Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Applying Lessons from Soviet Disintegration to the Russian Federation

The economic meltdown of 1998 has renewed fears that Russia is doomed to disintegrate like the star-crossed union from which it sprang in 1991. The history of the Soviet collapse and secession movements worldwide suggests several lessons for policymakers monitoring the stability of Russia. If Russia is to break up, the process is likely to be led by those ethnic regions at the highest levels of economic development, least assimilated into Russian culture, with a history of independence and with a foreign border. Analysts should thus be tracking Karelia, Tuva and Khakassia as the most promising bellwethers of any future Russian collapse. The economic situation will have to get much worse, however, for Russia to fall apart like the Soviet Union did. […]

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