Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union

[Robocommie]

Well, the summation of what I understand after having taken a university course on Soviet history (which sadly did not go into as much economic detail as I wanted, and mostly covered social history) is that the decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union was due to the decay of the Soviet economy during the Brezhnev Stagnation, along with an increasingly more repressive bureaucratic state which was more about preserving the status quo which benefited an increasingly corrupt and venal CPSU. This built resentment in the population, particularly some of the peripheral republics, and so when Gorbachev ushered in his reforms, it undid the only thing holding the country together anymore, namely the repressive state apparatus, and the whole thing just fell apart.

But I'm not quite satisfied with this understanding and so I want to open it up to History in general, straght question: Why DID the Soviet Union collapse?

[Red Saxon]

It had become a petty state-capitalist bourgeois society run by corrupt government officials.

In reality the Soviet Union still exists with the above definition, albiet a name change.

[Robocommie]

It had become a petty state-capitalist bourgeois society run by corrupt government officials.

In reality the Soviet Union still exists with the above definition, albiet a name change.

I would not classify the Russian Federation as being anything like the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Union offered free healthcare and free education, not to mention they were the backers of numerous struggles for liberation worldwide, like Cuba, Vietnam, the African National Congress, the MPLA, etc. The loss of that has contributed to a lot of problems not just in Russia, but worldwide.

[el_chavista]

Economic Factors in the failure of Soviet Socialism

Paul Cockshott was asked by Gen. Jose Angel to elaborate on remarks made about the economic causes of Soviet Collapse. This is a very brief personal perspective on what is obviously a huge and very controversial subject.

The collapse of the Soviet and later the Russian economy under Gorbachov and then Yeltsin was an economic disaster that was otherwise unprecedented in time of peace. The world's second super-power was reduced to the status of a minor bankrupt economy with a huge decline in industrial production and in living standards. Nothing brings out the scale of the catastrophe than the demographic data which show a huge rise in the mortality rate brought about by poverty, hunger, homelessness and the alcoholism that these brought in their wake.


Soviet Economic collapse let to huge increase in mortality with 5.7 million Excess Russian deaths 1991-2001. Vertical axis 1,000 deaths per annum.


In determining what caused this one has to look at long term, medium term and short term factors which led to relative stagnation, crisis and then collapse. The long term factors were structural problems in the Soviet economy and required reforms to address them. The actual policies introduced by the Gorbachov and Yeltsin governments, far from dealing with these problems actually made the situation catastrophically worse.

Long Term
----------

During the period from 1930 to 1970, and excluding the war years, the USSR experienced very rapid economic growth. There is considerable dispute about just how fast the economy grew, but it is generally agreed to have grown significantly faster than the USA between 1928 and 1975, with the growth rate slowing down to the US level after that4. This growth took it from a peasant country whose level of development had been comparable to India in 1922, to become the worlds second industrial and technological and military power by the mid 1960s.

Observers have given a number of reasons for this relative slowdown in growth in the latter period.

It is easier for an economy to grow rapidly during the initial phase of industrialisation when labour is being switched from agriculture to industry. Afterwards growth has to rely upon improvements in labour productivity in an already industrialised economy, which are typically less than the difference in productivity between agriculture and industry.

A relatively large portion of Soviet industrial output was devoted to defence, particularly in the latter stages of the Cold War, when they were in competition with Regan's 'Star Wars' programmes. The skilled manpower used up for defence restricted the number of scientists and engineers who could be allocated to inventing new and more productive industrial equipment.

The USA and other capitalist countries imposed embargoes on the supply of advanced technological equipment to the USSR. This meant that the USSR had to rely to an unusually high degree on domestic designs of equipment. In the west there were no comparable barriers to the export of technology so that the industrial development of the western capitalist countries was synergistic.

Labour was probably not used as efficiently in Soviet industry as it was in the USA or West Germany. In one sense, or course the USSR used labour very effectively, it had no unemployment and the proportion of women in full time employment was higher than in any other country. But a developed industrial economy has to be able transfer labour to where it can be most efficiently used. Under capitalism this is achieved by the existence of a reserve of unemployment, which, whilst it is inefficient at a macro-economic level, does allow rapid expansion of new industries.

