Historical
Perspective

It was a strange country, the Soviet Union. Surely, every country is strange in its own way, but this one was exceptionally bizarre and also dangerous. Those of us who remember it, let us reminisce together; and for those who haven’t experienced it, let me tell you about it.

Even today, and for a long time to come, we live and will live under the rubble of the Soviet Union. It cast a long, very long shadow. Its memories make us laugh and cry at the same time.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was officially established on December 30, 1922, and met its demise on December 26, 1991—though some might say December 25 or December 31, but ultimately, the exact date is irrelevant now. We were scarcely aware of the Soviet Union’s collapse as battle erupted in the heart of Tbilisi, where both factions clung to their hopes of victory over their oppressors. I was an undergraduate student at the time, attending the only university in Georgia, far fewer than the thirty that exist today.

I ventured out twice from the university garden to witness the war. Yes, to witness. This conflict began within one nation’s borders and concluded in another, without even spreading to foreign lands, but by commencing and ending in its place of origin.

On December 22, 1991, the Soviet Union still existed, while by January 6, 1992, the Republic of Georgia had emerged. The war in Tbilisi resembled a cosmic black hole, warping our perception of time. We could not comprehend that this was the first major “pearl” in the string of disasters that would unfold between 1991 and 1995. What had begun as a national liberation movement filled with enthusiasm and hope would ultimately result in bitter disillusionment and shattered dreams.

During the war, one of the first buildings to ignite was the KGB[i] archive, despite it not being situated on the front lines. Clearly, some strongly desired to obliterate that archive. The legacy of the Soviet Union is grim and burdensome. In contrast to Germany’s successful process of denazification, the former Soviet republics, including Georgia, have never experienced genuine desovietisation. The identities of those responsible for purges and repression have remained obscured, as well as the names of the authors of anonymous reports or secret collaborators with the security apparatus, of the instigators of terror, and of many others who welcomed such acts. Their identification was necessary not for punishment but to destroy the false idols of the past. There has been no exposure of the Soviet system. We have never repented. Gradually, the lessons that could be drawn from this history are fading from memory, becoming an indelible weight for future generations.

Let us rewind to January 1, 1987, when Georgia, brimming with sugary wine, and Russia, awash in vodka, awoke in the afternoon. At that moment, nobody—not even the party bosses in Moscow—was aware that the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union was imminent. Even the “know-it-all” Americans failed to predict the impending collapse, as they continued to prepare for a prolonged standoff with a state that would cease to exist within five years.

By 1991, the situation became almost comical—the Americans were reluctant to see the Soviet Union disband so swiftly, wary of the resulting nuclear vacuum. It seemed that only Andrei Amalrik could forecast the possibility of the Soviet Union’s demise. In his 1969 essay, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, the historian, dissident, and political prisoner examined the social issues plaguing Soviet society and contemplated its potential downfall. Amalrik did not shy away from employing vivid imagery to underscore his arguments, such as the image of a goat grazing in the Roman Forum.

Under the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who assumed office in March 1985, the Central Committee[ii] initiated significant economic and political transformations in 1987, known as Perestroika (restructuring). Alongside this, they enacted a policy promoting freedom of information, termed Glasnost (openness, transparency)—a relative autonomy unprecedented in the Soviet Union. In doing so, Gorbachev unknowingly unleashed the genie from the bottle, primarily nationalism and a decline in party control over state affairs, forces he could not subsequently rein in.

Prior to this, between 1985 and 1987, Gorbachev’s policy of Uskorenie (acceleration) primarily bore an administrative and rhetorical nature. In hindsight, it seems he envisioned a Chinese model—a fusion of political autocracy, market economy, and state capitalism.

It is misguided to attribute the destruction of the Soviet Union solely to President Ronald Reagan and his administration, the war in Afghanistan, “Star Wars,” the second wave of the Cold War, or the decline in oil prices. The collapse of the Soviet Union was rooted in the inherent impossibility of the communist ideology, its stagnation, a pathological economic system, pervasive corruption, rampant deceit, and the resulting societal demoralisation. Gorbachev merely set the avalanche in motion; without his involvement, we might still be living in the Soviet Union today.

