Introduction

The freedom of expression that glasnost allowed, as well as the confusion unleashed by perestroika generally, was used to call for the secession of republics from the Soviet Union. The Baltic republics, which as independent states in the interwar period were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, were the first to assert their national independence. Eventually, with the Lithuanian crisis of 1990, Gorbachev agreed that the Soviet federal system would have to be changed. By the summer of that year, virtually all the republics had passed sovereignty declarations. In the aftermath of the failed coup of August 1991 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, it seems that experts have given up trying to predict what will occur next in the post-perestroika republics. Their reticence, notwithstanding, the world is anxiously watching the fate of the Soviet successor states.