The Soviet enterprise tended to hoard workers, keeping people on its books just in case they were needed to meet future demands from the planning authorities. This was made possible both by the relatively low level of money wages, and because the state bank readily extended credit to cover such costs. The low level of money wages was in turn a consequence of the way the state raised its revenue from the profits of state enterprises rather than from income taxes.

Although Soviet industrial growth in the 80s slowed down to US levels, this by itself was not a disaster, after all the USA had experienced this sort of growth rate (2.5% a year) for decades without crisis. Indeed whilst, working class incomes in the USA actually stagnated over the 80s, in the USSR they continued to rise. The difference was in the position of the intelligentsia and the managerial strata in the two countries. In the USA income differentials became progressively greater, so that the rise in national income nearly all went to the top 10% of the population. In the USSR income differentials were relatively narrow, and whilst all groups continued to experience a rise in incomes, this was much smaller than had been the case in the 1950s and 1960's. This 2.5% growth was experienced by some of the Soviet intelligentsia as intolerable stagnation – perhaps because they compared themselves with managers and professionals in the USA or Germany. A perception thus took root among this class that the socialist system was failing when compared to the USA.

Again this would not have been critical to the future survival of the system were it not for the fact that these strata were disproportionately influential within the USSR. Although the ruling Communist Party was notionally a workers party, a disproportionately high proportion of its members were drawn from the most skilled technical and professional employees, manual workers were proportionately under represented.

The slowdown in Soviet growth was in large measure the inevitable result of economic maturity, a movement towards the rate of growth typical of mature industrial countries. A modest programme of measures to improve the efficiency of economic management would probably have produced some recovery in the growth rate, but it would have been unrealistic to expect the rapid growth of the 50s and 60s to return. What the USSR got however, was not a modest programme of reform, but a radical demolition job on its basic economic structures. This demolition job was motivated by neo-liberal ideology. Neo-liberal economists, both with the USSR and visiting from the USA promised that once the planning system was removed and once enterprises were left free to compete in the market, then economic efficiency would be radically improved.

Medium Term
------------

The medium term causes of Soviet economic collapse lay in the policies that the Gorbachov government embarked on in its attempts to improve the economy. The combined effect of these policies was to bankrupt the state and debauch the currency.

One has to realise that the financial basis of the Soviet state lay mainly in the taxes that it levied on turnover by enterprises and on sales taxes.

In an effort to stamp out the heavy drinking which led to absenteeism from work, and to poor health, the Gorbachov government banned alcohol. This and the general tightening up of work discipline, led, in the first couple of years of his government to some improvement in economic growth. It had however, unforeseen side effects. Since sales of vodka could no longer take place in government shops, a black market of illegally distilled vodka sprang up, controlled by the criminal underworld. The criminal class who gained money and strength from this later turned out to be most dangerous enemy.

Whilst money from the illegal drinks trade went into the hands of criminals, the state lost a significant source of tax revenue, which, because it was not made up by other taxes, touched off an inflationary process.

Were the loss of the taxes on drinks the only problem for state finance, it could have been solved by raising the prices of some other commodities to compensate. But the situation was made worse when, influenced by the arguments of neo-liberal economists, Gorbachov allowed enterprises to keep a large part of the turnover tax revenue that they owed the state. The neo-liberals argued that if managers were allowed to keep this revenue, they would make more efficient use of it than the government.

What actually ensued was a catastrophic revenue crisis for the state, who were forced to rely on the issue of credit by the central bank to finance their current expenditure. The expansion of the money stock led to rapid inflation and the erosion of public confidence in the economy. Meanwhile, the additional unaudited funds in the hands of enterprise managers opened up huge opportunities for corruption. The Gorbachov government had recently legalised worker co-operatives, allowing them to trade independently. This legal form was then used by a new stratum of corrupt officials, gangsters and petty business men to launder corruptly obtained funds.

Immediate
----------

The Soviet economy had gone through the stages of slowdown, mismanaged crisis and now went into a phase of catastrophic collapse, quite unprecedented in peacetime.

Following a failed coup by sections of the armed forces and security services, Yeltsin, instead of helping restore the constitutional government of President Gorbachov, seized power for himself. Acting on the instructions of US advisers he introduced a shock programme to convert the economy from socialism to capitalism in 100 days.

