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Strange article, it does not even mention that parts of the USSR were countries occupied before WW II and that they were never happy about it. Perestroika and g

Strange article, it does not even mention that parts of the USSR were countries occupied before WW II and that they were never happy about it. Perestroika and glasnost gave some room to breathe for their independence movements which gained strength in in late 1980ies. I am still amazed how we were able to pull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way off. My country (Lithuania) declared independance back in March 1990, Latvia did the same in May, and Estonia was well on its way—that's more than a year befor August 1991 happen. And by the August events we already had January 1991 so I highly highly doubt there was a real chance for USSR to survive and continue business as usual.

vkazanov 11y ago
Well... "Not happy" - depends on who you ask in Lithuania. My great grandmother was killed by nationalists near Zarasai. So her daughter - my grandmother - was brought up by relatives in Kaunas, and understandably never had any sympathies for the pre-war Lithuanian state and people missing it. She's still alive, by the way, and hates the way modern Lithuanian official historians idealize "forest brothers", nationalists, etc. This does not make USSR a much better place, of course, but they did just let everyone go in the end, didn't they..? I still remember all those endless trains with tanks going east. I can't really remember too many examples of such a "mild" empire, em, disappearance.