30 years since the fall of the USSR

Annette Bohr

Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to this panel discussing the collapse of the USSR 30 years ago and the changes in short and long-term legacies it brought for the Former Soviet Republics. My name is Annette Bohr and I’m an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London, and I’ll be chairing the panel today. It is a great pleasure to see so many people join us and also to be joined by such an expert panel.

So, the format for the panel today is going to involve three speakers, offering brief opening remarks on the fall of the Soviet Union and its legacies, before we go into a slightly wider panel discussion. After that, we’re going to open up the session to questions from the floor, but you are able to submit questions throughout the event, using the Q&A function. If you would prefer the Chair to read out your question on your behalf, then please indicate this when submitting your question. Questions should be submitted, however, in the Q&A box, but the chat function will still be open for members to share observations or comments with the wider group. I’d also like to note that today’s event will be held on the record and is being recorded for Chatham House’s YouTube channel.

So, in December 1991, what had been the world’s largest communist state broke into 15 independent republics, when the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus proclaimed the end of the USSR. At one point, the USSR commanded enough nuclear power to destroy humanity and more than five million soldiers stationed internationally, yet it collapsed non-violently and without a single shot being fired. But the regional effects have been no less dramatic, as Russia continues to position itself as a regional hegemon. Today, we’ll explore some of these issues, such as why did the USSR collapse so quickly and crumble so comprehensively, and what have been the short and long-term legacies of the USSR?

So, I’m delighted to welcome our three speakers to share the reflections on these issues. Our first speaker will be Serhii Plokhii, the Mykhailo S Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and the Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. He’s a leading authority on Eastern Europe and has published extensively on the international history of World War Two and the Cold War. His books have won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for the Best English Language Book on International Relations, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

Next, we’ll hear from Thomas Remington, who’s a Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University. He’s an Emeritus Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University and a Senior Research Associate of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development, of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. He’s author of a number of books and articles, including “Presidential Decrees in Russia: A Comparative Perspective,” and his research addresses the political sources of economic inequality in the United States, Russia, China and Germany. And Serhii and Thomas, it is really a pleasure to have you join us today from the United States.

In London today, where this is our final speaker, Kataryna Wolczuk, who is an Associate Fellow of the Chat – of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme and a Professor of East European Politics at the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Birmingham. She holds an MA in Law from the University of Gdańsk, Poland, and an MA and PhD from the University of Birmingham. Kataryna frequently contributes to publications, conferences and events related to the Eastern partnership and Eurasian integration, as well as the domestic and foreign policies of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.

We’ll move into our opening remarks now. So, Serhii, I’ll hand over the floor to you first.

Serhii Plokhii

Thank you, Annette. Thank you for this introduction. Thank you very much for the invitation. The 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union provides us with the invitation and really, opportunity, to look at what happened in the region in the last three decades, but also an invitation and opportunity to look at our thinking about that event. And I will start my remarks with the assessments that were made around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. The event that was mostly unexpected by the majority, and not just of the public worldwide, but also for the citizens of the Soviet Union, for the observers outside. And George Kennan, who is, of course, the towering figure, in terms of thinking about the Cold War and conceptualising the Cold War, went on record in 1995, saying, “I find it hard to think of any event more strange and startling and at first glance, more inexplicable, than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance from the international scene of the great power known successfully as the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.”

So, what exactly happened? And Francis Fukuyama is probably the best-known line or idea about the end of history, as such. “This is the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” So, the – first of all, the revolutions, 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe and then, the fall of the Soviet Union, were treated as this – in the euphoric atmosphere of the late 80s and early 90s, as the victory of democracy.

Now, when we look at map of the region, we realise that democracy – the language of democracy was certainly there, but probably it was instrumentalised, and it made the way for the rise of all sorts of ideologies and nationalism. Nationalism steadily grew in its importance and significant and probably is now one of the main ideologies that define the region, in many ways. And in some of the post-Soviet states, especially when it comes to Central Asia, we’re not talking about democratisation at all, but we are talking about the situation in which authoritarianism became much stronger than it was during the Soviet times, certainly during the times, you know, Khrushchev or Brezhnev or Gorbachev.

So, that is the first point, in a sense, that the ideas, the frames, the concepts, that we used 30 years ago, probably don’t apply today, anymore. We just see that they served their usefulness and now we have to look for something else. And I want to make a couple of points, in terms of possible interpretation of what happened in 1991, looking at the events of 89-91 through the perspective of history. And one of them is that what we witnessed in 1989-91 in particular was not something completely new for the history, something not unprecedented, but rather history catching up with that part of the world, and when I talk about history catching up, I’m talking about the fall of the Empire. So, it’s a concluding chapter, to a degree, in the long story of the 20th Century of the disintegration of the empires that started with the events of World War One and coming to an end with the end of the Cold War.

So, the Soviet Union, that was very often viewed as, an interpreted as Russia, as a nation state, and was, in fact, an empire, or the latest incarnation of the Russian Empire, and died the death of an empire, falling along the ethnic and ethno-national lines that made their way into the political map of the world, already, after 1991.

