WHY THE USSR COLLAPSED

There was a brief period of turmoil in 1917 after the Bolsheviks seized power, with uncertainty over the fate of imperial holdings and fighting in Central Asia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. Over time, however, the Bolsheviks once again tightened their control across these regions, including Central Asia, which had already been treated as a colony within the Russian Empire. It was therefore not a stretch to view Central Asia, and later the individual Central Asian republics, as colonial in character under Soviet rule, even if not strictly so in legal terms.

Though, the structure was significantly modified by the existence of the Soviet system: Marxist-Leninist ideology that had been imported by the Bolsheviks, and the severe repression and atrocities of the Soviet era, especially under Joseph Stalin. And Kazakhstan was, of course, the worst affected of all, with the famine that killed a remarkably large percentage of the country’s population—the kind of numbers one hopes never to see again.

There was a combination of factors influencing this: local elites had input, but the process was ultimately controlled centrally. Ethnographers appointed by the Soviet government— more by the state than the party—sought to draw borders that ‘made sense’ on the basis of historical and ethnographic knowledge. In practice, their assumptions about history and local conditions did not always hold up, and so officials did seek input from people on the ground in Kazakhstan; while not all were specialists, they could usually give better insights into the process.

Over time, the procedure became more regularized, with Kazakh officials and ethnographers being closely involved in addressing questions about the border as they arose. Border issues, of course, remained sensitive, not least because northern Kazakhstan was home to large numbers of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians. In the final years of the Soviet Union, some voices in Russia pressed for Kazakhstan to cede parts of the north—a demand many Kazakhs did not respond favorably to for understandable reasons.

The British Empire was an overseas colonial empire, which made it quite different for the most part from the imperial Russian structure that the Bolsheviks inherited. The Soviet Union was pretty much the standard landmass empire. In that setting, the Bolsheviks could adjust boundaries and administrative structures iteratively, and they did so many times in the early decades of Soviet rule in Central Asia in pursuit of a more stable settlement. It worked to a degree, but it required time and constant effort.

In the case of the British, once the momentous decision was made to pull out of South Asia, the Indian subcontinent, there was essentially one opportunity to draw the line, creating what became India and Pakistan, and let events proceed from there. When mass violence followed the initial withdrawal, Britain did not return to manage the calamity. The result was a lasting hostility between India and Pakistan that endures to this day.

The point, though, is what the question reveals: the enduring legacy of a traumatic partition. Elsewhere, Britain’s departures were not always as bloody, but overseas colonial empires typically leave behind populations who are not only trying to stake claims to territory but are willing, at times, to use violence to do so. In South Asia, the breakup was especially severe. Borders were often drawn hastily, in a slapdash fashion, and that is part of the problem. The consequences have lasted: several provinces remain disputed to this day.

A key factor was Kazakhstan’s geography and demography. It is a very large country and, by regional standards, especially compared with India, Pakistan and China, it was sparsely populated. That meant substantial tracts of land could be allocated to the projects that the Soviet leadership wanted to pursue.

The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site is amongst the most well-known of them, but there are also other important Soviet military facilities in Kazakhstan: Saryshagan and numerous other test facilities. In that sense, the choice of location reflected low population density as much as anything else, alongside broader economic and political calculations. Of course, economics played a role. Kazakhstan has large energy resources and mineral resources that the Soviet regime was interested in using.

Other factors mattered too. Ethnic and linguistic dynamics often allowed non-native speakers to navigate daily life not only in Kazakhstan but across the region. In practice, multiple factors shaped how the USSR used Kazakhstan, but the approach was largely instrumental and sometimes purely opportunistic. These projects were not undertaken for the benefit of Kazakhs, even if they occasionally produced local gains.

Decisions on such projects were generally taken by a narrow circle in Moscow. Local input was solicited, but it seldom overturned a central decision. There was, however, one notable exception among the projects discussed.

The Semipalatinsk test site was first established and run without input from below. In the final years of the Soviet Union, however, a Kazakh-led anti-nuclear movement, known as the Nevada–Semipalatinsk, emerged and played a crucial role in ending nuclear testing. While the impact of the movement was not the sole factor, it was an important part of the broader forces that brought the tests to a halt. The movement was launched chiefly by writers rather than politicians, and it cooperated with American activists linked to the Nevada Test Site, the US counterpart to Semipalatinsk. So they worked together, but it was Kazakhs who originally set up the movement, and that is one instance in which locals made a big difference.

There were many circumstances that played into the collapse of the USSR. Some of it was simply chance or sort of accidents—unexpected events, really. It happened very abruptly, which is unusual. Usually when states or empires collapse, it takes a long while. Whereas empires such as the Ottomans or the Habsburgs unraveled over decades, even centuries, the Soviet Union fell apart in four to five years.

And the circumstances had to do with some unexpected events, accidents, actions taken by certain people that made a very big difference. But beneath it all was a simpler truth: the USSR was falling behind the West in terms of science, technology, and the economy. This is, of course, not the case in absolute terms, but in relative terms the gap kept widening. And more and more Soviet citizens knew it.

There was also the matter of glasnost. From around 1986, under Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet citizens were finally permitted to voice views long suppressed by censorship. Many seized the opportunity, and what they said publicly undercut the regime’s legitimacy. So the basic problem was that change happened so fast that it was very hard to control. Even when Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reign it in, from mid-1990 through the spring of 1991 and beyond, restoring firm control was out of reach unless he was prepared to use large-scale violence. Gorbachev had a lot of flaws, but one notable virtue was his not wanting to do what his predecessors had done, which was to use large-scale violence when needed to enforce Soviet rule.

Lenin and, above all, Stalin had used mass repression that killed millions, including in Kazakhstan. Gorbachev was different: he recognized that force on that scale was possible, but he held back. There were deadly episodes on his watch—notably in Baku in January 1990 and earlier in Georgia—but he did not pursue systematic, empire-saving violence. So he was able to maintain his willingness to refrain from large-scale bloodshed. For that, even those who lament the Soviet collapse have reason to be grateful.