Essential Question

The Soviet Union's collapse on December 26th 1991 had many contributing factors
domestic and international, but the main causes were domestic such as the effect of freedom of
speech and expression, conflicting internal political pressure, and the uprisings for independence
throughout the Soviet Union. In the 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev introduced Glasnost and
Perestroika which introduced more democratic elements into Soviet policies such as freedom of
speech and expression. For the first time in ages the Soviet people could freely speak about their
conditions, thoughts and opinions on how their government ran the country. As a direct
consequence of this movements appeared in the Soviet Union in an attempt to change the
government that had ruled for so long. Another cause was the internal political pressure in the
Soviet Union with groups such as the failed coup of the Russian political system in an attempt to
put a more Stalinist government in place. During this time leader of the Russian Soviet
Federative Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin was the main opposition. He emerged as a popular,
non-communist, politician. When Gorbachev returned from his enforced internal exile, Yeltsin
was clearly the more powerful man in the USSR. He used this power to ban the Communist
Party once and for all. The final contributing cause was the uprisings for independence all
throughout the Soviet Union in the Baltic States and the Caucus area, such as violent uprisings in
Lithuania and Latvia. The uprisings that took place actually resulted in many states being granted
independence from the Soviet Union leading to other states following the same path in the quest
for independence. All of these are the main reasons that the Soviet Union fell apart in this time
period, not because of the success they were having internationally but the failures and conflicts
occurring on their own soil.