Dissolutio

n
Of ussr
 PAST
EVENTS
A Brief Overview
191 -After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin

7
returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of
strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when
Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian
constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature.

-On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary

Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after a decade of exile to
take the reins of the Russian Revolution. One month before, Czar
Nicholas II had been forced from power when Russian army
troops joined a workers’ revolt in Petrograd, the Russian capital.

Return of
191 -Bolsheviks overthrow provisional government led by Alexander

8
Kerensky, with workers and sailors capturing government
buildings and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, and eventually
taking over Moscow.

The bolsheviks
 PAST
EVENTS
The Civil War
191 -Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

8
192
-Civil war between Bolsheviks, or Reds, and anti-Bolsheviks, or
Whites, ravages Russia.
-War with Poland.
-Policy of "war communism" enunciated, with the state taking
control of the whole economy; millions of peasants in the Don

0
192
region starve to death as the army confiscates grain for its own
needs and the needs of urban dwellers.

-Peace treaty with Poland signed..

-New Economic Policy ushers in a partial return to the market

1
economy and a period of stability.

The civil war

 PAST
EVENTS
Collectivisation and Purges
192
192
-Union treaty formally joins Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the

2
Transcaucasus.
-Germany recognises the Soviet Union.
-Soviet Union adopts constitution based on the dictatorship of
the proletariat and stipulating the public ownership of land and

4
192
the means of production; Lenin dies and is replaced by Joseph
Stalin.

-Adoption of first Five-Year Plan, with the state setting goals and
priorities for the whole economy, signifies the end of the New
Economic Policy.

8 -Collectivisation of agriculture begins;

collectivisation
193
193
-United States recognises the Soviet Union.

3
193
4
-Soviet Union admitted to League of Nations..

193
-Announcement of the discovery of a plot against Stalin's regime

6
headed by Leon Trotsky ushers in a large-scale purge in which
thousands of alleged dissidents in the armed forces, the
Communist Party and the government were sentenced to death
or long imprisonment.

8 collectivisation
193
194
-Soviet Union and Nazi Germany conclude a non-aggression

9
pact; Germany invades Poland, triggering World War II.

-Soviet troops enter Poland, which is then divided between

Germany and the USSR.

0
-Russian-Finnish war, which ends with Finland ceding territory to
the USSR - the present Russian constituent republic of Karelia.

collectivisati
 PAST
EVENTS
World War II
194
194
-Soviet troops occupy Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

0
- Germany invades the USSR and by the end of the year occupies
Belarus and most of Ukraine, surrounds Leningrad (now called St

194
Petersburg). Although a Soviet counter-offensive saves Moscow,

1
by June 1942 the Germans were at the gates of Stalingrad (now
called Volgograd) and close to the Caucasus oil fields.

194
3
- Germans fail to take Stalingrad; Soviet troops launch a general
counter-offensive which eventually culminates in the capture of
Berlin in May 1945.

5Aftermath
-Soviet Union declares war on Japan,

of Wwii
194 -On June 4, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a

7
speech in which he announced that the United States was willing
to offer economic assistance to the war-torn nations of Europe to
help in their recovery. The Marshall Plan, as this program came to
be known, eventually provided billions of dollars to European
nations and helped stave off economic disaster in many of them.
The Soviet reaction to Marshall’s speech was a stony silence.
However, Foreign Minister Molotov agreed to a meeting on June
27 with his British and French counterparts to discuss the
European reaction to the American offer.

THE MARSHALL
194
194
- Berlin blockade: Soviet Union fails to prevent supplies from

8
reaching the sectors of Berlin occupied by Western forces.

195
-Soviet Union explodes its first atomic device; recognises the

9
Communist government in China.

-Soviet Union and China sign 30-year alliance treaty.

0 - Outbreak of Korean war sees relations between the Soviet Union

and the West deteriorate markedly.,

Aftermath of
195
195
-Stalin dies and is succeeded by Georgi Malenkov as prime

3
minister and by Nikita Khrushchev as first secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party.

195
-Soviet Union explodes its first hydrogen bomb.

5
- Nikolay Bulganin replaces Malenkov as prime minister.

- Warsaw Treaty Organisation, or Warsaw Pact, set up.

6
- Soviet troops help crush uprising in Hungary.