Another point that I want to make is that what we see here is history catching up with the region in more than one way. I would say that if the Soviet Union was not so successful at the end of World War Two, if the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact acquisitions that were made by Stalin in 1939 and then confirmed at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945, didn’t materialise, the chances are that the Soviet Union would be still here today. Because when you look at the fall of the Soviet Union and mobilisation against the centre, it starts and takes place and acquires really the main strands, the momentum in the areas that were attached to the Soviet Union as the result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. These are the Baltic States. That’s where the first claims for sovereignty, and then independence, in Lithuania were made in March of 1990 and that’s where the Western Ukraine led the mobilisation in Ukraine, the second largest Soviet republic. And we know that once the Ukrainians, on December 1st 1991, voted for independence, the Soviet Union was no more. That the Soviet Union disintegrated within the next few weeks. So, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is extremely important part of the story of 1991, as well.

And my final comment that I want to make, again, goes back, circles back to what George Kennan wrote back in 1995 about – I, again, I quote, “I find it hard to think of any event more strange and startling.” What I want to say, and we know that, quite obviously, that the fall of the Soviet Union was not an event. It has been across it, like disintegration of any other empire, and what we see today and read in the news about the possibility of escalation in the Russo-Ukrainian War, this is the reason to think about that as a process. The fact that history – we tried to cheat history back in 1991. It didn’t work and the fall of the Soviet Union is actually comes with the military conflict and the wars, like the fall of the majority of the empires, which is probably not a very, very optimistic note to end on. But I would also say that the end of history means that we are wiser today – so, the return of history means that we are wiser today than we were in 1991, because we are now looking for the historical parallels and we actually don’t treat that event as – or process, as a completely unique and we can learn from history. Thank you.

Thomas Remington

Annette, you’re muted.

Annette Bohr

Ah, thank you. Thank you, Serhii. There were really some very wide ranging and helpful remarks to help kick off the session, reflecting on the circumstances that were in place 30 years ago, but also focusing on the contemporary moment and how that’s been informed and evolved over time. And I particularly took your point that the collapse was not so much an event, as a process, and certainly, the French social thinker, Alexis de Tocqueville, when he noted that “The most dangerous time for bad government is when it starts to reform itself,” would, I think, agree with your analysis.

So, now we’ll move onto Thomas, and I will hand over to the floor to you.

Thomas Remington

Thank you very much, Annette, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in this event. It’s an honour and a pleasure. Let me start with a fascinating issue that Serhii’s remarks opened for us, which is to what degree was the collapse of the Soviet regime an inevitability? And I think that’s something that we will debate for a long time. There are still plenty of people, both Western hemisphere Russian experts, as well as people, say, in China, who will look at the regime and say, “Had Gorbachev behaved differently, or Yeltsin behaved differently, it could’ve been avoided.” And whether that’s objectively true or lot – or not, is one issue, but a consequence is a belief that had the reforms been sequenced differently, or had leadership not been fighting, as Gorbachev and Yeltsin did, the Union could’ve been preserved, the state could’ve been preserved and far from being inevitable, in other words, in that point of view, a better managed regime could’ve held on.

And because of the importance of that point of view, we have to, I think, think about whether it was true and how did the communist regime work? Because without the communist regime, that USSR state would never have been able to hold together. It required the party; it required a military. There was really no civil society that covered the entire Soviet space. The weakness of civil society, the lack of trust, the lack of social bonds outside the state, is a lingering legacy of communist rule in all of the former Soviet space, with the exception of the Baltic republics, as many contemporary public opinion surveys demonstrate. Compared with Western European countries, civil society, interpersonal trust, connectedness, is lower in the former Soviet state.

Therefore, I think we have to understand how did the regime hold on so long and contrary wise, what are the lessons that the contemporary dictators in China and elsewhere, draw from that legacy? The state, as I’ve always interpreted it, was built on the mobilisation of society and it’s sapped resources of society in order to build a comprehensive and centralised state. A key component of that was the way the state extracted resources from the economy, from the entire society, from the labour and physical resources and redistributed them. So, you have a whole state model built on the redistribution of rents in order to preserve those who supported the state and to maintain a certain level of social peace.

It’s that model that’s part of a legacy of the Soviet system, going back, really, to Lenin, and then brought to a particular form under Stalin. It’s that legacy, I think, that continues to influence rulers in China and in many states around the world. I think it’s profoundly erroneous, because it denies all of the competitive and dynamic forces that we associate with a more open society, one in which a civil society has greater autonomy and an economy has greater freedom to innovate and continue to modernise itself, upgrade itself, as a Schumpeter term, goes to the creative churn of an entrepreneurial economy. All that’s denied in a communist system, and by extension, in the states which have based their legacies on that communist system. So, the Soviet state and regime may be over, but I think the legacies continue to be of enormous importance for us today. Thanks.

Annette Bohr

Thank you very much, Tom. Both you and Serhii noted questions regarding the inevitability of the demise of the USSR and this is something I’m sure that we will return to in the discussion that we’ll have shortly, after Kataryna’s presentation. Kataryna, I now turn the floor to you.

Kataryna Wolczuk

Great, thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to speak in such an distinguished company. I would like to continue some of the points, which have been mentioned, and I think Serhii mentioned the issue of the perception of the end, the collapse of the USSR being end of the Cold War, and really, sort of, that’s the end of the discussion. Whereas actually, what the collapse of the USSR has enabled us to do, almost, sort of, a decade-long post-mortem of the USSR, because so many debates about the Soviet Union, at the time, were informed by Western debates and Western, sort of, paradigms and need to understand. And even the issue of empire, which we now, in a way, so converge, when I studied in the 1990s, in the UK, when I studied the USSR, we hardly used the word ‘empire’. If we used, it was only with some adjectives, like ‘affirmative empire’.

