Fall of the USSR

The breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago was a radical event that changed the course of history. At the same time, it was an event that resulted from complex processes that even today are hard to fully comprehend due to the fact that many archives remain under lock and key.

Therefore, it is almost impossible to carry out a balanced and objective analysis that doesn't stir controversy. Many Russians play the blame game, saying the collapse was "Mikhail Gorbachev's fault" or that "American policy" is the culprit. Some allege that it would have been possible to maintain the Soviet Union "in a different form." That is both illogical and nonsensical. The USSR collapsed precisely because at its core it was amenable to neither reform nor democracy.

In fact, the seeds of the Soviet Union's eventual dissolution were planted on the very first day of its formation. Its founding in 1922 took place amid undemocratic and violent action.

It is something of a historical irony that the anti-tsarist, communist movement that triumphed in a civil war after World War I forced the people of the Russian Empire, yearning for freedom and independence, into a straightjacket of a nation steered entirely by Moscow.

While the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires collapsed after the Great War, the Bolsheviks were able to prevent a breakdown on the territory of the Russian Empire.

But the unification that created the USSR never rested on a democratic foundation and it was clear that the momentum toward democracy decades later would shake the very foundation of the Soviet Union. This was especially obvious in the Baltic states, which had been reoccupied by the Soviets in the course of World War II.

Freedom from totalitarianism

One must look deeper for the origins of the collapse than in the allegedly failed policies of Mikhail Gorbachev after 1985. The end of the Soviet Union should rather be understood from the perspective of decolonization and democratization and of liberation from the chains of totalitarianism.

Seen from what is certainly a Western-oriented perspective, the Russians have indeed seen gains thanks to the end of Soviet communism. They have been liberated from a false and stifling ideology.

It is all the more regrettable then that the majority of Russians have a very different view and prefer to look back with rose-tinted glasses because of the current, and admittedly very real, social problems afflicting the country.

In all likelihood, it will take another 20 years, another generation, for Russians to see those changes from two decades ago from another perspective. In fact, we shouldn't forget that it took many Germans until 1985 to see that their country's defeat in World War II was actually its liberation.

Author: Ingo Mannteufel (jam)
Editor: Rob Mudge