WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.060 You ever see someone try to fix a collapsing 00:00:02.060 --> 00:00:05.080 mansion with like a single roll of duct tape? 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.839 Oh yeah. just the absolute worst tool for the 00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:10.779 job. Right. Picture this massive sprawling estate. 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:13.519 The foundation is violently cracking. The roof 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:16.339 is actively caving in. The plumbing is completely 00:00:16.339 --> 00:00:18.640 exploded. Exactly. And the person in charge runs 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:20.899 out, not with steel beams or concrete, but with, 00:00:20.899 --> 00:00:22.640 you know, ordinary office supplies thinking, 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:25.160 yeah, this will hold it together. It's just total 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:27.539 denial of the physical reality. It really is. 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:29.579 And that is exactly what happened to the Soviet 00:00:29.579 --> 00:00:33.079 Union in 1991. You, the listener, sent us the 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:35.920 Wikipedia article on the state Council of the 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:38.920 Soviet Union, which is this desperate blink and 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:41.539 you miss it government body. Right. It existed 00:00:41.539 --> 00:00:43.979 for barely four months right at the end of the 00:00:43.979 --> 00:00:46.899 Cold War. Yeah, barely four months. So our mission 00:00:46.899 --> 00:00:50.140 for this deep dive today is to figure out how 00:00:50.140 --> 00:00:53.340 a superpower tries to patch a mortal wound with 00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:56.280 bureaucratic committees. You specifically mentioned 00:00:56.280 --> 00:00:58.859 you were looking for those aha moments to understand 00:00:58.859 --> 00:01:01.159 the mechanics of history, which is a great way 00:01:01.159 --> 00:01:03.000 to look at it. You want to see the gears turning 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.180 without getting buried under an avalanche of 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:08.640 dry dates. Exactly. So, OK, let's unpack this 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.299 because we're going to look at the actual administrative 00:01:11.299 --> 00:01:14.459 reality of a collapse. And, you know, when we 00:01:14.459 --> 00:01:16.480 think of the fall of the Soviet Union, our minds 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:18.939 immediately go to those really dramatic sweeping 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:21.659 visuals. Oh, for sure. The protests in the streets, 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.719 people standing on tanks. Right. The lowering 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:25.780 of the hammer and sickle flag over the Kremlin. 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:29.780 But what we're really dissecting today is the 00:01:29.780 --> 00:01:32.620 hidden machinery behind those visuals. The paperwork 00:01:32.620 --> 00:01:35.769 behind the protests. Yeah. Basically, how does 00:01:35.769 --> 00:01:39.209 a massive, heavily centralized bureaucracy actually 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:41.549 try to catch itself while it's, you know, in 00:01:41.549 --> 00:01:44.090 a terminal freefall? Because the central premise 00:01:44.090 --> 00:01:46.430 here is almost absurd, right? You've got an existential 00:01:46.430 --> 00:01:49.189 crisis, the whole system is breaking down, and 00:01:49.189 --> 00:01:52.049 the grand solution they come up with is a council. 00:01:52.329 --> 00:01:55.260 A committee. the ultimate bureaucratic reflex. 00:01:55.700 --> 00:01:57.680 But what really blew my mind reading through 00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:59.620 the sources you provided is that the origin of 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:01.859 this council wasn't even born out of an emergency 00:02:01.859 --> 00:02:04.439 at all. No, not at all. And what's fascinating 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:07.079 here is that to understand the absolute chaos 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:10.139 of 1991, we actually have to rewind the clock 00:02:10.139 --> 00:02:12.900 a couple of decades. Wait, a couple of decades? 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:16.180 Yeah, back to the early 1970s. The concept of 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:18.919 a Soviet state council had been sitting in a 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:24.210 drawer for years and it was born out of pure 00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:26.650 unadulterated diplomatic vanity. So it wasn't 00:02:26.650 --> 00:02:29.990 designed to save a failing state. No, it was 00:02:29.990 --> 00:02:32.750 designed to fix a seating arrangement. That is 00:02:32.750 --> 00:02:35.310 wild. OK, walk me through this. So in the early 00:02:35.310 --> 00:02:38.389 1970s, Lena Brezhnev was the head of the Communist 00:02:38.389 --> 00:02:40.849 Party of the Soviet Union. OK. And as head of 00:02:40.849 --> 00:02:42.770 the party, he's the guy, right? The de facto 00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:45.509 leader. Exactly. Everyone domestically and internationally 00:02:45.509 --> 00:02:47.909 knew he was the man making the decisions. He 00:02:47.909 --> 00:02:51.039 was the center of gravity. But on paper, Within 00:02:51.039 --> 00:02:53.840 the incredibly rigid intricacies of formal diplomatic 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.780 protocol, he was actually outranked. He was ranked 00:02:56.780 --> 00:03:00.199 third, which is just I mean, it's wild to conceptualize. 