So, there were lots of, sort of, things we’ve learnt since the collapse of the USSR and what is striking about the rapid breakup – and I was someone who was, in the summer of 1991, going to the USSR, crossing from Slovakia to the USSR, there was a sleepy Czechoslovak Border Guard who asked, “Where are you going in a car?” We said, “To the USSR,” and he said, “What for?” And that was the sort of, perception that it was not worth studying, and as a, kind of, mythological punishment, you know, I’ve been studying the USSR for the – or legacies for the last 30 years, almost.

But what is perplexing about the USSR is the rapid collapse versus long-term consequences, this gradual, sort of, disintegration of mindsets, institutions and, like, cultural legacies. But also, the collapse allows us, or 30 years’ anniversary, allows us to revisit the nature of the USSR, almost forces us to revisit. And what was so interesting about the USSR, how, in a way, what a mixed bag it was, in terms of, basically, there is very little dispute that with all its scientific, technological, industrial and secular, sort of, processes, that it was created modern society. It created a modern society, perhaps with the partial exception of the Central Asian republics, so educated, industrialised. And we can see the legacy in almost every Western University. We have Russian and Ukrainian Mathematician, Biologist and Physicist, and yet, we also presume that the USSR, there was just the party and that was what was – the political system was different, but the state, in its essence, was modern. And perhaps the extractive capacity is actually one of the indicators of modern statehood, so the USSR was just believed to be another, sort of, variant of – sort of, modern Bavarian state. And yet, after the collapse, we realised that Soviet governance, without the party, was a kind of, house of cards. The speed with which its institutions collapsed was truly staggering, but also exposed its nature.

So, still, 30 years on, we are coming to terms with the legacies and especially two aspects, which are perhaps – were, at the time, most difficult to diagnose, but 30 years on, they really cripple and affect the progress, democratisation and development in all post-Soviet states, with the exception of the Baltic – former Baltic republics. And one of them is that – the fact that how the former superpower actually had such weak capacity, and what we mean by state capacity is, basically, the ability to implement any policies of the state’s choosing. And what we’ve seen is very comprehensive, but shallow, structures of the USSR, which basically, created almost overblown, basically, bloated, but ineffective, bureaucracy, which means that countries have not had capacity to develop policies to address the legacies of mis-development, ranging from, basically, excessive industrialisation, to regional decay and to promote, basically, economic, and ethnological development.

So, this is what is interesting, this very complex, bloated, yet ineffective bureaucracy, characterising the post-Soviet states, and what those – basically, the vacuum created was filled, as we know only too well, by informal networks and rules. They filled the vacuum, bringing into power this, sort of – both oligarchs and, this coterie of state officials come businesspeople. And it’s a common – because it’s so common across the post-Soviet states, it’s clear that it’s a legacy of this mis-development of the Soviet state.

The second aspect, and I will be – try to be very quick by now, is what Bill Bowring, I think, refers to as “legal nihilism”. Any traveller to the post-Soviet countries will struggle with this fact, that on the one hand, they have really developed legal systems, they have all these laws to implement and uphold and they have legal professionals, Lawyers, graduates, Judges, etc., an elaborate set of courts, but the servitude of the legal system to those in power, to the authorities, and the selective and instrumental expedient use of law to stay in power, is also a common appearance. So, despite the appearance of the façade of having, sort of, this attribute of modern statehood, what we’ve seen is this formal laws and formal legal system continuing to be used, and legal reforms have been some of the most neglected and underestimated and difficult reforms to conduct, and this is what we have in common.

But what we also, and perhaps now moving to a bit, you know, sort of, on the upbeat side, what we’ve seen, also, is generational change and the increasing differences, in terms of reforms, strategies and outcomes, meaning that if the two legacies are mentioned and some – and others make the post-Soviet label useful, those change – the different strategies and generational change, basically, increasingly renders it less and less relevant. And this is – makes the, perhaps, the point that societal change has been happened in different places at different time, but what we’ve seen from Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and now Belarus, this bottom-up demand for change to eradicate Soviet legacies. And this is something, perhaps, I’m the least likely person to quote. When Lenin dreamt of the revolution, Communist Revolution, he said, “We have to learn to dream,” and what is striking about the – all the post-Soviet countries, the extent to which those – the almost psychological aspects, hoping for change and hope for new life, and this is what differentiates. And this is very tangible, in terms of actually countries and leaders which try to capitalise on Soviet weaknesses, like Lukashenka, versus societies, we are striving for change.

So, this is – exit from post-Sovietism, or Sovietism, is really what differentiates. The demand for exit what differentiates the former Soviet republics. Obviously, the role of Russia here is very interesting. I’m happy to come back to this, but this diversity, in my view, which has really become so apparent in the last decade or so, renders the post-Soviet space – the post-Soviet label less and less useful, in terms of capturing the diversity of experiences despite the common legacies. And I will stop here, thank you.

