The USSR broke up because of the greed of the national leaders. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was initiated by the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in a complete secrecy without any consultation with the citizens and was a surprise for all of them. Even the president of the USSR Gorbachev was taken by surprise.

How did the USSR broke up?

The decision to dissolve the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics was made in secret by presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in December 1991.

It was done very quickly and people living in these countries didn’t even understand the full extent of what was happening.

They were simply told the Soviet Union ceased to exist and now they will be living in an independent country, and not in a republics of the USSR. Physically and administratively, nothing immediately changed for them at the time. They even used the same USSR passports internally, as before, for years.

People were going to the same jobs and earning the same rubles. For instance, Ukraine only introduced its own currency, hryvnia, in 1996.

Why did presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus decided to dissolve the USSR?

Because for them it was more meaningful to be the rulers in their own independent countries than to continue being subordinates to the centre in Moscow and the president of the USSR Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was appointed by Politburo and he was the initiator of Perestroika and Glasnost, the democratic changes in the country, which were announced in 1987.

In 1988 he also legitimized private entrepreneurship, which was prohibited in the USSR. People who were trying to set their own underground factories were heavily prosecuted in the USSR and jailed for a long time. Now doing private business was allowed.

The changes also included deregulation of prices, which used to be set by the government and abided strictly. People who bought something cheap and sold for more money were also criminally prosecuted and jailed. Now people could sell goods for any price.

This quickly resulted in the lack of goods and food in stores, while the same goods and food were sold in the markets 2-3 times more expensive. The people connected to deliveries were the ones doing it; not the individual customers. The government factories were still sending goods and food to the distributors; the goods simply didn’t reach the shops and went to wholesale markets, to be sold for mega profits.

How democratic changes paved the road to dissolve the USSR

The next step announced was privatization of the national assets, factories and companies in the USSR.

This is why then presidential elections were held in all USST republics in 1991 and presidents of republics were elected for the first time, they were appointed by people, not the Politburo, for the first time. Of course, all presidents were former Communist Party executives. But the seemed more legitimate as for the first time the people chose from many candidates.

Having this legitimacy, Presidents and their circles of influence realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become very rich during privatization. It was a much better option to be kings of their own kingdoms, rather than subordinates to Moscow.

The USSR was designed by heads of states in 1922 where they agreed voluntarily to become a Union. Therefore, it seemed like the heads of states could dissolve the Union as well. So they did, because they could. Gorbachev didn’t have the support of the army, so he lost his country, and all the heads of the national republics, all 15 of them, became the rulers in their national kingdoms.

Some of these countries continued on the path of democracy, while most of them fell back to authoritarian rulership.

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