00:03:00.219 --> 00:03:02.879 It really is. You are the unquestioned leader 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:06.159 of one of the two global superpowers. You control 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.460 a massive nuclear arsenal. But when it comes 00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:12.139 time for like official state banquets or global 00:03:12.139 --> 00:03:14.860 photo ops on the tarmac. Yeah, you are essentially 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:17.280 standing in the bronze medal position because 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:20.180 the rules of international diplomacy do not care. 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:23.060 about unofficial power dynamics, they only care 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:25.500 about constitutional titles. Right. So who was 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:28.379 actually number one on paper? The first position, 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:31.379 the formal head of state, belonged to Nikolai 00:03:31.379 --> 00:03:33.599 Podgorny. He was the chairman of the Presidium 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:35.919 of the Supreme Soviet. OK. And then the second 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:38.219 position, the head of government, belonged to 00:03:38.219 --> 00:03:40.319 Alexei Kosygin, the chairman of the Council of 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.020 Ministers. So Brezhnev, despite holding all the 00:03:44.020 --> 00:03:46.759 actual leverage, is relegated to the third tier. 00:03:46.939 --> 00:03:49.000 Just because his title was purely within the 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.639 political party? not the state apparatus itself. 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:54.539 I love trying to picture this in a modern corporate 00:03:54.539 --> 00:03:56.580 setting. Oh, it translates perfectly. Right. 00:03:56.580 --> 00:04:00.259 It's like you're the true undisputed CEO of a 00:04:00.259 --> 00:04:02.560 Fortune 500 company. You make every strategic 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:06.639 decision. But technically, your HR title is like 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.300 senior advisor. Yeah, exactly. So every time 00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:11.900 you go to a major industry conference, the events 00:04:11.900 --> 00:04:14.400 team legally has to seat you at the third table 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:16.319 behind the head of PR and the chief operating 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:19.139 officer. And you just have to sit there. eating 00:04:19.139 --> 00:04:22.120 your lukewarm chicken, seething about the fact 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:24.600 that the PR guy gets to shake hands with the 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:26.500 keynote speaker first. That would drive anyone 00:04:26.500 --> 00:04:29.899 crazy, especially an autocrat. Well, human ego, 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:33.060 even at the geopolitical level, is a profound 00:04:33.060 --> 00:04:37.240 driver of history. And Brezhnev supporters decided 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.160 they needed to fix this discrepancy. But they 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:42.399 couldn't just walk up to the United Nations and 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.779 ask them to change global protocol, right? No, 00:04:44.959 --> 00:04:47.350 the UN wouldn't care. So they decided to try 00:04:47.350 --> 00:04:49.350 and change the fundamental structure of the Soviet 00:04:49.350 --> 00:04:52.089 government itself, just to accommodate his ego. 00:04:52.269 --> 00:04:54.529 They wanted to invent a completely new body, 00:04:54.889 --> 00:04:57.430 the State Council. Exactly. They looked at other 00:04:57.430 --> 00:05:00.490 Eastern Bloc countries, specifically East Germany, 00:05:00.689 --> 00:05:03.670 Bulgaria, and Romania. Right, because those nations 00:05:03.670 --> 00:05:05.689 had established state councils as their highest 00:05:05.689 --> 00:05:08.029 bodies of power. Exactly. So the plan within 00:05:08.029 --> 00:05:10.730 the Kremlin was to abolish their existing Presidium 00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:13.209 of the Supreme Soviet, replace it with a brand 00:05:13.209 --> 00:05:15.629 new State Council, and have Bryzhnev chair it. 00:05:15.689 --> 00:05:17.990 This maneuver