Annette Bohr

Well, thank you very much, Kataryna, for this eloquent presentation, and I particularly appreciate you focusing on the legacies of the collapse of the USSR. And while we often discuss and write about the weak state capacity and the legal nihilism, even when legal reforms are carried out, they’re not able to be implemented, what struck me is that even 30 years on, these impediments are still in place. And it’d be interesting to have more research, more discussion, on why those impediments are so difficult to remove.

So, there’s a lot to discuss here and I’m going to move, now, to our panel discussion, so that Thomas, Serhii and Kataryna will all have more opportunity to share their thoughts and discuss with one another, and I’d like to begin this by posing a question to Serhii. You mentioned, of course, the crucial role of nationalism in your short presentation here, but in your book, “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union,” which was published in 2015 and gives a truly original and fresh perspective on the Soviet Union’s collapse, you argue that George Bush was desperate to preserve the Soviet Union and keep Gorbachev in power, and that it was, in essence, Ukraine that played the key role in the USSR’s demise. And I was hoping that you could just unpack a bit more for us the ways that Ukrainian independence was the central factor, in your view, in the collapse?

Serhii Plokhii

Well, thank you for this question. George H. W. Bush was surprised in November of 1991, when he heard from President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, that without Ukraine, there will be no Soviet Union, that Russia is not interested in the Soviet Union. And the explanation that Yeltsin gave to Bush was that without Ukraine, Russia would be outnumbered and outvoted by Muslim republics in the future possible union. And I, ‘til now, ‘til today, I basically, am struggling with trying to figure out whether that was really something important for Yeltsin’s thinking at that time, when he was trying to come up with an argument that he thought that Bush would understand.

But the point is that neither Gorbachev, nor Yeltsin, really imagined the future union without Ukraine and the reason for that was simple. That was the second largest Soviet republic, in terms of the population, in terms of the economic contribution to the coffers of the union and it was a Slavic republic, with this tradition that Russia considered to be common, certainly of the orthodox civilisation. So, Russia, in 1991, believed that the Soviet Union, without support of Ukraine, is too costly of undertaking to have a burden to carry for the Russian Federation, and that is the reason why, after Ukraine voted for independence, the Soviet Union fell apart.

So, Ukrainians didn’t vote for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The simple question was about what will happen to Ukraine? But voting for Ukrainian independence, they also decided the future of Russians, Kazakhs and almost every other nationality, with the exception of the Baltic States. So, that is the importance of Ukraine for the story and that importance continues into the – again, sorry, Kataryna, for using post-Soviet, too, there, but for the lack of better word, continues into the post-Soviet era. The re-integration project of President Putin without Ukraine is really in trouble, one way or another. So, you have to get the second largest player onboard to – for that project to be successful.

Annette Bohr

Thank you, Serhii. Yes, this post-Soviet problem is one that even touches us here at Chatham House with the Russia and Eurasia Programme. We have tried so many times to figure out what to name it. If you – Russia-Eurasia leaves out very key states. It’s a very difficult one. But Serhii, in noting the crucial role of nationalism in the fall of the USSR, which some would argue would make its demise inevitable, you noted in your initial presentation that, actually, had the Soviet Union not been so successful in World War Two and this specific role of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the role that that played, that the Soviet Union might’ve continued. And I was surprised to hear that you thought it might even, not simply delay its demise, but actually, that it might still have continued. And we know that Thomas also mentioned the question of inevitability, and so, I just wanted to pose to all of you, really, the question about this inevitability versus simply delay. I mean, it seems that over the past 30 years, much scholarship has agreed that the fall of the USSR was inevitable, but not all agree on why it collapsed when it did, whether the collapse was foreseeable, or whether or not there were certain circumstances that could held – have held it together for longer.

And so, I was just wondering, and let’s go to Thomas here first, because you specifically look at China, and if we look at the Chinese example, where the government remains in full control of the public sphere, for example, do you think that if the Communist Party had retained control of the media, as an example, might the Soviet Union have survived indefinitely? And then, I’d be interested in Kataryna and Serhii’s view on this question, as well.

Thomas Remington

The Chinese leaders certainly believe that by controlling all of public communications and actually re-imposing a far more restrictive ideological control over all of public culture, under Xi Jinping, that that and, of course, and avoiding any movement toward democratisation or political liberalisation, in fact, counter-movements, they think that they can preserve the regime. And that, I think, view – and remember, Xi Jinping’s absolutely pre-occupied, obsessed, even, with Gorbachev’s blunders, with the speed with which the Soviet regime collapsed. Do you remember a famous thing Xi said, “Nobody was a man; nobody stood up,” referring to the Soviet Party officials, “Nobody stood up to preserve the Union. Nobody stood up for the regime”? I think he’s terrified at that speed of the unravelling that we have referred to. So, he does believe that by maintaining the sinews of Communist Party rule, he can preserve that regime.

I would point, in my counterarguments, to the economy and the fundamental fact that a communist economy is based on the extraction, mobilisation and resources and their creation and the structure of rent distribution. Currently in the post-Soviet Russia, it’s rents by way of oligarchs, so things have changed, but there are certainly some continuities. In China, of course, they’re trying to rely on these quasi-state, quasi-private giant companies. I think the economy in China will still see, but I fundamentally don’t think that they generate enough dynamism on their own, without massive state planning, intervention and extraction.

