The USSR: 18 Years After The Collapse!

Today is the 18th anniversary of the signing of the Belavezha Accords (Беловежские соглашения) which is the agreement that declared the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) effectively dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (Содружество Независимых Государств) in its place.

Wikipedia has a good summary of what happened next.

1. While doubts remained over the authority of the leaders (Stanislav Shushkevich - Belarus, Boris Yeltsin - Russia, and Leonid Kravchuk - Ukraine) of three of the fifteen Soviet Republics to dissolve the Union, according to Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Soviet Republics had the right to secede freely from the Union. On December 12, 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR ratified the accords on behalf of Russia and at the same time denounced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union.

2. All doubts relating to the legal dissolution of the Soviet Union were removed on December 21, 1991, when the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia and the three Baltic states, including those republics that had signed the Belavezha Accords, signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the dismemberment and consequential extinction of the Soviet Union and restated the establishment of the CIS. Given that fourteen out of fifteen republics now exercised the constitutional right of secession and agreed with the extinction of the Union, the plurality of member-republics required for the Union's continued existence as a federal State ceased to be in place. The summit of Alma-Ata also agreed on several other practical measures consequential to the extinction of the Union.

3. However, for four more days a Soviet Federal Government continued to exist, and Mikhail Gorbachev continued to hold control over the Kremlin as President of the Soviet Union. This ended on December 25, 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the President of the Soviet Union and turned control of the Kremlin and the remaining powers of his office over to the office of the president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, thus accepting termination of the Soviet Federal Government and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev's televised resignation speech and the subsequent lowering of the flag of the Soviet Union and hoisting of the flag of Russia on the flagpole in front of the Kremlin was a historic event broadcast around the world. On this day, President of the United States George H.W. Bush, a former head of the CIA, gave a short speech on national TV in the United States to commemorate the ending of the Cold War and to recognize the independence of the former states of the Soviet Union.

4. The following day, December 26, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, formally the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, recognized the collapse of the Union and dissolved itself, an event that marked the final step in the extinction of the Soviet Union.

5. The Summit of Alma-Ata also issued a statement on December 21, 1991 supporting Russia's claim to be recognized as the successor state of the Soviet Union for the purposes of membership of the United Nations. On December 24, 1991, Russian President Yeltsin informed the UN Secretary General that the Soviet Union had been dissolved and that Russia would, as its successor State, continue the Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations. The document confirmed the credentials of the representatives of the Soviet Union as representatives of Russia, and requested that the name "Soviet Union" be changed to "Russian Federation" in all records and entries.

^I can not believe it has been 18 years since the Soviet Union collapsed. There are now adults in the former USSR that were not alive when the Soviet Union existed. While the official date that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist is December 25, 1991 the events leading to this event started on Dec. 7, 1991. It is amazing that the Soviet Union that lasted for 69 years disappeared almost overnight with little bloodshed. I know that there are many Russians and other former Soviet citizens that wish the USSR was still here, but I believe that there has been more good than harm over the last 18 years. While many former Soviet Republics still have the same people in power as they did under Communist times I still see many slight differences that have benefited the people for the most part. Whenever I ask a Russian about what they think of the collapse of the USSR I get the same response: "the Soviet Union did not collapse. It just went away." Regardless, the USSR is no more. With it also ended the Cold War with the United States of America as the victor and sole Super-Power.^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belavezha_Accords