With eastern Europe now free of communist rule, attention turned to the Soviet Union. In spring 1990, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (unwilling and resentful Soviet satellites since Stalin’s annexation at the start of the Second World War) all declared themselves independent. Gorbachev, not wanting to see the break-up of the union, resisted, even cutting gas and oil supplies, but was soon forced to relent. In Russia itself demonstrations in Moscow called for the end of one-party rule. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin, recently elected mayor of Moscow, was also elected president of the Russian Federation, stating that Russian legality took precedence over the Soviet Union’s. Yeltsin was determined to finish off the Communist Party, and with it the Soviet Union.
In July and August, the Soviet republics including the Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan announced their separation from the union. Gorbachev, recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and lauded abroad, became under increasing pressure at home. In October, the Soviet Union caved in and allowed its people the freedom to worship and granted the media liberty from state control.
In January 1991, Moscow tried to seize back control of the Baltic states. Fourteen people were killed in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and five more in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Seeing this return to Soviet bullyboy tactics, George Bush, Senior, protested but was brusquely rebuffed by Moscow. Gorbachev defended the crackdown but, realizing that no one except the Kremlin hardliners would tolerate the continuation of such a policy, called a halt.
In June 1991 the last Soviet tanks left eastern Europe and shortly afterwards the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.
On 19 August 1991, the remaining hardliners within the Kremlin decided that Gorbachev was no longer the man to lead the Communist Party. If they wanted to save both the party and the Soviet Union, it was time to act. Gorbachev, on holiday on the Black Sea, was declared too ill to perform his duties and placed under house arrest. The hardliners imposed emergency rule but their coup lacked the support to succeed. Outside the White House, home to the new Russian parliament, Yeltsin stood on top of a tank (pictured below) declaring the coup illegal and urging people not to support it. The coup duly failed. Gorbachev returned to Moscow hoping to salvage the situation and save the Communist Party just as Yeltsin was dissolving it. On live television Gorbachev and Yeltsin argued, and when Yeltsin exposed members of Gorbachev’s government as being behind the coup, Gorbachev, humiliated, was finished.
Boris Yeltsin, speaking outside the Moscow White House, 19 August 1991
www.kremlin.ru
On 8 December 1991, Yeltsin, on behalf of Russia and with other former Soviet republics, formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CIS. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had ceased to exist. On Christmas Day the hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time as Gorbachev delivered his farewell speech: ‘The threat of a world war is no more.’
The Cold War was at an end.