So, much as I am fascinated with Serhii’s position that it was the acquisition of these Western territories that led to a reweighting of the balance of power within the territorial expanse of the Soviet state, I actually think that, to quote a different aspect of George Kennan’s thinking, “The regime itself had the seeds of its own collapse within it,” its own decay, it’s own fatal illness, and I root those in the relationship between economy and civil society.

Oh, one other point on nationalism, bringing up the theme that’s come up. Popular nationalism was a tremendously powerful force in the collapse process, as Serhii has mentioned, and we saw it in a number of republics, not just the Western ones, but in Central Asia, as well, and indeed, popular nationalism in Russia. I, myself, was on Manege Square in a demonstration on – as an observer, March 91, a pro-Yeltsin demonstration. “Hold on, derzhis’ za nas, hold on for us.” It was a manifestation of Russian national feeling that was anti-Soviet. So, that popular nationalism was clearly widespread. However, so was bureaucratic nationalism.

Officials throughout the Soviet Union saw an opportunity to grab a bit of power for themselves, same process in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, all ethno-federations. Those were the three communist states where they broke up all along these ethnic national lines and a major part of that, in addition to popular nationalism, was the bureaucratic opportunity, the opportunism of wanting to grab independence or sovereignty in order to claim a bit of power for themselves. That was part of the vociferous separatist tendency that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So, with China, we don’t have the ethnic national factor in anything like the same degree. We have Uyghur and Tibet and separatist feeling, but the strength of that is overwhelmingly overshadowed by the strength of a, kind of, a Han nationalism. So, China doesn’t grapple with the ethnic national factor to the degree that the three communist empires did, but they surely face the fundamental dilemma of modernising a communist economy.

Annette Bohr

Thank you very much, Thomas. I’d just like to remind the audience members that while we’re having this panel discussion, please do keep putting your questions in the Q&A box. And either Serhii or Kataryna, would you care to respond on the topic of either economic nationalism or ethnic nationalism to what Thomas just had to say? Serhii, I see you nodding your head and Kataryna, as well. Kataryna, perhaps we’ll go with you first.

Kataryna Wolczuk

Thank you. I will just follow on some of the points and perhaps diverge slightly from Serhii. So, please feel free to respond. And I think the issue that the USSR had was that that there was, sort of, this – in parts of the republics, there was this demand for change, but what was, ultimately, underpinning the collapse, was the institutional decay and the lost of, sort of, cadre commitment to the project. It was synesis and apathy and certain people, like Steven Solnick, who wrote about “stealing the state,” basically, documented that among the people, not only the Puchists in Moscow, how they struggled to present any kind of vision, but the younger generation of Soviet apparatchiks, how cynical they were, they actually did not believe what they were actually engaged in. And from that point of view, this – the Soviet collapse was, basically, accrue – facilitated, but also, hampered their project of building, sort of, new states and new nations.

So, we have this paradox that the weak institutions enabled the nationalist project to, basically, prevail and yet, at the same time, it crippled – it was, basically, the whole project and we see the consequences now. But they – also, what was apparent to me that the rapid collapse, even people who were not necessarily sympathetic or, indeed, very against the USSR, regret it in the way that it happened. And we know from our Brexit experience, the UK was integrated into the EU to a much lower degree than the Soviet republics. We had five years to prepare for Brexit and yet, there were, sort of, problems and we have fisheries and sausage wars, etc., etc. So, the actual, sort of, collapse, even though it may have been inevitable, created the problems, which reverberate through the region and beyond, ‘til now.

And the final point, just to chip in, in answer to Thomas’ points. I think given this apathy and cynicism amongst the apparatchik in the Soviet Union, I think China is different, because of the confusion legacy of this collectivist, but these also informal rules of, like, guanxi in China. There is a greater, sort of, commitment to delivering public goods than there was in the final days of the USSR. So, there was more to capitalise on, and China certainly have learned the lesson how to, basically, ensure that the Chinese communist system can prevent the Soviet scenario. Thank you.

Annette Bohr

And thank you, Kataryna. Serhii, before we move into the broader Q&A, would you care to comment on either Thomas’s or Kataryna’s remarks?

Serhii Plokhii

Sure, yes, yeah, absolutely. First of all, I would like to start with agreeing with Kataryna regarding the importance of ideology and I would say that ideological collapse was there before the collapse of the institutions, the collapse of empire, and I would trace it back to Nikita Khrushchev’s promise of arrival of communism in 20 years, by the year 1980. So – and we know that the – communism refused to come in 1980, yeah, and then in 91 and in 1982, and certainly, there is a lot of disillusion and cynicism in the 1980s. And it is an important bri – important factor in that entire story.

In terms of the inevitability of the Soviet collapse and what Kennan was saying about the seeds of the destruction of the regime, that we’re already there. Again, once I already painted myself as someone who is contrary and goes against Kennan, I’ll continue on that track and I will say that while no regime lasts forever, and collapse of any regime – actually, the Russians in that regime that bring this. So, that for me, explains zero about the Soviet Union and the Soviet collapse, because it is applicable to any country, to any regime.