In the old USSR there was no capitalist class. In the west governments could privatise individual firms by selling them off on the stockmarket where the shares would be quickly snapped up by the upper classes, or in the case of Thatcher's privatisation, by sections of the middle class. But in the USSR things were very different. There was no class of individuals wealthy enough to buy up state companies by legal means. Also the scale of the privatisation was so vast, that even in a market economy, the savings of the population would have been insufficient to buy up the entire industry of the nation. Logic alone would predict that the only way that industry could pass into private hands was through corruption and gangsterism. This is exactly what happened, a handful of Mafia connected oligarchs ended up owning most of the economy.

Neo liberal theory held that once enterprises were free from the state, the 'magic of the market' would ensure that they would interact productively and efficiently for the public good. But this vision of the economy greatly overstated the role of markets. Even in so called market economies, markets of the sort described in economics textbooks are the exception – restricted to specialist areas like the world oil and currency markets. The main industrial structure of an economy depends on a complex interlinked system of regular producer/consumer relationships in which the same suppliers make regular deliveries to the same customers week in week out.

In the USSR this interlinked system stretched across two continents, and drew into its network other economies : East Europe, Cuba, North Vietnam. Enterprises depended on regular state orders, the contents of which might be dispatched to other enterprises thousands of miles away. Whole towns and communities across the wilds of Siberia relied on these regular orders for their economic survival. Once the state was too bankrupt to continue making these orders, once it could no longer afford to pay wages, and once the planning network which had coordinated these orders was removed, what occurred was not the spontaneous self organisation of the economy promised by neo-liberal theory, but a domino process of collapse.

Without any orders, factories engaged in primary industries closed down. Without deliveries of components and supplies secondary industries could no longer continue production, so they too closed. In a rapid and destructive cascade, industry after industry closed down. The process was made far worse by the way the unitary USSR split into a dozen different countries all with their own separate economies. The industrial system had been designed to work as an integrated whole, split up by national barriers it lay in ruins.

The following figures show how far the economy had regressed. These figures show how little recovery there had been, even after 13 years of operation of the free market.

Output of Selected Branches of Industry in Russia in 2003 Compared to 1990 (1990 = 100)

Total Industry 66

Electric power 77

Gas 97

Oil extraction 94

Oil refining 70

Ferrous metallurgy 79

Non-ferrous metallurgy 80

Chemicals and petrochemicals 67

Machine building 54

Wood and paper 48

Building materials 42

Light industry 15

Food 67

Source: Goskomstat, 2004, Table 14.3.

If the economy had continued to grow even at the modest rate of the later Brezhnev years ( say 2.5%) then industrial production would, on this scale have stood at 140% of 1990 levels. The net effect of 13 years of capitalism was to leave Russia with half the industrial capacity that could have been expected even from the poorest performing years of the socialist economy.

[People's War]

The main reason was a crippling bureaucracy and utter inefficiency in how the Soviet economy was planned. Stalin's purges of bureaucracy had largely kept the country running, but after his death, it gradually smothered the economy more and more.

[graymouser]

The above analysis has some strong points, although I'd argue that the emphasis is a little bit off. It's not as if the USSR could stop focusing on heavy industry just because it had developed - unlike capitalism it couldn't just export capital and focus on consumer goods, it had to keep those industries running. But that's just a small note.

What it really misses is what is called the shadow, or second, economy (as opposed to the main, or planned, economy). This was a massive network that combined corruption of the officialdom, the black and grey markets, and illegal production activities - small scale construction, mining, poaching, certain professional services, all performed for profit. This was the economy that perestroika brought to the fore; it had a corrosive effect as much of it was located within the bureaucracy, and it created the economic basis for a powerful restorationist wing within the CPSU. It really didn't solidify until the Brezhnev years, although forms of it had always been around. I'd argue that you can't overlook this when asking why the CPSU was so willing to look for neoliberal solutions to their problems, because essentially the tendency that really wanted capitalism was emboldened just at the weak point of the pro-planned economy faction.

[Hiratsuka]

I don't really see why this topic remains controversial or even slightly contentious other than the fact certain people just want a cookie-cutter answer that only addresses one particular issue.

