Open any American history textbook. Who overthrew the Soviet Union? The United States, of course. Who won the Cold War? Also the States. And all these honest authors forget to write about one thing only. In fact, the US authorities did everything possible to save the USSR ...
In mid-1991, the Soviet Union was wavering, but its fate was far from a foregone conclusion. At that time, the leader of the democratic movement was Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian federal republic. However, George Bush did not support him at all. He was in favor of the representative of the old order, Mikhail Gorbachev. And that's not all.
In the countries that made up the USSR, the feeling of independence grew. The Americans, meanwhile ... persuaded their inhabitants that instead of demanding freedom, they should all stay in the Soviet empire. Why?
Although Boris Yeltsin was a spokesman for democratic reforms in Russia, he did not enjoy American support (photo:Kremlin.ru, CC BY 3.0).
George Bush's cowardice
The US attitude to these events is described by Serhii Plokha in the book "The Last Empire". He used recently declassified documents presidential administration of George Bush. A new picture of his policy in the last days of the USSR emerges from them. As one American diplomat wrote:
I don't think that in the summer of 1991 anyone on the American side assumed the real possibility of a collapse of the Soviet Union. (...) we were concerned that if we gave open support to nationalist movements, violence would break out, which could mean losing control of nuclear weapons in some republics.
Fear of "Yugoslavia with nukes" , into which the Soviet Union was to transform in the event of its collapse, therefore, set the direction of American policy.
On August 1, 1991, the American president spoke in the parliament of Ukraine and said there that Freedom is not the same as independence . He also warned against propagators of suicidal nationalism based on ethnic hatred .
The article was based on the book by Serhiy Płochij entitled "The Last Empire. The history of the collapse of the Soviet Union ”(Znak Horyzont 2015).
The message was clear:the US supported Gorbachev and his reforms, but opposed the collapse of the USSR and the independence aspirations of the republics that made it up. This speech caused great dissatisfaction with the Ukrainian democrats and the Ukrainian minority in the United States. New York Times columnist he called them outright cowardly.
The USA goes with the flow
Admittedly, in the summer of 1991 everything seemed to be going the way for George Bush and his administration. On March 17, 1991, a referendum was held in which 76.4% of the USSR's population (excluding the Baltic States, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova) considered it necessary to keep the Union alive .
In July, Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the USSR, reached an agreement on ... replacing one word. The union of the socialist republics was to be replaced by the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
Mikhail Gorbachev was highly trusted by George Bush. In the photo, both presidents sign a treaty to stop the production of chemical weapons and start destroying their stocks (photo:George Bush Presidential Library, ID:P13385-08; public domain).
It was supposed to be a federation of countries with broad autonomy, but a common currency, army and foreign policy. The signing of the new union treaty is scheduled for August 20.
Everything broke down when on the night of August 18-19 in Moscow there was an attempted coup in which hardline communists tried to stop democratic reforms and give autonomy to the union republics.
The coup failed, but it greatly weakened Gorbachev's position, while strengthening Yeltsin. It also led to the liquidation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence from Ukraine, and then Belarus and the Central Asian republics (we wrote more about it in our other article) . Meanwhile, the US was actually just… watching the situation.
Mainly authors of US foreign policy in 1991. In addition to George Bush, among others his Personal Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State James Baker, Secretary of Defense Richard "Dick" Cheney and Scowcroft's Deputy Robert Gates (Photo:National Archives and Records Administration, id. 186429, public domain).
As Serhii Plokhy writes in "The Last Empire":
The White House was still only reacting to the rapidly changing situation. (...) The president (...) and his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft feared that the excessive activity of the United States could lead to another coup .
American conspiracy? Oh no!
The US did not have a clear strategy for the development of the situation in the USSR. When Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney urged active efforts to disintegrate the Soviet empire , met with opposition from the rest of the administration, including the president. All the Americans decided to do was to recognize the independence of the Baltic republics, and they did so with fears that the central power in the Union would be weakened. It was also decided to continue talks with Gorbachev on further reduction of nuclear arsenals.
In November, on the eve of the Ukrainian referendum on independence, the views of opponents of efforts to break up the USSR still dominated the White House. It was only pressure from Congress, the press, Richard Cheney and the Ukrainian minority in the US that Bush decided to recognize Ukraine's independence if its people voted for it.
This did not mean, however, that the US had come to terms with the end of the USSR . On November 30, Bush expressed his hope in an interview with Gorbachev that Ukraine's international recognition would persuade her to return to talks on a new union treaty. This was, of course, wishful thinking, having nothing to do with reality
90% of Ukrainians supported the independence of their country. And the firm attitude of the authorities in Kiev decided about the final dissolution of the USSR. It took place on December 8, 1991 in Wiskula in the Białowieża Primeval Forest. Americans were only distant observers of these events. The collapse of the USSR was therefore not the result of a CIA plot as some Russians still believe, which is also expressed in the most important Russian media.
The fate of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was the main concern of the American administration (photo:National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office Photo Library, public domain).
The sin of pride
Admittedly, the American fears were not entirely unfounded. Wars broke out in Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, and Central Asian Tajikistan. Russia's timid threats to revise its borders with Ukraine in 1991 come true before our very eyes.
For now, however, everything seemed to be successful for the US. The post-Soviet republics, with the exception of Russia, were to remain nuclear-weapon-free. The nuclear arsenal of the USSR was safe, there was no great war on the ruins of the Soviet empire, but only local conflicts.
In this situation, preparing for the elections, George Bush decided to use the break-up of his great rival for political purposes . On January 28, 1992, the US President delivered the traditional State of the State address and said: With God's help, America won the Cold War. (…) The Cold War didn't just end, it was won .
The article was based on the book by Serhiy Płochij entitled "The Last Empire. The history of the collapse of the Soviet Union ”(Znak Horyzont 2015).
The US won the conviction that there was only one major power left in the world, namely the United States. Bush announced a fight for freedom around the world in the name of the safety of American children. And he explained that he would not hesitate to use the army: Here is an irrefutable fact:strength as a means of securing peace is not a sin ; isolationism as a security measure is not a virtue.
The whole world has seen these views put into practice in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and, more recently, Libya. However, one can argue about whether Bush's great plans really brought the "victory of peace" or rather destabilized the modern world.
Source:
Serhii Plokhy, The Last Empire. Fall Story the Soviet Union , Znak Horyzont, Krakow 2015.