Now, in terms of the – of timing of the whole thing, again, my argument is certainly not that the Soviet Union would continue forever. The argument was that probably they would have it still on the map today, and it is based partially on observing the circumstances of the collapse in 1991 when the Central Asian republics actually didn’t want to leave the Soviet Union. When the Central Asian republic was pushed out of the door once the Slavic republics in Belovezhskaya in December of 1991, decided to close the shop. And that doesn’t mean that there would be no issue with Central Asia republics today or ten years from now, because in the 1980s, this – people who started the Soviet Union, where they predicted there would be a problem, in terms of nationalism, that would – they were looking at Central Asia, because rise in population, because of a different culture, because of the importance of religious tradition. So, again, it’s not to say that the Central Asia would be forever part of the Soviet Union, but probably the collapse would not happen in the 1990s. So, maybe even today, again, we would still have an entity called the Soviet Union on the map.

Annette Bohr

Thank you very much, Serhii. I’m now conscious of all the very interesting questions that are – have been posted in the Q&A. So, I’m pleased now to open the conversation up to our audience more broadly. As I said, I can see a number of interesting questions that have come in, so please do keep posting your questions. Hopefully, we’ll get through them, but apologies if we don’t quite get there. And I would like to invite Mary Dejevsky, if that’s okay, to pose your question to one of the panellists, and if she could kindly – Mary, if you could kindly indicate to whom you would like to pose this question, that would be appreciated.

Mary Dejevsky

Can you hear me, first?

Annette Bohr

Yes, thank you, Mary, we can hear you.

Mary Dejevsky

Excellent. I’m sorry, I don’t have the camera on this computer. I think, really, to everybody, but I was the London Times Correspondent in Moscow at the time of the Soviet collapse, and I appreciate Thomas Remington’s mentioned Russia and Yeltsin, but I wonder whether you’re not all actually underestimating the importance of Yeltsin as a figurehead and the leader of the Russia that was rediscovering its history and identity, no less than Ukraine and the other republics were. And I think that, in the end, maybe Russia lacked the will to keep the Soviet Union together and there was also a, sort of, economic aspect too, which was that Russians, a lot of Russians, but especially in Moscow and what was becoming St Petersburg, were very aware that more money and resources were going out of Russia than were coming in from the republics. I mean, it’s a very, sort of, traditional empire attitude and, you know, you can see parallels, also, with the UK in this. So, I just think that maybe the Russia angle has been a bit underestimated. Thank you.

Annette Bohr

Who would care to take that first?

Thomas Remington

Could…

Annette Bohr

I see Thomas…

Thomas Remington

Could I…?

Annette Bohr

…on the screen.

Thomas Remington

Could I start and I’d love the other panellists’ perspectives, as well. These are such important points. As I see it, and of course, I spent a great deal of time in Russia in those years, as well, I interviewed an awful lot of folks, especially in the Parliament, it appears that what Yeltsin really wanted was a kind of, restoration of an empire. Remember the assumption, this has come out more recently, on the part of Yeltsin, in particular, with the Belovezh Agreement, was that this formation of a Commonwealth, this dissolution was temporary, and that the gravitational forces were so powerful that the republics would come back together. The economy was – could not function without there being some kind of a union structure. And so, it – a union would be rebuilt in a new way and Russia would dominate it.

Remember the [inaudible – 47:07] Agreement was all about renegotiating the terms of the union structure vis-à-vis the republics. Yeltsin wanted a powerful Russia. He wanted to renegotiate the terms of the Russian participation in the Empire. Any strong Russia, of course, would’ve made it impossible for other strong republics. The USSR was a balance wheel against a powerful Russia. So, popular as Yeltsin was, as brilliant in those years as a Politician he was, there was a fundamental incompatibility between a strong Russia and a viable USSR. That was, I think, built into the structure, a structural legacy that I think Lenin and Stalin understood.

With respect to the point about the net resource flow between Russia and other republics, of course, the most careful economic reconstructions would agree with you that there was a net outflow if you use prices which, in any way, reflect world prices based on cost for the resources. On the other hand, there was nobody, nobody, in other republics who would’ve said that Russia was subsidising their economy. It was a universal view outside the Russian Republic that Russia was bleeding them dry via the USSR, as a transfer redistributive mechanism. So, whatever the reality, the reality was shrouded in the lack of any realism about prices. Again, I say it goes back to the economy. Nobody actually thought that the Union was benefitting them, so, perceptions were immensely powerful in driving popular nationalism and, no less, bureaucratic nationalism.

Annette Bohr

Thank you. Serhii and Kataryna, perhaps you would like to respond, as well. I’d just like to point out that given that there are quite a few questions and not that much time remaining, if we could keep our answers fairly brief at this point. Serhii, Kataryna, would you like to comment?

Serhii Plokhii

Sure.

Kataryna Wolczuk

Certainly.

Serhii Plokhii

Definitely, I’ll be happy. First of all, I completely agree with, really, everything that Tom just said. I think this is an excellent analysis. I want just to add to that that Yeltsin’s old relationship to Russia versus the Soviet Union is not something that was set in stone in 89 or 90. It was changing, it was the process, that the love affair with Russia for Yeltsin and the, you know, liberal supporters of his started when they realised that they don’t have enough votes in the old Union Parliament. That they were outvoted by the Central Asia – representatives from the Central Asian republics and other republics, as well. And they found the Russian Parliament to be the – much more agreeable in a sense of coming to power and introducing the reforms that they wanted to introduce. The Russian Parliament then elected Yeltsin as its head.

