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Curated playlist

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

  • New Union TreatyHardliners held Gorbachev in his Crimean dacha two days before a treaty signing. The New Union Treaty was never signed.
  • Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)Soviet voters in March 1989 crossed off unopposed Communist candidates, startling the ruling party.
  • Era of StagnationThe Soviet Union ordered an end to its own computer designs and copied IBM's. All models had to be based on the IBM/360.
  • 1991 Soviet Union referendumNearly 80 percent voted to keep the Soviet Union in March 1991. It was dissolved by December that year.
  • Reagan DoctrineThe Reagan Doctrine began as a blunt idea that Ronald Reagan put to Richard V. Allen in January 1977. Allen would later serve as his National Security Advisor, but at that point Reagan was not yet president. Reagan called his view of…
  • Belovezha AccordsSix men signed the Belovezha Accords in a forest hunting retreat, and the Soviet Union ended.
  • Dissolution of the Soviet UnionOn December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and handed Yeltsin the Soviet nuclear launch codes.
  • Baltic WayIn 1989, about two million people joined hands in a 675-kilometer line across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
  • Post-Soviet statesFifteen countries emerged on December 26, 1991, when the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist.
  • Nostalgia for the Soviet UnionA joke across the former USSR says capitalism made communism look good.
  • The BarricadesA radio call at 4:45 one morning in January 1991 brought around 700,000 people to Riga.
  • Commonwealth of Independent StatesUkraine helped found the Commonwealth of Independent States but never became a member. It never ratified the Charter.
  • SąjūdisSąjūdis began in 1988 as a meeting of 35 people, mostly artists and intellectuals.
  • War of LawsThe War of Laws helped break up the Soviet Union using paper, not weapons. Rival tax codes clashed from 1989 to 1991.
  • 1991 Russian presidential electionRussia's presidency did not exist at the start of 1991, yet Yeltsin won its first election that June.

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