December 25th 2016 marks 25 years since
the president of the Soviet Union
resigned leading to the end of the most
powerful communist leaning country in
history although it stood is a major
opposing force to the United States
throughout the second half of the 20th
century the country's domestic struggles
ultimately led to its downfall so why
exactly did the Soviet Union collapse
well the fall of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics or USSR can be said
to begin with its last leader Mikhail
Gorbachev he was in power from 1985 to
1991 and implemented a large number of
reforms to try and deal with the growing
unrest countrywide Gorbachev entered
office following what was called the era
of stagnation generally considered to
cover the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s
although the causes of this stagnation
varied they were largely based on
economic social and military issues
instituted during the reign of Leonid
Brezhnev and several subsequent leaders
although different theories have been
proposed one suggests that the Soviet
Union was desperate to outperform the
United States and two major regions
military and spaceflight this led to
excessive spending with the Soviet Union
establishing a self-contained
military-industrial complex at the
expense of the economy leading to under
production and stagnation moreover after
decades of repressive communist rule
domestic attitudes towards the
government were at an all-time low
leading to greater dissent and unrest as
the new leader Gorbachev quickly set out
to reverse the stagnation through two
massive programs unlike Russia had ever
seen before
the first was called glasnost
effectively meaning transparency the
communist party had long banned books
operated a secret police force against
dissent and arrested citizens for
political disagreements the glass NOS
ended all of these practices and even
tacitly encouraged new freedoms the
policy also made an effort to reduce the
Communist Party's hold on the entire
government allowing competitive
multi-candidate elections to occur the
next stage was called perestroika or
restructuring this was an effort to move
away from the structured economy run
entirely by the state allowing for more
private ownership of businesses and semi
free-market access these two new efforts
completely shifted the focus of Soviet
politics and economy and closely
mirrored the Western ideals that had
made
other countries successful unfortunately
the major shift was unable to undo
decades of state rule and in the words
of Gorbachev the old system collapsed
before the new one had time to begin
working and the crisis in the society
became even more acute in this interim
period the economy got considerably
worse as did standards of living for
nearly all members of the Soviet Union
and it's satellites States slowly these
Eastern European satellite states began
to hold free elections mostly as a
result of the glass nostra form the
first to shift away was Poland whose
newly free elections instituted a non
communist party and ultimately
independence soon other satellite states
saw their own peaceful transitions of
power eventually these efforts led to
widespread unrest throughout the
government and in August of 1991 a group
of hardline communist party members
attempted a coup d'etat against
Gorbachev who they believed was steering
the country into failure the coup did
not work and Gorbachev resigned as head
of the Communist Party which had tried
to overthrow him it was ultimately
dissolved entirely in the midst of the
coup several Baltic states announced
their independence which triggered a
domino effect over the next few months
by December of 1991 Ukraine Russia
Belarus Armenia Azerbaijan Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan Moldova Turkmenistan
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan left the
Soviet Union they formed amongst
themselves a new international
Commonwealth of Independent States
removed from the USSR within a few days
the now powerless USSR government which
technically only had power over Georgia
was dissolved by Gorbachev ending 69
years of a world power in the past 25
years Russia has managed to somewhat
recover its former glory as the Russian
Federation is the 13th largest economy
in the world boasting the second most
powerful military although it is still
lagging behind
Russia's resurgence as a global power is
a testament to its influence before the
fall of the Soviet Union Russia has
played a big role in many world
conflicts most recently the Syrian civil
war its involvement marks the first time
since the end of the Cold War that
Russia has stepped outside of the former
borders of the USSR militarily find out
more about Russia's role in Syria in
this video here
since the start of the conflict the
government of Russia has openly
supported Syrian President Bashar
al-assad originally in the form of
political backing in the UN thanks for
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