Aftermath of
Dissolution
of ussr
Post-Stalin Thaw
195
195
- Khrushchev makes a secret speech to the 20th Communist Party

6
congress denouncing Stalin's dictatorial rule and cult of
personality. (February)

195
- First-ever artificial earth satellite, Sputnik, orbits the earth. The

7
Launch of the USSR's first satellite created more tensions
between them and the U.S. in the space race, further amounting
to the Cold War conflicts.

8
- Khrushchev becomes prime minister - in addition to Communist
Party chief - after dismissing Bulganin. Kruschev began making
changes to the USSR first with his policy of Destalinization, the
removal of all memories of Josef Stalin from the lives of the
people living in the USSR

Post-stalin
 Late - China falls out with the Soviet Union over Moscow's policy of
peaceful coexistence with the West

1950s
196
- On May 1st, 1960, the USSR shot down a U.S. spy plane U-2
which was flying over a no-fly area in the USSR. The Soviets took
the pilot hostage creating more conflicts between the USSR and
the U.S.

196
0
- On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin makes 1st unmanned space
flight. By having the first man in space, The Soviets felt that they
had won the space race, they were wrong. The U.S. became the
first to put a man on the moon, furthering the space race.

1 Post-stalin thaw
196
196
- Cuban Missile Crisis erupts on October 15, 1962. The USSR set

2
up multiple mid-range missile launch sites in Cuba. The U.S.
demanded that they be removed. After much negotiation and
many conflicts, the USSR agreed to remove the missiles.

3
- Soviet Union joins the US and Britain in signing a treaty banning
atmospheric nuclear tests on August 5; US-Soviet "hot line" set
up. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication
between the president and Soviet premier. The White
House issued a statement that the new hotline would “help
reduce the risk of war occurring by accident or miscalculation.”

Cuban missile
Dissolution
of ussr
The Brezhnev Era
196
196
- Khrushchev is replaced as first secretary of the Communist Party

4
by Leonid Brezhnev; Aleksey Kosygin becomes prime minister.
Brezhnev ruled the USSR with ways which were much like this of
Josef Stalin, except for the fact that the people had more

196
freedoms.

8
- Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia to stem a
trend towards liberalisation; "Brezhnev doctrine" enunciated,
giving communist countries the right to intervene in other

9
communist states whose policies threatened the international
communist movement.

- Soviet and Chinese troops clash across the border.

The breshnev
197
197
- Soviet Union and US sign SALT-1 arms control agreement,

2
heralding the start of detente. Negotiations lasted from
November 17, 1969, until May 26, 1972 in a series of meetings
beginning in Helsinki.

197
4
- Soviet Union agrees to ease its emigration policy in return for
most-favoured-nation trade status with the US.

197
-Brezhnev elected president under new constitution.

7
-Soviet Union and US sign SALT-2 agreement. SALT II was a series
of talks between the US and Soviet negotiators from 1972 to 1979
which sought to curtail the manufacture of strategic nuclear

9
weapons.

Salt-1 and salt-2

197
198
- Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, ending detente with the

9
West. The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in
Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979, under Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev. The conflict in Afghanistan has sometimes been

198
referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear
Trap".

0 - Kosygin is replaced as prime minister by Nikolay Tikhonov;

198
Kosygin dies.

2
- Brezhnev dies and is replaced by KGB chief Yuri Andropov.

- Andropov dies and is replaced by Konstantin Chernenko.

4 The breshnev era

Dissolution
of ussr
Gorbachev’s Era
198 -Reykjavík summit of 1986, meeting held in Reykjavík, Iceland, on

5
October 11 and 12, 1986, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan
and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting, the second
between the two leaders, was intended not as a summit but as a
session in which the leaders explored the possibility of limiting
each country’s strategic nuclear weapons to create momentum in
ongoing arms-control negotiations. The Reykjavík summit almost
resulted in a sweeping nuclear arms-control agreement in which
the nuclear weapons of both sides would be dismantled.

Reykjavik
198 - Glasnost is a plan that called for political openness. It addressed

5
personal restrictions of the Soviet people. Glasnost eliminated
remaining traces of Stalinist repression, such as the banning of
books and the much-loathed secret police. Newspapers could
criticize the government, and parties other than the Communist
Party could participate in elections.

-Its goals were to include more people in the political process

through freedom of expression.

-Glasnost also permitted criticism of government officials,

encouraging more social freedoms like those that Western
societies had already provided.