Highly bureaucratic system dictating almost half a continent's economic standards? Party figureheads working 'outside' of the economy to promote profit-making projects for their own benefit? Skyrocketing debt owed to unfriendly creditors? Oppressive political standards re-instituted after the "Khrushchev Thaw?" National strife and resentment towards Russia? Seems like a recipe for disaster. It's no wonder liberals introduced "liberal reforms." (Sell off these giants state-owned monopolies to the biggest scam artists in town and then say, "let the markets roll!")

[dutch master]

The above analysis has some strong points, although I'd argue that the emphasis is a little bit off. It's not as if the USSR could stop focusing on heavy industry just because it had developed - unlike capitalism it couldn't just export capital and focus on consumer goods, it had to keep those industries running. But that's just a small note.

What it really misses is what is called the shadow, or second, economy (as opposed to the main, or planned, economy). This was a massive network that combined corruption of the officialdom, the black and grey markets, and illegal production activities - small scale construction, mining, poaching, certain professional services, all performed for profit. This was the economy that perestroika brought to the fore; it had a corrosive effect as much of it was located within the bureaucracy, and it created the economic basis for a powerful restorationist wing within the CPSU. It really didn't solidify until the Brezhnev years, although forms of it had always been around. I'd argue that you can't overlook this when asking why the CPSU was so willing to look for neoliberal solutions to their problems, because essentially the tendency that really wanted capitalism was emboldened just at the weak point of the pro-planned economy faction.

How rare to see insightful analysis about the USSR from a Trotskyite. I assume you have read Keeran and Kenny's book, no?

Sam Webb told me he was against the publication of it, and Azad's book too. I asked him why, and he could barely mumble some gibberish about Gorbo and being too mechanical and dogmatic.

[Robocommie]

What it really misses is what is called the shadow, or second, economy (as opposed to the main, or planned, economy). This was a massive network that combined corruption of the officialdom, the black and grey markets, and illegal production activities - small scale construction, mining, poaching, certain professional services, all performed for profit. This was the economy that perestroika brought to the fore; it had a corrosive effect as much of it was located within the bureaucracy, and it created the economic basis for a powerful restorationist wing within the CPSU. It really didn't solidify until the Brezhnev years, although forms of it had always been around. I'd argue that you can't overlook this when asking why the CPSU was so willing to look for neoliberal solutions to their problems, because essentially the tendency that really wanted capitalism was emboldened just at the weak point of the pro-planned economy faction.

There's an article I read recently by two economic historians, Paul Gregory and Andrei Markevich. They're not Marxists by any means, but the article drew on post-1991 research sources including CPSU party archives, which apparently indicate there was rather extensive horizontal trading going on between the various branches and departments of the planned economy. It was mainly because of an extremely autocratic style of leadership from the top down which expected only results in return - to get things done department leaders sometimes had to result in capitalistic trades "off the record." But this was actually going on in the '30s and '40s, and the Yezhovschina didn't actually help things at all, in fact if anything it made it worse as it created new motivations to lie to the central government.

[syndicat]

Well, the summation of what I understand after having taken a university course on Soviet history (which sadly did not go into as much economic detail as I wanted, and mostly covered social history) is that the decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union was due to the decay of the Soviet economy during the Brezhnev Stagnation, along with an increasingly more repressive bureaucratic state which was more about preserving the status quo which benefited an increasingly corrupt and venal CPSU. This built resentment in the population, particularly some of the peripheral republics, and so when Gorbachev ushered in his reforms, it undid the only thing holding the country together anymore, namely the repressive state apparatus, and the whole thing just fell apart.


This analysis is not right. For one thing, ask yourself, why did the leadership of the USSR jettison the more outlying Republics? According to the book "Revolution from Above," this was because there was less support for the move to capitalism in the outlying parts of the USSR than in Russia proper. As the authors of that work argue, it was the Soviet ruling class in Russia proper who developed an increasing consensus on making the move to capitalism and ditching the central planning regime and public ownership. if the analysis you quote were right, we'd expect that the leadership in the outlying Republics would have supported such a move. But they didn't.

