On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared that the Soviet Union had "ceased to exist." Twenty-five years later, we look back on some key milestones -- inside and outside the Soviet Union – on the road to its collapse.
End Of An Empire
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January 1991: As Lithuanians clamor for independence, Gorbachev flatly refuses to allow the Baltic states to secede from the U.S.S.R. Tensions rise and armor rolls into Vilnius, including a crack KGB fighting squad whose presence is secret. Thirteen civilians are killed, one dies of a heart attack, and a KGB operative is killed by friendly fire. A dark joke of the time notes that Gorbachev’s "perestroika" (restructuring) is turning into "perestrelka" (a shootout).
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August 1991: In Moscow, the specter of civil war looms after KGB and army hard-liners stage a coup aimed at halting the unraveling of Soviet power. Gorbachev is detained while on holiday in Crimea and tanks roll in to surround the White House parliament building with Yeltsin inside. After people pour onto the streets to resist, the soldiers waver and the coup fails. With Yeltsin ascendant, Gorbachev appears out of touch when he returns to Moscow using triumphant communist language.
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December 1991: Gorbachev resigns as president of a country that has ceased to exist. The 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner, always more popular with the Western public than his own, believed in communism to the end, but the reforms he set rolling ended up spinning out of his control.