23-10-1
Tajikistan Needs Ruscia; Ukraine could Destabilize Tajikistan - Perspective > .
Several of the Union Republics themselves, most notably Russia, were further subdivided into
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (
ASSRs). Though administratively part of their respective Union Republics, ASSRs were also established based on ethnic/cultural lines.
According to the
constitution of the USSR,
autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and
autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a
referendum, to independently resolve the issue of staying in the USSR or in the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status.
⃞
Union Republics from
1956 to 1991: 1.
Russia, 2.
Ukraine, 3.
Belarus, 4.
Uzbekistan, 5.
Kazakhstan, 6.
Georgia, 7.
Azerbaijan, 8.
Lithuania, 9.
Moldavia, 10.
Latvia, 11.
Kyrgyzstan, 12.
Tajikistan, 13.
Armenia, 14.
Turkmenistan, 15.
Estonia .
Dissolution of the Soviet Union:
Starting in the late 1980s, under the rule of
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet government undertook a program of political reforms (
glasnost and
perestroika) intended to liberalise and revitalise the Union. These measures, however, had a number of unintended political and social effects. Political liberalisation allowed the governments of the union republics to openly invoke the principles of democracy and nationalism to gain legitimacy. In addition, the loosening of political restrictions led to fractures within the Communist Party which resulted in a reduced ability to govern the Union effectively. The rise of nationalist and right-wing movements, notably led by
Boris Yeltsin in Russia, in the previously homogeneous political system undermined the Union's foundations. With the central role of the Communist Party removed from the constitution, the Party lost its control over the State machinery and was banned from operating after
an attempted coup d'état.
Throughout this period of turmoil, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure that would reflect the increased authority of the republics. Some autonomous republics, like
Tatarstan,
Checheno-Ingushetia,
Abkhazia,
South Ossetia,
Crimea,
Transnistria,
Gagauzia sought the union statute in the New Union Treaty. Efforts to found a
Union of Sovereign States, however, proved unsuccessful and the
republics began to secede from the Union. By 6 September 1991, the Soviet Union's
State Council recognized the independence of
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania bringing the number of union republics down to 12. On 8 December 1991, the remaining leaders of the republics signed the
Belavezha Accords which agreed that the USSR would be dissolved and replaced with a
Commonwealth of Independent States. On
25 December 1991, President Gorbachev announced his resignation and turned all executive powers over to Yeltsin. The next day the
Council of Republics voted to
dissolve the Union. Since then, the republics have been governed independently with some reconstituting themselves as liberal parliamentary republics and others, particularly in
Central Asia, devolving into highly autocratic states under the leadership of the old Party elite.
Commonwealth of Independent States
Independence
Armenia-Azerbaijan
Belarus
Krumblin Federation
Latvia
Moldova
Ukraine
