Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav Zubok
In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong with five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism.
Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism.
Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
FIVE MINUTES WITH Vladislav Zubok
INTERVIEW FOR PUSHKIN HOUSE BY ANDREW JACK (@AJACK)
What is your background?
I was born in Moscow and lived in the Soviet Union for 30 years. I graduated as a historian from Moscow University and then became a researcher at the US-Canada Institute. I was lucky – the moment I began my research, the Soviet archives began to open and I was one of the first non-diplomats allowed to work with diplomatic documents at the foreign ministry. But after the collapse, I moved to the USA and worked there for 20 years before I got an offer from LSE.
Why did you decide to write this book?
When the USSR collapsed, I was very involved attending rallies to support Gorbachev and Yeltsin and living those events. I had very different academic interests although I thought at some point I should explain to myself what actually happened. During the August 1991 coup I was flying to the US and missed the most important moment as the Soviet Union moved to self destruction.
Since then I read many books and articles that tried to explain why it collapsed but they never answered the question to my satisfaction. Every time I tried to explain to my students why it happened I felt a little embarrassed because I couldn’t. Eventually I thought why should I wait for someone else to do the book?
What was missing from other explanations?
When I tell someone in US I’ve written a book on the Soviet collapse, they already have the answers: Reagan destroyed the USSR, oil prices plummeted and bankrupted it, it was dysfunctional, the military was too expensive or the war in Afghanistan led inexorably to collapse. Scholars say the Soviet collapse was driven by nationalist movements. But my sources convinced me this wasn’t so. The Russians themselves played a decisive role in destroying their own state and empire. And it was not a classic national rebellion. It was a split of the Russian elites.
What is your conclusion?
I would prefer the reader at least to get to page 200! Instead of improving living standards, Gorbachev’s reforms made them sink. Much Russian discontent was about the state of the finances, the rouble, and the lack of goods in the stores. Yeltsin told the Russians they could overthrow Communism and immediately join the west. It was a great feat of demagoguery. Millions realised Gorbachev was a poor, indecisive leader and Yeltsin promised a new democratic liberal mythology. Many followed Yeltsin because he conveyed that he was the leader who could bring them to the better future. Yeltsin was determined to get rid of Gorbachev and therefore had to get rid of the Union structure.
How did you conduct your research?
It was a huge surprise how many sources became available, but have not been read. Contrary to common perceptions, the archives didn’t close under Putin: the authorities kept declassifying immense amounts which I turned out to be among the first to use. During the pandemic, I found extraordinary documents in electronic archives, for instance the ones collected by the Yeltsin foundation. I also used oral history. It’s always much more useful to speak to people when you know the documents. When they feel you know the background, they tell you things they have not said before.
Could the USSR have been saved?
Yes. Other approaches to reform would not have kept the Party in power and put the state under such threat. The Communist leadership would have proceeded with market reforms like in China but without democratisation and liberalisation. I’m not in favour of using force under any circumstances, but it’s incredible that Gorbachev was reluctant to use it to preserve the state. On moral grounds you may argue that the collapse was a good thing because all empires collapse, and in this case many people claim in 1991-92 it was relatively peaceful. But the cost of sudden collapse was actually steep. Tens of thousands fell victim to ethnic violence, and later many more to economic chaos and statelessness.
What about the assurances around NATO?
There was a mythology in Yeltsin’s circle: once the USSR was dismantled that Russia would be accepted into the family of civilised nations. Yeltsin really wanted to join NATO and simultaneously he wanted Russia to keep the Soviet place in the world as a superpower. This all crumbled during 1994-99. So even without NATO expansion the West would have found it difficult to deal with Russia. Yet it allowed many people to point a finger at Gorbachev and Yeltsin and blame them. If the West had supported Yeltsin more with money, who knows? The power of conservative nationalists could have been curbed, liberalism might have continued a little longer. What happened, however, was that Vladimir Putin became Yeltsin’s successor and blamed the US for weakening Russia. As a result, Russia began to behave as a revisionist state, against the Western liberal order.
How far did the collapse set the scene for the war against Ukraine?
This war puts into question the very thesis that the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully. We are seeing another phase of the collapse. It would have been better for Europe and the world if the USSR had been transformed into a voluntary union with some form of sovereignty like the European Union. Gorbachev for all his flaws at least was a natural democrat of sorts, in favour of evolution. The leaders, who took over from Gorbachev, had to build “nations” and played nationalist cards. This was particularly dangerous in Russia and Ukraine: the two new countries that were bound so tightly by economy, culture, history and language. And Russian and Ukrainian politicians began to quarrel over Crimea and Donbass at the very moment the Union collapsed. There was a threat of war between them, the media wrote about “a nuclear Yugoslavia scenario,” because Ukraine inherited a large nuclear arsenal from the USSR. It ended up peacefully then, but it turned out that the roots of the conflict continued to grow.
Does the Soviet collapse explain Putin’s rise?
He drew many lessons from it: never lose control of financial institutions, always have reserves for a rainy day. He is very careful to keep support of Russians, in particularly those in Moscow who very early on were lost by Gorbachev to Yeltsin. It explains why he refuses mobilisation today to draft Muscovites to war. But this is a new chapter of history. I don’t think Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He’s continued with Yeltsin’s project for a greater Russia that is more nationalistic and imperialistic. When he needs ‘a usable past’ he leap-frogs Soviet history and goes back to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. In contrast to those rulers, however, Putin is putting Russia on a very different track, away from and not closer to Europe.
Are you writing a new book?
I am still thinking about my next project. One of my last conclusions in the book is that we should prepare for surprises. Our history is becoming less and less predictable. Perhaps I should write a book about the role of surprises in international history and how people reacted to them.