They describe well the Russian ruling class under the old system -- industrial managers, generals and admirals, party officials, and the Gosplan elite. And they pointed out that for them "socialism" had no real meaning. It was mere window dressing. In reality what they believed in was the pursuit of their own interests. This consciousness we should see as having been crafted by their objective position as a dominating, exploiting class.

[graymouser]

How rare to see insightful analysis about the USSR from a Trotskyite. I assume you have read Keeran and Kenny's book, no?

Sam Webb told me he was against the publication of it, and Azad's book too. I asked him why, and he could barely mumble some gibberish about Gorbo and being too mechanical and dogmatic.
Yeah, I've read both Keeran/Kenny and Azad, as well as Davidow's contemporary book on Perestroika (also Sam Marcy on the same subject, although he was much less coherent). I don't accept the underlying assumption that what the USSR had was "socialism" (I'm orthodox Trotskyist not state cap), but between them they made a very strong analysis of the ideological and material forces that were working within the CPSU. Azad's book was almost compatible with a Trotskyist analysis, and I think a number of people including Keeran/Kenny make basically that criticism. Socialism Betrayed has weaknesses (particularly in their defense of the Stalin era, but obviously I'm going to say that) but I do think it makes a very good case for there being economic roots of the restoration. I don't think any of it fundamentally contradicts the Trotskyist view that the USSR was a degenerated workers state with a bureaucracy that had a pro-capitalist wing, although obviously Keeran and Kenny would disagree with me. And writing on the subject that isn't basically capitalist triumphalism is hard to find.

It's sad that the CPUSA actually put out a couple of books with some serious analysis and then immediately threw them out of print (Socialism Betrayed has been going for obscene amounts online) because they were no longer politically convenient. I imagine it's a big part of why Azad is no longer in the party and Keeran and Kenny are part of the opposition.

[graymouser]

There's an article I read recently by two economic historians, Paul Gregory and Andrei Markevich. They're not Marxists by any means, but the article drew on post-1991 research sources including CPSU party archives, which apparently indicate there was rather extensive horizontal trading going on between the various branches and departments of the planned economy. It was mainly because of an extremely autocratic style of leadership from the top down which expected only results in return - to get things done department leaders sometimes had to result in capitalistic trades "off the record." But this was actually going on in the '30s and '40s, and the Yezhovschina didn't actually help things at all, in fact if anything it made it worse as it created new motivations to lie to the central government.
That's quite interesting, and as a Trotskyist of course I agree the inefficiencies in planning were related to the top-down nature of the bureaucracy. But what I'm referring to is more the layer of economic activity that existed entirely outside of the planned economy. The book dutch master mentioned, "Socialism Betrayed" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny, goes into some really solid detail on how this worked and how it helped to erode the basis of the planned economy more than its own internal problems. It's from a basically pro-USSR perspective but deals frankly and forthrightly with its issues. Unfortunately International Publishers has stopped printing or distributing it and it can be somewhat hard to find at a reasonable price.

[Robocommie]

This analysis is not right.

Hence why I asked for other perspectives and explanations.



For one thing, ask yourself, why did the leadership of the USSR jettison the more outlying Republics? According to the book "Revolution from Above," this was because there was less support for the move to capitalism in the outlying parts of the USSR than in Russia proper. As the authors of that work argue, it was the Soviet ruling class in Russia proper who developed an increasing consensus on making the move to capitalism and ditching the central planning regime and public ownership. if the analysis you quote were right, we'd expect that the leadership in the outlying Republics would have supported such a move. But they didn't.Well, these historical events would need to be explained and placed in context, then.



