The Role of the National Problem in the Disintegration of the Soviet Union

‘The Soviet Union, like the United States, was a country established to serve and promote a political idea, not to be a state for nations. The United States was founded in order to be a modern democratic polity; the Soviet Union in order to promote Marxism-Leninism. The Soviet Union thus began as a ‘modern,’ post-imperialist state. The cement holding the state together was a compound of ideology, a hierarchical, disciplinary party, charismatic leadership, and external treats. [In the 80s] this cement was crumbling… [The Soviet] state had lost its raison d’être and the people turned to the traditional and conventional basis of the state – that is, the nation. But since this was a multinational state – and unlike the multiethnic United States, most peoples in the USSR have distinct languages and territories of their own – [they returned to them to establish independent states.]’1