Declaration no. 142-Н formally recognised that the Supreme Soviet announced that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law. It further stated that the former Soviet republics were independent, and established the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The dissolution brought an end to
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's (later also
President) effort to
reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a
period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of fifteen top-level republics that served as homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and the waning of centralized power, the leaders of
three of its founding members declared that the
Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics
joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned in December 1991 and what was left of the
Soviet parliament voted to end itself.
The process began with growing unrest in the Union's various constituent national republics developing into an
incessant political and legislative conflict between them and the central government.
Estonia was the first Soviet republic to declare state sovereignty inside the Union on 16 November 1988.
Lithuania was the first republic to declare full independence restored from the Soviet Union by the
Act of 11 March 1990 with its
Baltic neighbours and the
Southern Caucasus republic of
Georgia joining it in a course of two months.
In August 1991, communist hardliners and military elites tried to overthrow Gorbachev and stop the failing reforms in
a coup, but failed. The turmoil led to the government in Moscow losing most of its influence, and many republics proclaiming independence in the following days and months. The secession of the Baltic states was recognized in September 1991. The Belovezh Accords were signed on 8 December by
President Boris Yeltsin of
Russia,
President Kravchuk of
Ukraine, and
Chairman Shushkevich of
Belarus, recognising each other's independence and creating the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan was the last republic to leave the Union, proclaiming independence on 16 December. All the ex-Soviet republics, with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic states, joined the CIS on 21 December, signing the
Alma-Ata Protocol. On 25 December, Gorbachev resigned and turned over his presidential powers—including control of the
nuclear launch codes—to Yeltsin, who was now the first president of the
Russian Federation. That evening, the
Soviet flag was lowered from the
Kremlin and replaced with the
Russian tricolour flag. The following day, the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR's upper chamber, the Soviet of the Republics
formally dissolved the Union.
In the
aftermath of the Cold War, several of the
former Soviet republics have retained close links with Russia and formed
multilateral organizations such as the CIS, the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the
Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the
Union State, for economic and military cooperation. On the other hand, the Baltic states and most of the former
Warsaw Pact states became part of the
European Union and joined
NATO, while
some of the
other former Soviet republics like
Ukraine, Georgia and
Moldova have been
publicly expressing interest in following the same path since the 1990s.
comment: "The collapse of the Russian Federation is the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st Century" ~ Tsar Runt, "Posthumous Regrets from Hell."
