was able to send messages through a Moscow-based
Internet service and with the help of Radio Liberty. The plotters were too feeble or
too drunk to attempt to use force against protests on the streets. Most important, the
army was an unwilling collaborator, which became evident when civilians berated
them without any responses. There was no public backing for a move to turn back

and a well-known economist. Anatolii Sobchak (1937–2000) was chairman of Leningrad

city council and executive mayor of St. Petersburg, 1991–1996. During his tenure he also
became the patron of Vladimir Putin and later supported his bid for the Russian presidency
in 2000.
16
According to one of the putsch leaders, Gorbachev, “typically,” neither agreed nor
disagreed with the proposed emergency measures and establishment of the new committee.
Though the members hoped for his backing, they were fearful that he would run to his
“friend Bush” for support and thus an order was given to cut off connections with him (i.e.,
place him under house arrest at his vacation home in Foros, Crimea). Vladimir Kriuchkov,
Lichnoe delo: tri dnia i vsia zhizn' (Moscow: Olimp, 2001) 394–395.

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the clock and restore central authority in Moscow. At a press conference later in the
day on 19 August, the State Committee declared that Gorbachev was ill and
therefore Yanayev had taken over and declared a state of emergency. Protesters
began to discuss the situation openly with the troops and quickly set up barricades.
Significantly, however, the failure of the putsch benefitted Yeltsin rather than
Gorbachev. This was Yeltsin’s finest moment in more ways than one. While
publicly he could pose as the defender of public liberty, glasnost', and democracy,
behind the scenes he could exploit the backlash against the plotters to consolidate
his authority. He called openly for the release and restoration of the Soviet
President while ensuring that if and when Gorbachev did return to Moscow, he
would be virtually powerless. The putsch thus accelerated events and was
publicized on CNN, featuring several apparatchiks who were making decisions on
the spot as events unfolded. At his press conference, Yanayev’s hands were shaking
so badly that few observers could take him seriously as the interim leader of the
country. By 20 August, some 200,000 people had gathered at the White House to
oppose the putsch.
By the next morning the leaders of the rebellion were either in flight, or—in the
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case of Pugo—had committed suicide. Some went to the Crimea to consult with
Gorbachev and were returned to Moscow on the presidential plane. For the Soviet
President and his wife, it had been a terrifying ordeal. Nonetheless, the apparently
close liaison between Gorbachev and the plotters, added to the fact that they all
flew back to Moscow on the same plane, has led several analysts recently to once
again bring up the theory that Gorbachev was more involved in the event than was
subsequently revealed. In Washington, DC at a November 2011 conference, this
was the subject of a heated debate between Archie Brown—who believes that
Gorbachev was completely innocent—and John B. Dunlop, who contends that
Gorbachev had an understanding with his captors. However, there is no firm
evidence that Gorbachev was involved, and Brown maintains that he would not
have put his wife Raisa through such a harrowing experience voluntarily.17
Again though, it is worth reiterating: the key consequence was Yeltsin’s
usurpation of power. By the time Gorbachev returned to Moscow, Yeltsin had
gained control over the armed forces of the Soviet Union. He paraded Gorbachev
before the Congress, denouncing the Soviet leader’s apparent attempt to speak in
favour of the Communist party—an astonishing comment to have made under the
circumstances. Yeltsin pointed out that the plotters were all Gorbachev appointees.
The Communist party was placed under a temporary ban and its assets frozen. On
24 August, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CC CPSU (though he

17
Roundtable discussion, “The August 1991 Coup and the End of the Soviet Union,” Annual
Convention of ASEEES, Washington, DC, 19 November 2011. Dunlop maintained that
Yeltsin had documentary evidence of Gorbachev’s complicity, but nothing has yet come to
light.
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 471

remained Soviet president), and a mob tore down the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky
outside the Lubyanka in central Moscow.
In the wake of the failed putsch (and in two cases even during it), the
previously reticent Soviet republics began to declare independence, with Ukraine
and Belarus leading the way on 24 and 25 August respectively. Eventually even the
Central Asian republics, which had remained more docile and passive, also decided
to proclaim their independence, with Uzbekistan the first to do so on 31 August.
These developments across the Union were less straightforward than it appeared. In
Moldova, for example, a breakaway Trans-Dniester SSR was formed in September,
with the backing of the Soviet military, and it seemed unlikely that the Moldovans
would be able to sustain an independent state. Some republics declared
independence not to fulfil any age-old dream but simply because there appeared to
be no alternatives—Belarus, for example, lacked a strong independence movement
even in the parliament where there were only 32 divided opposition deputies.
Ukraine had proposed a referendum for 1 December to confirm independence, and
the question was whether the move would be secession from the Soviet Union or
from a revitalized Russia.
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THE POWER STRUGGLE WITH RUSSIA

The Russian Federation did not declare independence in the summer of 1991.
Rather it continued to take part in a power struggle with the Soviet Union
throughout the rest of the year. By November, Yeltsin had had assumed the position
of Russian Prime Minister and asserted that the Russian Council of Ministers was
the de facto authority on the territory of Russia. What remained for Gorbachev and
the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies? Essentially, their power was limited to
the walls of the Kremlin. On 1 December 1991, the electorate of Ukraine voted
overwhelmingly for independence, with a majority vote even in the disputed
territory of Crimea, which had regained its autonomous status earlier in the year.
Leonid Kravchuk, the former Communist party ideological chief in Ukraine and
Chairman of the Parliament, was elected President on the same day. The final act
was to take place in Belarus, when Yeltsin and Kravchuk flew to Minsk to meet
with Belarusian parliamentary chairman Stanislau Shushkevich. Kazakhstan’s
President Nursultan Nazarbayev had also been invited but declined to attend.
Yeltsin attended only on condition that Gorbachev was not invited.18 Consequently,
the meeting acquired the air of subterfuge.
The three leaders adjourned to a hunting lodge in the Belavezha estate in the
western part of the republic where they proclaimed the dissolution of the Soviet
Union and its replacement by a loose federation called the Commonwealth of

18
See, for example, here and ff., David Marples, “Ending an Empire over a Few Drinks,” St.
Petersburg Times 11 December 2007: <http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=100
&story_id=24440> (Accessed 5 January 2012).