GLASNOST
198 -Perestroika refers to the reconstruction of the political and

5
economic system established by the Communist Party. Politically,
contested elections were introduced to reflect the democratic
practices of Western society and allow citizens to have a slight say
in government.

-Under perestroika, the Soviet Union began to move toward a

hybrid communist-capitalist system, much like modern China. The
policy-making committee of the Communist Party, called the
Politburo, would still control the direction of the economy. Yet the
government would allow market forces to dictate some production
and development decisions.

PERESTROIKA
198 -Chernobyl Power Complex station explodes causing a steam

6
explosion and releasing fission products to the atmosphere. Large
quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for
about 10 days which caused serious social and economic
disruption for large populations in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.

Chernobyl
198 - Jeltoqsan or "December" of 1986 – spontaneous nationwide

6
revolt that took place in Alma-Ata (present day Almaty),
Kazakhstan in response to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's
dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunayev, the First Secretary of the
Communist Party of Kazakhstan

- Hundreds of protesters gathered in the streets of Alma-Ata.

State-run media labeled the protesters as rabid nationalists. TASS
reported that students had been “incited by nationalistic
elements.” TASS categorized the protestors as “hooligans, parasites
and other antisocial persons” who has “resorted to unlawful actions
against representatives of law and order.”

Jeltoqsan
198 - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact protests; demonstrations protesting

7
against the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact with the participation of
several thousand people took place in Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn.

- Thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the three

Baltic capitals to sing independence songs and attend speeches
commemorating Stalin’s victims. The gatherings were sharply
denounced in the official press and closely watched by the police,
but were not interrupted.

Molotov–Ribbentrop
Pact protests
198 - Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) signed;

7
treaty between the United States of America and the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics on the elimination of their intermediate-
range and shorter-range missiles

- The INF Treaty eliminated all nuclear and conventional missiles,

as well as their launchers, with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers
(310–620 mi) (short-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi)
(intermediate-range). The treaty did not cover sea-launched
missiles. By May 1991, 2,692 missiles were eliminated.

INF TREATY
198 - Soviet troops leave Afghanistan, ending an occupation that lasted

9
more than nine years.

- In April 1988 the Soviet Union signed the Geneva Accords with
the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan that created a
timetable for withdrawal. The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan on
Feb. 15, 1989, ending an occupation that lasted more than nine
years.

Soviet troops leave

afghanistan
198 - April 9 tragedy, an anti-Soviet peaceful demonstration

9
demanding secession from the Soviet Union was violently
dispersed by the Russian Army using tanks and guns on Rustaveli
Avenue, in the center of Tbilisi, resulting in 21 deaths. In the
aftermath of the brutal raid hundreds of peaceful protesters were
poisoned by an unknown gas and many of them severely injured.

Tbilisi
198 - A peaceful political demonstration which took place on 23

9
August 1989 when approximately two million people joined their
hands forming a 600 km long human chain through the Baltic
countries which had been forcibly reincorporated into the Soviet
Union in 1944, thus demonstrating their unity in their efforts
towards freedom.

- The USSR to gave in to the joint protest of the inhabitants of the

Baltic states and admit to all the past crimes and acknowledged
the existence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and declared it
invalid.

The Baltic way

198 -The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of

9
the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the
GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night,
ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West
Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip
away at the wall itself. To this day, the Berlin Wall remains one of
the most powerful and enduring symbols of the Cold War.

- The fall of the Berlin Wall further weakened the already unstable
East German government. Germany reunited on 3 October 1990,
11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Collapse of the
berlin wall
199 - The massacre of civilians that occurred on January 19 and 20,

0
1990, when Soviet tanks and troops took to the streets of Baku.
Operation "Strike" was intended to crush the makings of an
independence movement in Azerbaijan.

- They killed more than 130 civilians and wounded 744 in an

attempt to subdue the burgeoning independence movement. Men,
women and children were mown down by tanks or shot in cold
blood – hanging washing on the balcony, riding a bus, walking in
the park.

Black January
199 - On March 4, 1990, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist

0
Republic held relatively free elections for the Congress of People's
Deputies of Russia. Boris Yeltsin was elected, representing
Sverdlovsk. On May 29, 1990, Yeltsin was elected chair of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and leaves the
Soviet Communist Party.

- Yeltsin was supported by democratic and conservative members

of the Supreme Soviet, who sought power in the developing
political situation. A new power struggle emerged between
the RSFSR and the Soviet Union.

