The Collapse of the USSR in the Context of the Theory of Institutional Violence

Abstract

The collapse of the USSR is explained from the point of view of a new approach – the theory of institutional violence by D. North, B. Weingast and D. Wallis. The application of this theory shows that by the 1980s the USSR had reached the stage of a mature “natural state”. The basis of the Soviet system consisted of long-term political and economic organizations run by the elite that ensured a high level of security and stability of official position due to effective control over the apparatus of state violence (KGB, the militia, the army). Thus, objective prerequisites for the transition to a new social order of “open access” based on economic and political competition developed in the Soviet Union. The leadership of the USSR, represented by M. S. Gorbachev and his supporters in the party, was confident that the introduction of openness and democracy would benefit the Soviet state. M. S. Gorbachev’s loss of control over the special services and the army in the summer of 1991 had a fatal significance for the fate of the USSR. Organized by the chairman of the KGB V. A. Kryuchkov, the putsch of the GKChP catastrophically discredited the union government. The leaders of the Soviet republics were convinced of the need for its complete elimination and achieved this in a short time. Thus, the perestroika and the collapse of the USSR can be considered as the beginning of the movement of the Soviet society toward the “open access order”. The initial conditions of this transition can be considered relatively successful. Despite a series of armed clashes in different regions of the USSR, the collapse of a huge militarized power occurred without much bloodshed and carnage between representatives of the political elite. The events of August 1991, thus, led to a political revolution, which marked the beginning of new sovereign states with a form of government close to the republican one.