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 472 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES

Independent States. Though two of the leaders had received public backing in
elections (Yeltsin and Kravchuk), none really had the authority to arrogate such
powers to the meeting. Gorbachev predictably regarded the move as a betrayal of
the agreement to a new Union Treaty. Whether a USSR remained was a matter for
conjecture, but Gorbachev was undoubtedly justified in his statement that these
three figures could not legitimately decide its fate over drinks in this rural setting.
Nonetheless, the Belavezha meeting brought the Soviet period to an end. In this
regard it was more important than the Almaty Protocol that followed on 21
December, by which eleven republics supported the Belavezha Accords. Belavezha
alone made the further existence of the Soviet Union impossible because of the loss
of Russia and Ukraine, its two major republics. On 25 December, the Soviet flag
was taken down from the Kremlin and by the end of the year, the USSR ceased to
exist as a fact of law.
Returning then to the surprise of most analysts in the West when this event
occurred, one can say that although there were a number of factors that catalyzed
the fall, the demise of the country resulted ultimately from an internal coup, that of
Yeltsin and the Russian Federation against the Soviet authorities in Moscow, but
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one that could not have taken place without the corresponding rise of the national
republics and the loss of power by the centre. Gorbachev had already weakened his
own sources of power by his attacks on the Communist party. Yeltsin destroyed
them completely. And yet there was little preplanning that is evident. Even in 1991
there were times when the two enemies chose to work together. It is inconceivable
that Gorbachev would have attempted to advance the Union Treaty had he not felt
that he would get support from Yeltsin. Thus it seems most likely that the Russian
president chose to improvise, and when the opportunity arose to take power, then he
did so, perhaps buoyed by his obvious popularity and street support, and a deep
grudge toward Gorbachev for removing him from his position as head of Moscow
city council in November 1987.
Again, Yeltsin could not have achieved power without an alliance with the
former Union republics, especially Ukraine and Belarus. Consequently he formed a
tactical friendship with their leaders, one that often seemed to be belied once he was
firmly in power and there were discussions about post-Soviet relationships.19
Western leaders for a long time perceived the situation otherwise: as a power
struggle in which democrats were pitted against hardliners. George Bush (United

19
The relationship between Russia and Ukraine, for example, was very difficult in the period
1992–1997, during which time there were discussions over the division of the Black Sea
Fleet, nuclear weapons remaining on Ukrainian territory, Russian energy supplies to
Ukraine, the state of the Russian language in Ukraine, and—not least—the threat of
secession by Crimea, either as an independent republic or an autonomous republic of Russia.
The latter possibility received support from prominent members of the Russian Duma and
the mayor of Moscow, Yurii Luzhkov. The Treaty of Friendship between Russia and
Ukraine, signed by Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, resolved
problems temporarily.
 REVIEW ARTICLES / NOTES CRITIQUES 473

States), John Major (United Kingdom), and Helmut Kohl (Germany) all knew that
there were differences between Gorbachev and Yeltsin but expected that they would
work together during a crisis. They were “democrats” struggling against
“hardliners” as far as Western parlance was concerned. However, the entire
scenario took the form of an elite struggle, at different levels of what had been the
party hierarchy.

CONCLUSION
The demise of the USSR inevitably created a power vacuum in the world, leaving
the United States as the only global military superpower. But it did not make the
world more stable. There were numerous problems to be resolved, starting with that
of nuclear weapons remaining on the territories of three independent republics
besides Russia, namely Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The new republics were
far from ready to be self-governing and had to negotiate questions of borders, banks
and currency, and new constitutions, as well as the division of what had been Soviet
property. This frequently resulted in new tensions, such as the confrontation
between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet, a civil war in
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Tajikistan, and the divisive role of the Russian 14th army in Moldova. Russia
started 1992 with the introduction of shock therapy to establish a market economy,
an experiment conducted in association with Western economic reformers, and
planned in advance of the fall by Yegor Gaidar and others. The experiment was
exceptionally difficult for many Russians, and many became impoverished as a
result of its social impact. Subsequently, Russia’s natural wealth moved into private
hands and the government’s financial problems meant that many of its primary
resources were sold at cut-rate prices to an emerging clique of oligarchs.
Gradually, the Russian Federation emerged as an important player on the world
stage, but the decade that followed the end of the USSR was a difficult one. As for
Gorbachev, his reputation remains contested. In some circles, especially in the West
he is regarded as the peacemaker, the man who ended the Cold War, almost single-
handedly stopped the arms race, and who declined to respond with force when first
the East Europeans and second the Soviet republics broke free. In Russia his
popularity remains low, as was revealed when he unwisely took part in the 1996
presidential elections and received less than 0.5% of votes. The real picture is rather
more complicated and Gorbachev had been overtaken by events. He was after all
human and unable to control forces that he had helped to set in motion. There is no
indication at any point in his career that he sought the end of the Soviet Union, or
that he understood fully why it had happened. But by dismantling the authority of
the party he played his role in the empowerment of the constituent republics and the
rekindling or kindling of nationalist sentiments that had been fostered in part by the
very structure of the USSR as formed in 1922 but lain dormant for several decades.
University of Alberta

Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes

Vol. LIII, Nos. 2–3–4, June-September-December 2011 / juin-septembre-décembre 2011