So, that’s where, institutionally, Russia and liberalism came together, and the relationship was never easy. Again, Russia led the economic collapse of the Soviet Union by withdrawing from that common economic sphere and financial sphere. In that sense, the collapse is like the collapse of any other empire. Again, let’s think about Britain in that sense and again, calculation that the empire is not paying off anymore, that it actually – you have to spend more that you – than you get back from the colonies, peripheries, from the republics, whatever.

So, I – again, I’ll conclude with the same, again, agreement – agreeing with Tom about the renegotiation of relationship between Russia and the post-Soviet space, not giving up on the leading role, but looking for the way in which the – that dominance of this – of the Soviet sphere would cost less to Russia, per se. So, that was the driving force of Yeltsin’s thinking and people around him thinking in 91, 92, 93.

Annette Bohr

Oh, and Kataryna, are you fine, or would you have something to add to this?

Kataryna Wolczuk

Thank you. I’ll just – this allows us to bring energy into the equation, into the economic pot. And I think what is interesting that indeed, a lack of real understanding of pricing and, basically, Western principles of market economy, were striking, even in the final days of the USSR. And what was little appreciated at the time, and I think that this was important, that almost all the republics, apart from the, perhaps, Central Asian, believe that they were exploited by Moscow. So, in Ukraine it was this belief that if Ukraine just leaves the USSR, by default, it will be 10% richer. And what was not appreciated that in fact, that indeed, resources flew out of Russia, the Russian Republic and it was energy. Siberian resources were used to subsidise and, basically, prop up and promote development, heavy duty industrialisation, in all – almost all republics.

And what is interesting, that energy has become such a double-edged sword, that it’s – we have Soviet republics, which can be divided into energy rich, like Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and energy poor, and it’s the energy poor post-Soviet states which have embraced reforms and are seeking to, basically, to engage with the West to promote modernisation and reforms. So, the USSR was really about subsidising via energy subsidies, using Russian energy resources to subsidise other republics. This created problems in the long-term and yet, when – 30 years on, the net result is that being energy rich, it’s almost a recipe for authoritarianism and mis-development, the energy curse. So, paradoxically, this is a complex story of energy, which is, from my point of view, central to the way the USSR function and how it now still disintegrates.

Annette Bohr

Yeah, that’s fascinating, Kataryna. Thank you very much. There’s definitely much more to discuss in that remark. But I’m conscious of the fact that we’ve not yet directly addressed the ways that Russia is able to exert pressure and influence on former Soviet states as a result of – it’s one of the legacies of the USSR. And while Russia is certainly not going to reconstitute the USSR, Moscow has many tools at its disposal to influence the foreign policy trajectories, political, economic, social trajectories, of its neighbours. Sometimes it intervenes directly, as we’ve seen Ukraine and Georgia. Sometimes it seeks to maintain frozen territorial conflicts. It’s also creating new regional organisations. So, in light of this, I would like to invite Oricia Lutsevich to read out her question, please and, also, to note to whom she would like to answer it. Oricia, are you with us?

Oricia Lutsevich

Okay, good afternoon, everybody. I’m Oricia, I run the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House. It’s a pleasure to have this historical overview of what I believe are still trends that are driving today’s developments, especially in Ukraine, and in Moldova for the same matter, especially Kataryna’s point on gas and recent gas deals over there. But my question would be to Professor Plokhii, to see whether there’s any lessons from history that we could drive from that Cold War containment of Russia and USSR. If there’s anything applicable to today that you can draw from history, especially in such dangerous times as we are talking about the new escalation on Ukrainian-Russian warfront. Thank you so much.

Serhii Plokhii

Yeah, thank you. May I go ahead, yeah, Annette? Do I have your…?

Annette Bohr

Yes.

Serhii Plokhii

Okay, good.

Annette Bohr

Absolutely.

Serhii Plokhii

Sure.

Annette Bohr

Please go ahead, Serhii.

Serhii Plokhii

Well, yeah, Oricia, thank you very much for this question, and one thing that I want to say is that we have something that is – reminds us about the Cold War is this redefinition of what Eastern Europe is. What used to be Eastern Europe during the Cold War is now – fashions itself as Central Europe and Northern Europe. But the term didn’t disappear and so, the former Western republics of the Soviet Union are now taking on this identity and this name. And like during the Cold War, they become the battleground, to a degree, between the West and the – Russia, or the government centred in Moscow.

There are differences, as well, and differences are that there is at least a three-way Cold War happening now, with China, of course, being a major factor. And another change that I want to put emphasis on is that the new Eastern Europe, unlike the old Eastern Europe, has not been occupied by the either Soviet or the Russian forces or the Army. So – and in that sense, actually, the new Eastern Europe is in a different place and in that sense, also, that the policies have to be different and the support for the independence of those states actually has to be much, much stronger than it was. The form of the support that was offered during the Cold War to the old Eastern Europe and the radio would be encouraging the Hungarians to rise in their revolt in 1956, but then nothing would happened after that. So, I think that’s something that we are now in a different place, and you should act differently. So, that’s maybe one of the lessons.

