when did soviet union collapse

The Soviet Union formally collapsed on December 26, 1991 , ending 69 years of existence as a superpower.

Key dates in the collapse

• August 1991 : A hard‑line communist coup against Mikhail Gorbachev fails. The putsch backfires, accelerates the breakup, and massively boosts Boris Yeltsin’s power in Russia.

• December 25, 1991 : Gorbachev resigns as President of the USSR in a televised address, effectively acknowledging that the union has dissolved.

• December 26, 1991 : The upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet adopts Declaration No. 142‑N , formally dissolving the Soviet Union as a sovereign state and subject of international law.

What “collapse” means in practice

• The USSR wasn’t abolished suddenly by war or invasion; it legally dissolved itself after republics like Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states declared independence and signed away the union treaty.

• By early 1992, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) replaced the USSR as a loose alliance of former republics, with Russia taking the USSR’s UN seat and most of its assets.

If you like, the next step could be a short rundown of why it collapsed (economic stagnation, nationalism, Gorbachev’s reforms, etc.).