Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union

by Vladislav M. Zubok

History is never a sequence of inevitabilities, and the Soviet demise was no exception: it was full of contingencies. Unpredictability and uncertainty are fundamental features of human, state, and world affairs. Social movements and ideological currents are not rational, and political wills propel history in unexpected directions. Finally, there are accidents that have huge consequences.

It was also surprising to see how many historical actors radically changed their views within a few years, influenced by political passions, fears, ideological illusions or delusions, and personal ambitions. Those changes provided an unmistakable sign of revolutionary times.

Experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps towards reform . . . Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inevitable become intolerable once the idea of escape from them is suggested. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime and the Revolution, 1856