Rsfsr
199 -On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared that it was an independent

0
nation, the first of the Soviet republics to do so. It had, however,
overestimated Gorbachev’s intentions. The Soviet leader was
willing to let communist governments in its eastern European
satellites fall to democratic movements, but this policy did not
apply to the republics of the Soviet Union. The Soviet government
responded harshly to the Lithuanian declaration of independence
and issued an ultimatum: renounce independence or face the
consequences. On March 17, the Lithuanians gave their answer,
rejecting the Soviet demand and asking that “democratic nations”
grant them diplomatic recognition

Attack on
Dissolution
of ussr
Boris Yeltsin Era
199 - On June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin won 57 percent of the popular

1
vote in the democratic elections, defeating Gorbachev's preferred
candidate, Nikolai Ryzhkov, who won 16 percent of the vote.
Following Yeltsin's election as president, Russia declared itself
independent.

Yeltsin takes
199 - Soviet hardliners attempted to overthrow the progressive Mikhail

1
Gorbachev in a desperate attempt to save the collapsing Soviet
Union. On their orders, tanks surrounded the “White House,” the
seat of the government of Russia (then a constituent part of the
Soviet Union), which was led by Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected
President.

- Boris Yeltsin passionately decried the coup as an attempt to take

power away from the people. With CNN reporters filming and the
eyes of Russians watching, Yeltsin climbed atop a disabled tank
and called the people and defenders of democracy to his side.

The august
199 - December 8, 1991 in the village of Viskuly, Belarus, the Heads of

1
State and Governments of the three republics: Boris Yeltsin and
Gennady Burbulis (RSFSR), Stanislav Shushkevich and Vyacheslav
Kebich (Belarus), Leonid Kravchuk, and Witold Fokin (Ukraine)
signed the so-called "Belovezha Accords" on the demise of the
USSR and the establishment of the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS).

-The leaders of three Soviet republics met together in secret 23

years ago, behind Gorbachev’s back, on December 8, 1991 to
bring a formal end to the Soviet Union and create the
Commonwealth of Independent States.

Belavezha
199 -Mikhail Gorbachev announces that he is resigning as president of

1
the Soviet Union. In truth, there was not much of a Soviet Union
from which to resign—just four days earlier, 11 of the former
Soviet republics had established the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), effectively dismembering the USSR. The
Soviet Union, for all intents and purposes, had already ceased to
exist.

gorbachevs
Resignation
199 - Begins to dismantle 75 years of Communist economics by lifting

2
price controls on most goods. By the end of the year, parliament
forces him to slow pace of change and fire reformers.

199
-Signs START II treaty, pledging a two-thirds cut in U.S. and
Russian nuclear arms, at a summit with then-President George
H.W. Bush in Moscow.
-Parliament strips him of many of his presidential powers,

3
reneging on deal to hold referendum on who should wield
ultimate power.
-Parliament strips him of many of his presidential powers,
reneging on deal to hold referendum on who should wield
ultimate power.

Post-dissolution
 -Disbands Soviet-era parliament that had blocked economic
reforms and announces new parliamentary elections for

199
December.

-Declares state of emergency in Moscow after supporters of

hard-line parliament overwhelm riot police and seize government
buildings; dozens killed..

3
-Reformers fail to win majority in parliamentary elections, but a
new constitution is approved giving Yeltsin sweeping powers and
guaranteeing private property, free enterprise and individual
rights.

Post dissolution
199 -In the largest Russian military offensive since the 1979 invasion of

4
Afghanistan, thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks pour into
the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. Encountering only
light resistance, Russian forces had by evening pushed to the
outskirts of the Chechen capital of Grozny, where several thousand
Chechen volunteers vowed a bitter fight against the Russians

Chechen rebels
Dissolution
of ussr
Vladimir Putin Era
199 -With an election coming, Yeltsin sought to end the war. In August

9
1996, the two sides cease-fire. That year, Yeltsin won the reelection.
However, war soon broke out again between Russia and Chechnya.
In 1999, Yeltsin resigned and named Vladimir Putin as acting
president.

-Putin forcefully dealt with the rebellion in Chechenya. It helped

draw terrorism into the Russian Capital itself. In October 2002,
Chechens seized a theatre in Moscow and more than 150 people
died in the rescue attempt by Russian forces.

