Reflecting on 30th anniversary of Soviet Union's fall

By Lee Jong-eun

On Dec. 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, then the president of the Russian Soviet Republic, announced the conclusion of the Belovezh Accords with the presidents of the Ukrainian and Belarus Soviet Republics, declaring the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Other Soviet republics quickly affirmed their support, declaring sovereignty from the USSR. On Dec. 26, 1991, the USSR ceased to exist, with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ceding his remaining power to Yeltsin and the other leaders of former Soviet Republics.

Thirty years later, there are people within the former USSR republics who remember the dissolution of the Soviet Union as an event of liberation. Others, however, remember it as an event of tragic demise. Still others remember it as an unexpected turn of history. It was one thing for a communist regime to be replaced by a different ideological regime, but how could the political state itself dissolve? There are three reflections to consider.

First, there was Soviet communism, but not Soviet nationalism.

The Soviet Union failed to create a unifying national identity among its populace. There were Russians, Ukrainians and Armenians, but were there “Sovietians?” When given a choice between Russian national identity vs. Soviet identity, many of the Russian political elites and populace embraced the tri-color flag representing Russian identity, as did political elites of other republics with their respective national identities.

What if instead of the “USSR” (which was self-proclaimed to transcend ethnic differences), the “People's Republic of Russia” had been established? A political state more strongly founded upon Russian national identity might have motivated the ethnic Russians, the largest ethnic demographic group, to defend the state rather than passively watching it dissolve.

Second, the Soviet federal system was founded upon the unsustainable coexistence of parallel governments.

The USSR attempted to project an institutional image of a “union of 15 different socialist republics.” In reality, the republics were subservient to the Soviet Union's central government. As a result, the USSR had 15 “institutionally autonomous, operationally subservient” political institutions, resentful of the dominance from the parallel central government.

These individual republics, especially the Russian Soviet Republic, later became the political basis for local political elites to expand their political sovereignty through challenging the USSR and eventually abolishing the upper-tier government altogether.

What if the Soviet Union had been a better-integrated state? Instead of 15 nationally distinct republics, what if it had been divided into 89 federal districts (the current structure of the Russian Federation) that could not claim autonomous political identities?

Such a federal political structure could have diffused the threats from lower-tier governments and motivated aspiring leaders to compete for political power within the central Soviet government. If Yeltsin had sought to be the next president of the USSR rather than the president of the lower-level Russian Soviet Republic, the historical outcome could have been different.

Third, the “power of an idea” alone might not be durable without the “power of coercion.”

Transnational political unions are often established based on the “power of an idea,” or rather, a political principle (democracy, socialism, pan-nationalism) that serves to unify political entities. The United States of America and the European Union, as well as the now defunct Grand Colombia Republic, the USSR and the United Arab Republic were established based on such political principles.

But what happens when the populace and political elites no longer believe in the same ideas? Can political unions still exist? Most of these transnational political unions eventually collapsed, or in the case of the EU, have faced internal divisions because of the conflict of political norms. While the United States is a successful (or more successful) case of political union, even the U.S. historically fought a civil war to coerce states from seceding from the union.

Of course, the power of coercion without a unifying political idea will ultimately fail, as proven by the fall of past colonial empires. However, it might be a slightly romanticized notion to assume that political identity is formed purely through the “consent of the populace.” At times, the state coercively demands such consent.

For the Soviet Union, the repudiation of its founding idea, Marxist-Leninist socialism, certainly posed a severe challenge to its existence. Yet, the Soviet Union might have altered its name, replaced its political idea and continued its existence. The Soviet republics, however, chose to pursue “different ideas” to craft their own political identities, whether based on democracy, nationalism or both.

In retrospect, if the Soviet Union had been led by leaders willing to combine political ideas with institutional coercion, would the outcome have been different? Yeltsin and Putin, after all, used military operations to prevent Chechen from leaving the Russian Federation.

It is possible that the Baltic States would still have gained independence, with the Soviet leaders “tactically amputating” the most rebellious region from the union. But other republics, in particular in Central Asia, might not have pursued “ideas of independence” at the expense of facing armed coercion.

Even after 30 years, the legacy of the fall of the Soviet Union continues to impact the former Soviet republics. The ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict is one such consequence. Could the continuation of the Soviet Union have made the region more stable? Perhaps.

But it is possible that, rather than inter-state conflicts, the world might have instead witnessed more intra-state conflicts within the Soviet/Russian Federation. It is also probable that for many in Ukraine, the Baltics and the other former Soviet republics, handling their conflicts with Russia from the outside, rather than from within, might be perceived as the better alternative.

Lee Jong-eun (jl4375a@student.american.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate and is also an adjunct faculty at the American University School of International Service. Prior to this, he has served as a South Korean Airforce intelligence officer. His research specialty includes U.S. foreign policy, South Korean politics and foreign policy, alliance management, East Asian regional security.