Annette Bohr

Thank you very much, Serhii. In the interests of time, since we only have a few minutes remaining, although we are able to extend for just a few minutes over, past 1 o’clock, I’d like to read out the questions posed by Caroline Usher and Andrew Alchin. So – and if any of the panellists would like – would care to answer these, please do indicate so. So, Caroline Usher says, “If the West has misunderstood the nature of the USSR as an empire, does this failure impact current policy and engagement?” While Andrew Alchin asks – he wonders if “this discussion isn’t academic, in that President Putin is clearly determined to restore the Soviet Union, at least territorially, as soon as possible, and hence, nullify the collapse of the Soviet Union.” So, would – which of our panellists would care to answer this? So, Kataryna, I see your hand.

Kataryna Wolczuk

Thank you. They are very interesting questions and it’s very easy to extrapolate from the past, from the USSR, on what we see now, in terms of Moscow’s policy towards the post-Soviet states. And I think that’s perhaps an – too easy to think that it’s about restoration of the USSR. The ideological and the command economy system was fundamental in the party. So, I think without that ideological, sort of, superstructure, it’s very difficult to see how and what could be offered, in terms of an integration agenda. Moscow – Putin is not about restoring the USSR. It’s about asserting hegemony. We know from Afghanistan, we know from Kosovo, or – we know, basically, that domination and control by military means is very costly and ineffective, and Afghanistan really brings this message.

So, it is about creating and sustaining Russia friendly regimes, without the onerous cost of governing them, and from that point of view, Russia’s policy is interesting, because it’s not really imperial, but it has elements of it. And what – I think I’m in the camp that it’s really the political regime in Russia which determines Russia policy towards the post-Soviet states. And I think what Lev Gudkov, a Russian Sociologist’s pointed out, the importance of the enemy, the image of enemy and triggering those, sort of, almost archaic fears and phobias in Russian society about encroachment, and from the West, as a governing strategy and not – the Putin regime not having a positive agenda, neither for Russia itself, nor for any post-Soviet republics. And basically, without the positive agenda, what is – the toolbox relies on liberties of power, energy diplomacy, frozen conflicts and so on.

And this – the final contribution from me is just about this Western policy. It’s so interesting that the Cold War mindset us versus Russia, the West versus Russia, 30 years on, and when we had 15 post-Soviet states, still has – there is this mindset of the other republics, post-Soviet republics, being a battleground between Russia and the West, and denying them subjectivity in this process. So, basically, arguments that if we give what Putin wants in Ukraine, all is going to be fine, without any realisation that times have moved on and we are talking about the countries and not objects on a chessboard.

Annette Bohr

Thank you, Kataryna. Thomas and Serhii, it would be wonderful if you could give some brief concluding remarks before we end the session. Tom, perhaps you would like to go first.

Thomas Remington

Just to say I agree entirely with Kataryna said, I – with respect to Vladimir Putin’s goals, and that is my understanding of his view, and I’m very glad she stressed the ideological element. So, remember her – to return to Kennan, he – his idea after the war was to – the Soviets were “trying to create a glassy and Eastern Europe that is a band of states that would not be politically aligned with the West, not be a part of a security threat,” and my guess is Putin would like friendly countries that he doesn’t have to govern. But of course, he’s applying more than that. He’s applying enormous pressure, disruption of every kind, enormous military pressure on Ukraine’s borders, in particular, and cyber disruption of every kind. So, it’s a far more active and destructive form of meddling, for sure. But ultimately, I think Kataryna’s right, I doubt Putin actually wants to govern those spaces.

Annette Bohr

Thank you, and Serhii, what are your comments?

Serhii Plokhii

Yeah, yes, I agree with what was said and I see both continuity, in terms of Putin’s policy today, but also differences. And continuity is that he is basically committed to the choice that was made by Yeltsin and people around him in 1991, that it’s much cheaper to control the former imperial space without governing it, and that was the principal choice of 1991 that Yeltsin made.

What is definitely new is that the period when Yeltsin believed that through, you know, energy supplies and economic power, Russia could keep that region under control, or the region – the countries would come to Russia, begging, one way or another, that period is over. That didn’t happen and Putin is using military force, something that Yeltsin either was not willing to do or was not able to do, and that is – that puts us in a very dangerous place in which we are today. Again, no principal change, in terms of what Russia’s goals are, but the means, the toolbox, as Kataryna was saying, changed, and again, that is very, very disturbing.

Annette Bohr

Serhii, thank you very much for that. It’s a very sober, yet apt, way to end this discussion. Continuity in change, continuity in terms of continuing to control the former imperial state without governing it, but yet, change in the sense of military force becoming so pre-eminent in contrast to his predecessor, Yeltsin.

So, with that, our session has come to an end and I – my sincere apologies to those who have asked questions that I’ve not been able to get to. I hope you all agree that it’s been a lively and interesting discussion and it’s been wonderful to hear different perspectives. And so, my sincere thanks goes to Kataryna, Serhii and Tom for your time and contributions, and thank you to our audience, as well, for your questions. A final reminder that the session has been recorded, so you can catch up on Chatham House’s YouTube channel if you’ve missed anything. Sincere thanks, again, to our panellists and audience and until we meet again.

Thomas Remington

Thank you.

Serhii Plokhii

Thank you. Thank you, bye.

Kataryna Wolczuk

Thank you.