Although in 1991 The countries of the former Soviet Union, which became independent in December, had a good feeling since 1922. the end of the created union, but several dates can be considered its collapse.
One of them is the first day of Christmas, December 25, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the president of the USSR, and the USSR flag hanging over the Kremlin was changed to the Russian one.
Another date is December 26, when the Upper Chamber of the Council of Republics of the USSR adopted a declaration on the termination of the existence of the USSR.
Others consider this date to be December 8, when the so-called Belovezh Agreement was signed between the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, which effectively determined the end of the union, although a number of legal formalities still had to be taken following that.
Anyway, the Soviet Union has been gone for 32 years.
Nevertheless, the legacy of her ideals is still felt in the domestic and foreign policies pursued by the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, regarding a fifth of the population in Lithuania still believes that life was better in those times than in present-day Lithuania.
The Giant’s Fall: How It All Happened
Substantial changes in the USSR began following 1985. reforms announced by general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to increased independence protests in all socialist republics, some small, others huge.
However, one of the most prominent symbolic events is undoubtedly the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. November 9
in 1961 The breaching and destruction of the wall initiated by East Germany, which had physically divided Berlin in two for many years, was a clear sign that times were changing.
The symbolic meaning of this event has already been discussed many times – the united Germany led to the collapse of the iron curtain between East and West and brought a promise to the East that the world would not be the same once more.
1989-1991 communist governments were overthrown in Albania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia.
Although the Soviet Union was formally a union of states, it was not enough for the states within it to simply change the government through elections – they had to separate from Moscow by declaring independence.
The first on March 11. this was done by Lithuania, soon, on May 4, the Supreme Court of the Latvian SSR adopted the Declaration on the restoration of Latvia’s independence. The processes of declaring independence accelerated in 1991.
in 1991 August brought the final blow to the Soviet Union – August 19. a military coup in Moscow began and collapsed within three days.
With it, senior politicians of the Communist Party, supported by the KGB, tried to prevent the signing of the treaty on the new Union of Sovereign States, which was supposed to abolish the Soviet Union, in 1991. August 20
Although this agreement was not signed on the scheduled date, it was only a temporary postponement of the collapse. In August of that year, six more republics of the USSR declared their independence.
The government of the USSR on September 6, 1991 finally recognized the independence of the Baltic States.
Žygimantas Gedvilas/BNS photo/Soviet Sculptures Grūtas Park
One of the last existential chords of the union was played on December 8. In a villa in the Belovezh forest: the Belovezh Treaty was signed there, according to which the Union of Independent States (CIS) was established between Russia, led by Boris Yeltsin, the leader of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, and the leader of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk.
This is considered one of the key dates of the collapse of the USSR, as the leadership of the Soviet Union thus lost its real power, and its disintegration was established in the agreement.
Although on December 11, the Committee of Constitutional Supervision of the USSR condemned the Belovezh Agreement, it no longer had any real significance. December 21 eight more former USSR states joined the CIS.
in 1991 December 25 M. Gorbachev resigned as the president of the USSR, and the USSR flag hanging over the Moscow Kremlin was lowered. The new Russian flag was raised in its place.
The next day in 1991 December 26 The Upper Chamber of the Soviet of Republics of the USSR adopted a declaration on the termination of the existence of the USSR.
Finally in 1991 December 31 The United Nations accepted the Russian President’s request to recognize the Russian Federation as the heir to the rights and obligations of the USSR.
“It was better with the Russians” for the shrinking number of Lithuanians
Although 31 years have passed since the formal collapse of the Soviet Union, and Lithuania has not belonged to it even longer, the times of the planned economy and limited connection with the rest of the world still have fans in our country.
True, less and less, polls show.
In 2020, in surveys commissioned by the Center for Eastern European Studies (RESC) “Spinter research”, the following question was formulated for the respondents:
“The Soviet past of Lithuania is often discussed in public. Do you agree or disagree with the statement that it was better to live in Soviet times than now in Lithuania?”.
21 percent agreed with this statement. of respondents – this part includes those who answered the question “agree” and “strongly agree”.
in 2016 in summer, in a survey conducted by “Baltijos irīci” respondents were asked: “Do you agree with the statement that it was better to live in Soviet times than now in Lithuania?”. 26 percent agreed with this statement. respondents.
Meanwhile, in 2012 according to the data of the National Electoral Study survey at the end, as many as 37 percent of the population “completely agreed” or “agreed” with the statement that “it was better to live in Soviet times than in present-day Lithuania”.
According to the press release, in 2020 in the survey, the respondents of the group with the highest education and higher income (501-700 euros) often disagreed with the statement that life was better in the Soviet era.
Totally disagreed – representatives of the group with the highest education and the highest income (over 700 euros). In addition, residents who express a negative attitude towards the Soviet era more often have a neutral or positive opinion regarding the functioning of democracy in Lithuania. The attitude towards the Soviet era also correlates with a favorable assessment of Russia’s foreign policy.
Similar trends were observed in 2016. and in 2018 in research.
V. Putin and the USSR: nostalgia and once-felt helplessness
Although more than 30 years have passed, in today’s Russia there are still plenty of symbolic signs and allusions to the USSR, which have already disappeared in the Baltic countries. For example, there are still plenty of monuments to Lenin, Stalin and other former figures of the Soviet Union, not to mention that the mummified Lenin himself still lies in a mausoleum near the Kremlin.
After 1990 declared independence, Russia legalized a new national anthem – “Patriotic Song” by the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. However, already in 2000 at the initiative of the new president Vladimir Putin, the melody of the anthem was changed to the same one used in the Soviet years, only the words of the anthem were changed.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1952 had a strong personal impact on him. born Vladimir Putin, for whom this was the only reality he saw for a long time. Even in 1985 sent to work in another socialist country, East Germany, the future president of Russia probably didn’t see a huge difference.
in 1991 in December, when the USSR was inevitably rolling towards collapse, V. Putin worked in the administration of the mayor of St. Petersburg, which was renamed from Leningrad to its historical name just a couple of months ago, Anatoly Sobchak.
However, he felt the first real signs of the collapse of the USSR much earlier. in 1985 as a KGB agent sent to East Germany in 1989, Putin was able to closely observe the inevitable changes in the satellite state of the USSR.
As the BBC wrote in its 2015 in an article entitled “The German Years That Shaped Vladimir Putin”, 1989 on December 5, just a few weeks following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when a small group decided to storm the KGB building in the German city of Dresden, V. Putin called a tank unit of the Red Army asking for help.
“We can’t do anything without orders from Moscow,” answered the voice on the other end of the line. “And Moscow is silent.”
Žygimantas Gedvilas/BNS photo/Soviet Sculptures Grūtas Park
Although the crowd managed to be dissuaded from the attack by threatening the guards with their weapons, this moment is often cited as one of the most memorable in V. Putin’s life. He said he understood Russia’s impotence.
“I think this is the key to understanding Putin,” he said in 2015. German Boris Reitschuster, Putin’s biographer, told the BBC. “If he hadn’t lived in East Germany, we would have another Putin and another Russia.”
in 2000 following becoming president, V. Putin repeatedly expressed a clear opinion that the collapse of the USSR was a mistake.
Here it is in 2005. he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
in 2021 in December, more than two months before the invasion of Ukraine, he called the 1991 the collapse of the Soviet Union “with the disappearance of historical Russia in the name of the Soviet Union”.
Prepared by Gytis Kapsevičius based on publicly available sources
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2024-07-09 02:32:17