would finally give him the official 00:05:17.990 --> 00:05:20.810 head of state title. Moving him to the coveted 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:23.410 number one spot in diplomatic protocol. I mean, 00:05:23.569 --> 00:05:26.470 they were literally willing to rewrite the constitution 00:05:26.470 --> 00:05:29.250 of a superpower just to get their boss a better 00:05:29.250 --> 00:05:32.069 seat at the table. They were. But the bureaucratic 00:05:32.069 --> 00:05:34.569 inertia of the Soviet system actually fought 00:05:34.569 --> 00:05:37.689 back. The system pushed back on Brezhnev. It 00:05:37.689 --> 00:05:41.810 did. The system was just too entrenched. When 00:05:41.810 --> 00:05:44.129 the new Brezhnev Constitution was finally debated 00:05:44.129 --> 00:05:47.290 and adopted in 1977, the conservatives within 00:05:47.290 --> 00:05:49.370 the government pushed back hard. So they didn't 00:05:49.370 --> 00:05:51.970 get the council. No, they ended up keeping the 00:05:51.970 --> 00:05:54.529 collegial presidium of the Supreme Soviet as 00:05:54.529 --> 00:05:57.329 the highest body of power. The state council 00:05:57.329 --> 00:06:00.389 idea was just shelved. Wow. So it was just a 00:06:00.389 --> 00:06:03.389 failed vanity project, a bureaucratic ghost lingering 00:06:03.389 --> 00:06:05.329 in the administrative background. Exactly. And 00:06:05.329 --> 00:06:07.129 this is one of those aha moments you were looking 00:06:07.129 --> 00:06:09.550 for in the prompt. We often read history backward. 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:12.259 Right. Assuming every institution was built for 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:15.160 some profound structural reason or grand ideology. 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:17.620 Yeah, but sometimes a proposed constitutional 00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:19.620 amendment is literally just about a guy wanting 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:22.860 to walk through a door first. That is amazing. 00:06:23.540 --> 00:06:25.939 But that ghost of a vanity project stayed in 00:06:25.939 --> 00:06:28.800 the drawer until history came calling with a 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:32.560 genuine existential crisis. And history didn't 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:34.879 just call. It kicked the door down. Literally. 00:06:35.259 --> 00:06:39.259 So fast forward. We are in August 1991. The Soviet 00:06:39.259 --> 00:06:41.579 Union is experiencing a catastrophic failure. 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:45.379 The August coup. Right. A group of hardline communist 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:48.360 officials attempts a coup d 'etat against Mikhail 00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:52.139 Gorbachev to, you know, stop his reforms. The 00:06:52.139 --> 00:06:55.399 coup fails, but the damage to the central authority 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.470 is terminal. The office of the vice president 00:06:58.470 --> 00:07:00.930 is entirely abolished because the vice president 00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:03.509 was actually one of the coup leaders. Oh, cock 00:07:03.509 --> 00:07:06.389 away. The central government is just an absolute 00:07:06.389 --> 00:07:08.430 free fall at this point. The structural integrity 00:07:08.430 --> 00:07:10.689 of the state was completely shattered. Yeah, 00:07:10.910 --> 00:07:12.970 the central authority had been fundamentally 00:07:12.970 --> 00:07:15.829 compromised and the constituent republics saw 00:07:15.829 --> 00:07:17.930 their opening. And just to make sure we're grounded 00:07:17.930 --> 00:07:19.970 here, before we get into the new councils, we 00:07:19.970 --> 00:07:21.790 need to clarify the map for a second. Good idea. 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:24.300 When we talk about the republics pulling away, 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:27.019 specifically Boris Yeltsin gaining power in Russia, 00:07:27.459 --> 00:07:29.579 we're talking about the Russian republic pulling 00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:32.500 away from Gorbachev's overarching Soviet government, 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:34.819 right? That is a crucial distinction. The Soviet 00:07:34.819 --> 00:07:37.779 Union was a federation of 15 republics. Like 00:07:37.779 --> 00:07:42.699 states in the US, sort of? Sort of, yes. And 00:07:42.699 --> 00:07:44.740 Russia was just one of those republics, albeit 00:07:44.740 --> 00:07:47.750 by far the largest and most powerful. OK, so 00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:49.949 Gorbachev was the president of the entire Soviet 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:52.370 Union and Yeltsin was the president of the Russian 00:07:52.370 --> 00:07:54.290 Republic. Exactly. They were both physically 00:07:54.290 --> 00:07:57.449 sitting in Moscow. But Yeltsin's Russian government 00:07:57.449 --> 00:08:00.410 was essentially seceding from Gorbachev's Soviet 00:08:00.410 --> 00:08:03.189 government. OK, that context makes this next 00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:05.829 move even crazier because the central authority 00:08:05.829 --> 00:08:07.889 is vanishing, the republics are pulling away. 00:08:07.889 --> 00:08:11.310 And so the ghost of the 1970s is resurrected. 