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Entering 1989 the Soviet Union and its informal but very real empire was already facing serious economic difficulties and a lack of confidence about attaining the ambitious aims of its official philosophy, called Marxism-Leninism: the creation of a new socio-political order based on communal property and abundance. However, no politician or analyst foresaw that by the end of the year all the communist one-party states of Central and South-eastern Europe would renounce dictatorship and switch to political pluralism. In 1990 they all held free elections won by parties opposed to the communists, discarded even the vestiges of Soviet-type Socialism, and started restoring capitalism, i.e. the market economy, while proclaiming their aim to return to the basic values of the West and the institutions built upon them. On 1 July 1991 the Warsaw Pact, the political-military organization of the Soviet Empire was dissolved by common consent, approved by Gorbachev, the President of the Soviet Union. On 25 December the Soviet Union itself was officially dissolved and its member states became internationally recognized sovereign, independent countries, all professing a commitment to political pluralism and the market economy. Never in human history did an empire disappear so suddenly and without bloodshed, and no profound political, economic and social changes took place in such a short period over such a large territory.

The causes of the collapse of the communist system are complex, they can be listed under the following headings: inherent or systemic, fundamental or substantive, incidental and immediate.

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The Collapse of the Soviet Empire and Communism

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2010.12.07.