On this day, the first and last president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, resigned. The day before, there was a ten-hour conversation between him and the President of the russian federation, Boris Yeltsin, during which the procedure for the transfer of state power, the transfer of Gorbachev's personal archive, as well as the conditions of his life and the establishment of powers were agreed upon: a presidential pension, a dacha, state-funded vehicles and security, premises for his personal fund. After a televised appearance, Mikhail Gorbachev returned to his office in the Kremlin to hand over the nuclear codes to the President of the russian federation, Boris Yeltsin. Despite the agreement, the latter refused to meet in the office of the former president of the USSR, and the two colonels who accompanied Gorbachev everywhere and constantly, being responsible for the “nuclear suitcase”, were placed at the disposal of the Minister of Defense of the USSR. On December 26, the country's parliament – the Verkhovna Rada of the USSR – officially recognized the independence of the new states and terminated the existence of the Soviet Union. A red flag with a hammer and sickle, which was once a symbol of one of the most powerful countries in the world, was lowered over the Kremlin.
Later, the President of the russian federation, vladimir putin, called the collapse of the USSR “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. This saying has become one of the foundations of modern russian propaganda. Of course, a person with even a passing acquaintance with history has a natural question: why were neither the First or Second World Wars, nor the Holocaust, the Holodomor, or other human tragedies of the past century assessed by the Russian leader as catastrophic? Could this be considered the disappearance of a state with an inefficient economy, unable to satisfy the basic consumer demand of society? The lack of civil liberties common to the entire civilized world was also an unsympathetic feature of the USSR with its monopoly on power, opinion, and initiative. Thanks to Gorbachev's policy of openness and openness, a large part of the Soviet people realized the advantages of personal freedom and the quality of life in countries that for decades were declared to be “rotting”. A natural distrust of the authorities arose, which for decades nurtured a delusional picture of the world – due to strict information restrictions: censorship of scientific and artistic works, jamming of Western radio stations, restrictions on communication with foreigners, tourism, etc. And the military race with the West was hopelessly lost: apart from cheap natural resources and manpower, the USSR had no advantages over the countries of the Euro-Atlantic bloc. The withdrawal of military contingents from Afghanistan and from the countries of the former Warsaw Pact clearly confirmed this loss.
Therefore, most people accepted the news with understanding – waves of protests, strike movements or armed uprisings did not sweep through the country. The future did not seem cloudless, however, both for individuals and for the societies of the republics that left the USSR, the prospect of a different life, trials, gains and defeats opened up.
Another thing is that the collapse of the USSR shook the russian imperial idea. The split was felt both in the elites and in the broad popular circles: they say, “the whole world used to respect and fear us, but now we have been relegated to secondary countries.” It was precisely such attitudes that were used by President putin in the formation of the national idea of russia. His propaganda deliberately mixed the brilliance of pre-revolutionary imperial Russia, the heroism of World War II (the victory in which was fully attributed to the russians, the contribution of other nations, in particular Ukrainians, was devalued), the stability of the Brezhnev era… Therefore, russia was presented as a historically and culturally unique country surrounded by “enemies” – primarily the West, as well as “traitor” countries that want to separate from the “russian world” – to forget their common history, faith, and language. Such ideologues perfectly distracted russians from the urgent problems of existence, and even from the problem of the need for rotation in power.
Thus, russian society nurtured hatred towards Ukraine for decades, which spilled over into a long-term military confrontation and today's question of “who is who”: either the victorious russian federation will restore the empire, and Ukrainians will disappear from this territory; or we will win, and russia will be forced to bury the imperial idea, give up nuclear weapons and develop within the “rigid” framework of its own borders.
The collapse of the USSR gave Ukraine a great historical chance. Don't waste it!
Olena Ishchenko