Demise of the Soviet Union and Collective Actors, 1985-1991: The Military, Opposition Parties and Constituent Republics

The Frontier of International Relations 4

Abstract

On December 25 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed due to Gorbachev's resignation as president of the Soviet Union. Since then, many scholars have presented papers on the Soviet collapse. In some approaches, the actorcentric approach has had a strong influence recently. This approach is divided into two analytical levels: the micro-level (elite-centric) and the mesolevel (organization-centric). This paper focuses on the latter one.
During the period 1985-1991, there were three organized actors that maintained plentiful resources necessary to play important roles in the process of the transition: the military, opposition parties, and constituent republics. This paper attempts to examine which actor played the major role during 1985-1991, through using the game theory.
First, it was in the August 1991 coup that the Soviet military got deeper involved in politics. In the perestroika period some senior military leaders remained deeply concerned about the future of their homeland and developed stronger ties with conservatives gradually. But middle-level commanders that were close to the citizens had a reluctance to shoot. Though the coup was triggered by the coalition that was formed as a result of the strong partnership between senior military leaders and conservatives, the commanders refused to carry out orders from superior officers. Eventually the coup failed.
Second, in the communist regimes, dissidents had little room to create voluntary citizens' organizations. After liberalization some party reformers seceded from the regimes, and indeed social movements and political parties emerged. Likewise in the other communist regimes, opposition groups in the Soviet Union kept up the momentum towards participation in politics. Because there remained the constitution of Article 6, which guaranteed the leading role of the CPSU, opposition parties failed to participate in the elections of the USSR Congress of People's Deputies. On the other side, the 1990 elections at the regional level witnessed the entry of opposition parties, because on March 14 1990 Article 6 was amended to remove the CPSU's leading role. As a consequence of such a difference of circumstances between the center and the republics, opposition parties never had the capacity to overthrow the Soviet central administration.
Finally, the Soviet Union retained 15 ethno-national republics. Under the Soviet ethnofederalism ethnic cadres based on each union republic had accumulated and monopolized the mobilizational resources despite the intentions of the Soviet authorities. At the start of perestroika leaders of some republics absorbed a significant portion of nationalist movements. However, differences of conflicting positions among the rich republics and the poor republics were clarified. The leaders of the rich republics tended to secede from the union sooner or later, but the leaders of the poor ones chose to stay. As a consequence of the independence of the Baltic republics and the formation of CIS, the Soviet Union broke up.