Late at night on January 19, 1990, 26,000 Soviet troops stormed Baku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku) in order to crush the Popular Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_Popular_Front_Party). In the course of the storming, the troops attacked the protesters, firing in the crowds. The shooting continued for three days. They acted pursuant to a state of emergency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_emergency) (which continued for more than 4 months) declared by the USSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR) Supreme Soviet Presidium, signed by President Gorbachev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev). The state of emergency was, however, only disclosed to the Azerbaijani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_people) public hours after the beginning of the storming,[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-hrw-0) when many citizens already lay wounded or dead in the streets, hospitals and morgues of Baku. According to official data, between 133[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-1) and 137[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-BBC-2) people died with unofficial number reaching 300.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-Azerbaijan_International-3) Up to 800 were injured and 5 went missing.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-Turkish_Weekly-4) An additional 26 people were killed in Neftchala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neft%C3%A7ala) and Lankaran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lankaran) regions of the country.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-5) The Soviet army soldiers used 5.45 mm caliber bullets with a shifted center of gravity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.45x39mm#Wounding_effects) designed to shear after entering the body thus causing an excessive physical damage to the body.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-6)[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-7)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-7)
In the resolution of January 22, 1990 the Supreme Soviet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Soviet) of the Azerbaijan SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_SSR) declared that the decree of the Presidium of USSR Supreme Soviet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidium_of_the_Supreme_Soviet#USSR_Supreme_Sovie t) of January 19, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of agression.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-8)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-8)
In February, 1990, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union agreed to give up its monopoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-party_state) of power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_%28sociology%29). Over the next several weeks, the 15 constituent republics of the USSR held their first competitive elections. Reformers and ethnic nationalists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_nationalist) won many of the seats.


The constituent republics began to assert their national sovereignty over Moscow and started a "war of laws" with the central government, wherein the governments of the constituent republics repudiated union-wide legislation where it conflicted with local laws, asserting control over their local economies and refusing to pay tax revenue to the central Moscow government. This strife caused economic dislocation as supply lines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_line) in the economy were severed, and caused the Soviet economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_economy) to decline further.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-Russia.2C_The_Tsarist_and_Soviet_Legacy-9)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-Russia.2C_The_Tsarist_and_Soviet_Legacy-9)
The pro-independence movement in the Lithuanian SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_SSR), Sąjūdis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C4%85j%C5%ABdis), established on June 3, 1988, caused a visit by Gorbachev in January 1990 to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius), which provoked a pro-independence rally of around 250,000 people.


On March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_SSR), led by Chairman of the Supreme Council (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Council_of_Lithuania) Vytautas Landsbergis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vytautas_Landsbergis), declared restoration of independence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_the_Re-Establishment_of_the_State_of_Lithuania). However, the Soviet Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Army) attempted to suppress the movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events). The Soviet Union initiated an economic blockade of Lithuania and kept troops there "to secure the rights of ethnic Russians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Russian)."[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-10)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-10)
On March 30, 1990, the Estonian Supreme Council declared Soviet power in Estonian SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_SSR) since 1940 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Estonia) to have been illegal, and started a process to reestablish Estonia as an independent state. The process of restoration of independence of the Latvian SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_SSR) began on May 4, 1990, with a Latvian Supreme Council vote stipulating a transitional period to complete independence.


On January 13, 1991, Soviet troops, along with KGB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB) Spetsnaz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spetsnaz) Alpha Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Group), stormed the Vilnius TV Tower in Vilnius, Lithuania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius_massacre) to suppress the nationalist media. This ended with 14 unarmed civilians dead and hundreds more injured. Later that month in Georgian SSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_SSR), anti-Soviet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Sovietism) protesters at Tbilisi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tbilisi) demonstrated support for Lithuanian independence.[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-11)That said, there is this bit.



On March 17, 1991, in a Union-wide referendum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991) 76.4% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-12) The Baltics, Armenia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia), Georgia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28country%29), Chechnya (which was by now referring to itself as Ichkeria and despite previously being a region within Russia officially, had a strong desire to emulate the independence of its neighbors)[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-13) and Moldova (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldavian_SSR) boycotted the referendum. In each of the other nine republics, a majority of the voters supported the retention of the renewed Soviet Union. Following the results, Armenia indicated it wanted to rejoin in Union discussion.In short, it seemed that while the Baltic and Caucasian republics wanted to break away at the time of the referendum, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Central Asian republics wanted to stay, although they all wanted reform.

I also want to point out that aside from jettisoning the republics, it was the Soviet old guard in the CPSU, senior-most apparatchiks, that attempted the coup against Gorbachev in order to prevent him from decentralizing the Soviet state and continuing perestroika.

[bie]

Here is quite an interesting and intriguing insight: Dr. Pisarev, Either Narrow-Mindedness or Treason of the "Scientists" Ruined Socialism in the USSR: http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0510/pisarev.htm