The fact that Gorbachev initiated reforms is proven by the historic truth that no progressive movement has ever arisen from the grassroots in Russia. Change has consistently emerged from the top, whether under leaders like Peter I, Alexander II, or Pyotr Stolypin. The only authentic grassroots movement in Russia was Bolshevism, and we are well aware of its monstrous nature or have at least some ideas about it.

Consider an economic system in which private property does not exist. Even the apartment you inhabited was state-owned, allowing the government to evict you at will. This was due to the government’s lengthy queues for car purchases, which could leave you waiting for as long as ten years if luck were on your side, while the privileged few could easily skip the line. The communists dismantled the old elite without delivering on their promise of a classless society, instead establishing new privileged classes. In this environment, hustle became essential, and one had to continually struggle to obtain even the simplest necessities. The only possessions that genuinely felt like yours were your clothes, and even those could be confiscated at the discretion of the party.

In Moscow, the capital of the allied republics, Gosplan[iii] dictated every aspect of production—for example, the style, colour, size, quantity, and price of trousers. These regulations extended to nearly everything one could encounter—from food to furniture. Rather than a functioning market, a handful of bureaucrats made these decisions for a nation of nearly 300 million people. While they possessed intercontinental nuclear missiles, they struggled to produce quality footwear.

For me, Perestroika began with the emergence of cooperatives[iv], primarily focused on selling homemade baked goods and potato pirozhki. An inseparable hallmark of this era was the influx of foreign goods—a type of merchandise we had never encountered before: keychains, faux-leather wallets that emitted a distinct acetone odour, Adidas bags, Mars and Snickers chocolate bars, alongside Magna and Gitanes cigarettes. A puff of Gitanes would leave you momentarily dizzy; its strength was remarkable. Wrigley’s chewing gum was particularly delightful, as we had long suffered from a shortage of it during our childhood. I still recall chewing the expensive “Pedro,” purchased on Ateni Street, for days on end until it turned to mush.

Thanks to Perestroika, I also had the chance to try menthol cigarettes like Salem, which I regarded as a significant achievement of Western civilisation. Commerce even infiltrated the bathroom; in the waning days of the Soviet Union, capitalism began to seep in with products like Wash&Go shampoo. It was a country defined by scarcity—universal and persistent scarcity.

Before long, video equipment became available, giving rise to the phenomenon of “video.” Prior to Perestroika, a video player was a rare luxury in the Soviet Union. A friend of mine owned one, and one afternoon, when no one was home, he played a movie for my classmates. It was not pornography but rather an erotic film, and still, we were left stunned. Another exclaimed, “My parents don’t do that!”

The following day, feeling rather wise about the subject, I slyly approached a classmate who had missed the screening and asked, “Do you know what sex is?” He responded confidently, “Yes—it’s when Buratino buries golden coins in the ground and recites magic words: krex, bex, sex!” He should have said feks, but he was not entirely wrong—sex is indeed a magical thing.

In July 1986, during the telebridge event “Leningrad to Boston,”[v] a Russian woman emphatically declared that there was no sex in the Soviet Union. This statement encapsulated the hypocrisy and cultural anti-sexuality prevalent in Soviet society, despite the fact that in the early years of the USSR, family ethics were regarded as bourgeois backwardness, and the sexual promiscuity of the early Bolsheviks would have made even the hippies of the 1960s blush.

Let us return to the era of video cassettes. Just before Perestroika, I watched the movie Repentance with my parents in secret; it was an anti-communist, banned film disapproved by the censors. Thus, video cassettes served dual purposes—providing both sexual education and a medium for anti-Soviet propaganda. Films were loosely classified into genres like baevik (action), uzhas (horror), and zhizneni (drama).

Technically, all movie recordings were of poor quality, often copied from one VHS cassette to another multiple times, and some were recorded directly from the movie theatre screen. These movies were exclusively dubbed in Russian, featuring nasal-voiced men providing the voiceovers. With the rise of video, rental points for VHS cassettes sprouted, staffed by individuals with cigarettes dangling from their mouths and bloodshot eyes from endless film-watching. None of them became Tarantino, though. As it turned out, even later, we would not be able to boast about having Tarantinos either; that realisation would come many years down the line.

[i] Committee of State Security

[ii] The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR was the highest executive agency of the Soviet Union.

[iii] State Planning Committee.

[iv] Small businesses owned and run privately.

[v] Now St. Petersburg, formerly called Petrograd and later Leningrad honoring Lenin.

January 26, 2026