On December 26, 1991, the Supreme House of Soviet Republics of the USSR held its last meeting and declared that the Existence of the USSR had ceased, that the USSR had officially disintegrated, and that the Russian Federation had become the sole successor state of the USSR. This is a major historical event of the twentieth century. The collapse of the Soviet Union also made waves around the world.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was divided into fifteen countries. This means that everything that was originally shared must be redivided. What is even more difficult is how should military forces be divided? In the end, even Yeltsin could not control it.
The crisis was underway and the Soviet Union officially disintegrated
Frozen three feet, not a day's cold. Such a big event as the collapse of the Soviet Union was not decided overnight. Before the official dissolution, countless hidden crises had been exposed.
Twenty-nine years ago, the huge Soviet Union collapsed and split into 15 countries: East Slavic, Baltic, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, and Moldova. Opinions differ as to the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
What is puzzling is that there was neither an invasion nor an internal armed struggle; although there were less than three days of the August 19 incident, there was no more struggle or fighting, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, no objection from the Party, no resistance from the State, no reaction from the people, and everything was proceeding quietly. Why, exactly?
The root of the problem lies in the fact that the republics of the chosen republic system are basically composed of one ethnic group, that is to say, the criteria for the division of the 15 republics are not economic or geographical but mainly ethnic, and such a cultural ethnic group is a union republic, making ethnic groups and politics highly integrated. This laid the groundwork for future disintegration.
In a word, many of the Soviet government's policies were not popular at all, and after less than eighty years, the people's hearts and minds were finally lost and completely destroyed.
By 1991, the long-term intensification of contradictions could no longer be reconciled, and in the end it could only be dissolved. However, even if the gang is broken, there are still a lot of contradictions to deal with. After all, after the split, many common things need to be rationally distributed and resolved.
With the split of the powerful army, Yeltsin had no choice
The Soviet Red Army, founded by Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Frunze and others, is the full name of the Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which is the collective name of the Soviet Union's land-based and aviation armed forces from 1917 to 1945. In World War II the number reached its peak, with more than eleven million officers and soldiers.
As we all know, the Soviet Union suffered unprecedented shock and destruction during World War II. As for why the Soviet Union dared to challenge the United States after the end of World War II? Its greatest advantage and capital was that it had a fierce Soviet Red Army.
Take, for example, Soviet military data from 1988, when the total Soviet army strength reached 5.13 million without the inclusion of internal guard units and militias.
Among them, the Army has 1.99 million, equipped with 53,000 main battle tanks, 63,000 armored combat vehicles, 29,000 artillery pieces, and about 1,570 ground-to-ground missile launchers. The navy is slightly smaller, with only 451,000 people, more than 300 submarines of various types, and 193 surface combat ships.
The air force is also not much, with a total number of about 553,000, but it is equipped with 752 medium- and long-range bombers, fighters, fighter bombers and 5167 strikers. Finally, the trump card in the hands of the Soviet Union, the Strategic Rocket Force, which has 298,000 people, but has 1,398 intercontinental missiles and 1,690 strategic combat aircraft.
After the end of the civil war, the Red Army underwent a comprehensive military reform between 1924 and 1925, gradually building a regularized proletarian army.
However, in the 1990s, after the formal collapse of the Soviet Union, the retention of this army became a major problem.
In making his decision at the beginning, Yeltsin deliberately kept the army as a whole, lest it weaken its strength. However, in the case of a split into fifteen countries, such an approach is clearly unsupported. Even if Yeltsin had intended to do so, he could not control it.
After many consultations and resolutions, a more acceptable approach was finally reached. The former Soviet army was mainly inherited by Russia, and the rest of the points were soupy and watery. Nominally divided according to the countries where Soviet troops were stationed, Russia had already deployed to take over Soviet troops long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when soviet troops were basically paid by Russians. Moreover, russians made up the vast majority of the Soviet officer corps.
In this way, it is certain that Russia has taken over more than 95% of the military, and when the three Baltic countries joined NATO, Russian officers once ridiculed it, saying, "At most, add a motorized company to NATO." From this, we can imagine the completeness of the Russian takeover. In addition, the weapons to which the army belongs have also been divided to a certain extent. Although there are many countries, they are ultimately distributed by the size of the country.
But for Yeltsin, there was a slight difference from a complete takeover. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia took the greatest advantage. Because of its strong strength, even the ownership of this army is basically the majority.
brief summary
The collapse of the Soviet Union represented the end of the Cold War and bipolar pattern that lasted for nearly half a century, with many of the European sovereign states originally controlled by the Soviet Union gaining real diplomatic autonomy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the United States becoming the world's only superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the Soviet Union, the consequences would take a long time to digest.
Reference: The Tragedy of the Great Powers: Causes and Consequences of the Collapse of the Soviet Union