Putin takes
 -
(Alphabetical Order)
1. Armenia
2. Azerbaijan
3. Belarus
4. Estonia
5. Georgia
6. Kazakhstan
7. Kyrgyzstan
8. Latvia
9. Lithuania
10. Moldova
11. Russia
12. Tajikistan
13. Turkmenistan
14. Ukraine
15. Uzbekistan
Post soviet
Consequences
Economic Collapse and Foreign
Trade
- - The dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
was formally finalized on 26 December 1991 by declaration № 142-
H of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the
Soviet Union. This declaration acknowledged the independence of
the twelve republics of the Soviet Union that created the
Commonwealth of Independent States.

-The dismantling of the Soviet Union had many long-lasting

effects on the global economy and the region’s foreign trade. Its
downfall increased the United States’ influence as a global power
and created an opportunity for corruption and crime in Russia

consequences
-
-By the time Gorbachev took office in 1985, the Soviet economy had
been stagnant for 20 years and was badly in need of reform; to wit,
the country’s gross national product (GNP) went from 5.8% in 1940 to
2.6% in 1970. Grocery store shelves were often empty, and lines for
food were long. The Soviet economy historically had relied little on
foreign trade because of the region’s large energy and raw material
base; in 1985, exports and imports accounted for just 4 percent of the
soviet GNP.

-In September 1990, Gorbachev rejected Russian economist and

politician Grigory Yavlinsky’s 500-day economic reform plan, which
lost the former any remaining support he had from the Soviet people,
leaving him with few allies.

consequences
- A few years prior, in April of 1988, Soviet and American trade
delegations met in Moscow to examine possibly expanding trade
relations. The Soviet government’s hope was to gain
understanding of Western management and marketing
processes and learn new manufacturing skills.

consequences
Consequences
Crime and Social Upheavals
- -The Soviet Union’s collapse not only threw economic systems and
trade relations throughout Eastern Europe into a tailspin, it also
produced upheaval in many Eastern European countries and led to
increased crime rates and corruption within the Russian
government. When the Soviet government fell, the Russian mafia,
which had struggled to survive during the height of communism,
stepped in to fill the power void. Government infrastructure—
ranging from basic public utilities to police services—mostly
evaporated during the collapse. Additionally, government payroll
services almost completely disappeared, so ex-KGB officers, police
officers and Soviet Army soldiers flooded the mafia’s ranks in
search of steady employment.

dissolution
 Modern day
implications
- -A new wave of democracy as old Communist regimes collapsed in
Eastern Europe, in particular, and as the US abandoned its support
for authoritarian right-wing regimes in Latin America, especially, as
the country no longer felt the need to put stopping the USSR
ahead of democracy and human rights.

-A new focus on democracy and human rights as an outcome of

foreign policy, rather than an attempt at containing the Soviets,
no matter the cost

-The end of wars in places like Angola, where the two sides were
essentially proxies for the two superpowers

dissolution
- -The US becoming the sole superpower and the creation of a
unipolar world
-Independence for ex-Soviet republics such as the Baltic states,
Ukraine and the Central Asian Republics such as Kazakhstan

-The collapse of the Russian economy, mass-poverty, the rise of

gangster capitalism, leading to cynicism of democracy and
capitalism, and the eventual rise of Vladimir Putin.

-The reunification of Germany

-The mujahideen of Afghanistan (including Osama bin Laden)
refocusing their hatred upon the 'decadent' West, rather than
the Soviets who they had originally fought

dissolution
- -The acceleration of China’s and India’s opening up of its economy

-The spread of international capitalism to Eastern Europe and

throughout Asia, creating new markets

-The expansion of the European Union from 12 member states

to 28 member states
-The deepening of European integration with the Maastricht
Treaty which transitioned the European Economic Community
into becoming the European Union.

dissolution
In the end,
America
is the world’s only
superpower
boo
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https://eightiescoldwar.weebly.com/end-to-soviet-satellites.html
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https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/1986-kazakhstans-other-independence-anniversary/
in the USSR Stephen White Soviet Studies Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan., 1990), pp. 3-24
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http://www.thebalticway.eu/en/history/
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https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-berlin-wall-28-year-history-1779495
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http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/Feb/On-this-Day--Soviet-Troops-Leave-Afghanistan.html
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/twenty-five-years-after-the-failed-soviet-coup
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hotline-established-between-washington-and-moscow
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