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Russia Declares Sovereignty: The War of Laws That Broke the Union
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In 1990, the Soviet Union stopped struggling and started unraveling — republic by republic, through quiet legislative acts that stripped Moscow of its only real power: the monopoly on law. From Lithuania's independence vote to Russia's sovereignty declaration, this is the chapter where the center lost control.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Before nineteen ninety, the Soviet Union looked like a system under pressure. After nineteen ninety, it looked like a system losing control.
We've covered the events of nineteen eighty-nine in earlier episodes. Poland's elections.
In March of nineteen ninety, Lithuania's newly elected parliament voted to restore independence. Not to request it, not to negotiate toward it.
Then came the moment that changed the geometry entirely. In June of nineteen ninety, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the largest republic in the union, the one that contained Moscow, the one that was in most people's minds simply synonymous with the Soviet Union itself, declared sovereignty over its own territory.
None of this was happening in a vacuum. The economic picture in nineteen ninety was deteriorating sharply, and the deterioration was no longer abstract.
The sovereignty declarations weren't just political positioning. They were releasing pressure that had been building since the Soviet federation was first constructed.
Through all of this, Gorbachev was trying to hold the center together while reform was pulling it apart. He was attempting something that probably couldn't be done.
By the end of nineteen ninety, the Soviet Union existed in two registers simultaneously. Formally, it was still intact.
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