40 images Created 19 Jul 2022
ARCHIVE FEATURE: Red - 1991 The Collapse of the USSR
In 1991 following decades of Cold War isolation and embargo, Soviet economies were crumbling and inflation was
rampant making the cost of essential commodities and daily life untenable for average citizens in the Soviet Union. In an attempt to revive the Soviet economy, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost and
Perestroika reform policies allowed Western brands and businesses such as McDonald’s and Lancôme (businesses
that are now closing their operations) to begin operating in Russia. Many Russians flocked to the novelty of the
Western brands, but few could actually afford to purchase Western commodities, spending most of their time
waiting in bread lines and searching for inexpensive food items in street markets. The Soviet Union had reached a
tipping point and the tentative reforms only opened a flood gate of popular desire for change, freedom and
democracy. After an initial all-Soviet coal miner strike in July 1989, in early March 1991 coal miners in the Donbas region
of eastern Ukraine conducted a large-scale work stoppage, however this time they boldly demanded Gorbachev’s
resignation, the dismantling of the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet, and the transfer of
mines and their assets to respective republican governments, recognizing that demands for wage increases or
better working conditions would only be wiped out by inflation and meaningless without systemic change. At the end of that year, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly (90%) for independence, effectively putting an end to all hopes that the Soviet Union could remain intact.
Vladimir Putin is a product of this time period – the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has built his power on Russian nationalism and it is no secret that he has long had the ambition to establish a kind of Russian-centric empire among the former Soviet republics with himself as a tsar-like leader to counter the military, political and economic influence of NATO, the EU and the U.S. in the region and the world. This is, at least in part, why he was willing to invade Ukraine at all costs to prevent the country from pursuing closer ties with the West. Regardless of the war's outcome, Vladimir Putin’s colossal miscalculation will make him an international pariah and will once again isolate Russia from the rest of the world under crippling economic sanctions, much like the Russia of 1991.
rampant making the cost of essential commodities and daily life untenable for average citizens in the Soviet Union. In an attempt to revive the Soviet economy, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost and
Perestroika reform policies allowed Western brands and businesses such as McDonald’s and Lancôme (businesses
that are now closing their operations) to begin operating in Russia. Many Russians flocked to the novelty of the
Western brands, but few could actually afford to purchase Western commodities, spending most of their time
waiting in bread lines and searching for inexpensive food items in street markets. The Soviet Union had reached a
tipping point and the tentative reforms only opened a flood gate of popular desire for change, freedom and
democracy. After an initial all-Soviet coal miner strike in July 1989, in early March 1991 coal miners in the Donbas region
of eastern Ukraine conducted a large-scale work stoppage, however this time they boldly demanded Gorbachev’s
resignation, the dismantling of the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet, and the transfer of
mines and their assets to respective republican governments, recognizing that demands for wage increases or
better working conditions would only be wiped out by inflation and meaningless without systemic change. At the end of that year, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly (90%) for independence, effectively putting an end to all hopes that the Soviet Union could remain intact.
Vladimir Putin is a product of this time period – the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has built his power on Russian nationalism and it is no secret that he has long had the ambition to establish a kind of Russian-centric empire among the former Soviet republics with himself as a tsar-like leader to counter the military, political and economic influence of NATO, the EU and the U.S. in the region and the world. This is, at least in part, why he was willing to invade Ukraine at all costs to prevent the country from pursuing closer ties with the West. Regardless of the war's outcome, Vladimir Putin’s colossal miscalculation will make him an international pariah and will once again isolate Russia from the rest of the world under crippling economic sanctions, much like the Russia of 1991.
