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**Gasfghj** · 03-16-2010, 09:20 AM

Yes, that's all a reasonable assessment - it was frankly unimaginable that any of the republics could have safely walked away (or might even have wanted to) even as late as the late 1980s.

The Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians might disagree with that.

I wouldn't put much importance on the language of the Soviet Constitution. It was, for the most part, an irrelevant piece of propaganda. Regardless of its language, no Soviet subject believed it protected anyone's rights or created any kind of equality among the ethnicities that made up the USSR. The glue that held the Soviet Union together was the threat of coercive force, not the useless Soviet constitution.

For that reason, the moment the Kremlin's will to use force was shaken, the Soviet Union vaporized. Soviet Central Asia left for the reasons cited. The Baltics left because of the betrayal they felt from their incorporation into the USSR. The Caucasian republics left because a weak Kremlin couldn't play its role as regional hegemon.

03-16-2010, 09:20 AM	#12
Gasfghj Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 491 Senior Member	Yes, that's all a reasonable assessment - it was frankly unimaginable that any of the republics could have safely walked away (or might even have wanted to) even as late as the late 1980s. The Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians might disagree with that. I wouldn't put much importance on the language of the Soviet Constitution. It was, for the most part, an irrelevant piece of propaganda. Regardless of its language, no Soviet subject believed it protected anyone's rights or created any kind of equality among the ethnicities that made up the USSR. The glue that held the Soviet Union together was the threat of coercive force, not the useless Soviet constitution. For that reason, the moment the Kremlin's will to use force was shaken, the Soviet Union vaporized. Soviet Central Asia left for the reasons cited. The Baltics left because of the betrayal they felt from their incorporation into the USSR. The Caucasian republics left because a weak Kremlin couldn't play its role as regional hegemon.
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