00:08:11.649 --> 00:08:14.410 The State Council is back. Yes. On September 00:08:14.410 --> 00:08:18.329 5, 1991, the State Council of the USSR is officially 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:21.050 formed as the highest organ of state power for 00:08:21.050 --> 00:08:23.370 a transitional period. And it holds immense authority 00:08:23.370 --> 00:08:26.569 on paper. It can elect a prime minister. It can 00:08:26.569 --> 00:08:29.509 choose a successor if Gorbachev is absent. But 00:08:29.509 --> 00:08:31.829 the membership is what absolutely baffles me. 00:08:31.970 --> 00:08:34.309 It's Gorbachev and the highest officials of the 00:08:34.309 --> 00:08:36.929 Soviet Republic. The very people actively dismantling 00:08:36.929 --> 00:08:39.049 his empire. Right. Here's where it gets really 00:08:39.049 --> 00:08:41.190 interesting. You have an empire falling apart 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:44.750 because the constituent parts want out. And the 00:08:44.750 --> 00:08:48.039 central government's solution is to... take the 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:50.240 leaders of those breakaway republics, put them 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:52.860 in a council, and hand them the ultimate authority 00:08:52.860 --> 00:08:55.500 over the entire state. I know. It sounds completely 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:58.519 backward. Why would Gorbachev or the central 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:00.940 government think this was a unifying move? It 00:09:00.940 --> 00:09:03.720 feels like you're driving a bus, the passengers 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.980 are actively trying to hijack it, and your strategy 00:09:06.980 --> 00:09:10.139 to maintain control is to just say, here, you 00:09:10.139 --> 00:09:12.320 take the steering wheel. Well, if we connect 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.299 this to the bigger picture, It becomes clear 00:09:15.299 --> 00:09:17.940 that Gorbachev was entirely out of options. He 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:20.039 had nothing else to play. Right. This wasn't 00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:23.100 some theoretical exercise in statecraft. It was 00:09:23.100 --> 00:09:25.240 a desperate concession to reality. Okay, so it 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:28.379 was forced on him. The source material highlights 00:09:28.379 --> 00:09:31.179 this dynamic pretty neutrally, but structurally, 00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:33.600 the central Soviet government couldn't enforce 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:36.519 its will anymore. The republics already had the 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:38.809 de facto power on the ground. They already controlled 00:09:38.809 --> 00:09:41.230 the streets. Exactly. The creation of the State 00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:43.789 Council was an attempt to institutionalize that 00:09:43.789 --> 00:09:46.169 reality within a federal framework. It's almost 00:09:46.169 --> 00:09:48.710 like saying, you can't fire me because I'm putting 00:09:48.710 --> 00:09:50.889 you in charge of my employment. That's a great 00:09:50.889 --> 00:09:53.509 way to put it. By giving the republic presidents 00:09:53.509 --> 00:09:56.230 the highest state power within a union structure, 00:09:56.870 --> 00:09:59.049 Gorbachev was hoping to give them a reason to 00:09:59.049 --> 00:10:02.429 stay in the union. A gamble. A huge gamble. He 00:10:02.429 --> 00:10:04.230 thought if they became the ultimate authority 00:10:04.230 --> 00:10:07.179 of the overarching Soviet state, perhaps They 00:10:07.179 --> 00:10:09.299 wouldn't feel the need to completely dismantle 00:10:09.299 --> 00:10:12.179 it. OK, so while the State Council is sitting 00:10:12.179 --> 00:10:14.419 at the political summit trying to pretend they 00:10:14.419 --> 00:10:17.399 still have a country to run, the physical reality 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:20.120 on the ground, the actual day to day economy 00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:23.539 is turning into absolute alphabet soup. The political 00:10:23.539 --> 00:10:26.279 crisis immediately triggered an economic crisis, 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:29.480 which required an entirely different. parallel 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:31.720 set of emergency measures. Right, because people 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:34.539 still need to buy bread. Exactly. So Gorbachev 00:10:34.539 --> 00:10:36.940 establishes a four -man committee to elect a 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:39.399 new cabinet of ministers. Okay, let me make sure 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:41.379 I have these names right. You've got the Russian 00:10:41.379 --> 00:10:44.799 Premier, Ivan Selyev, leading it. Correct. Along 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:48.279 with Grigory Avlinsky, Arkady Volsky, and Yuri 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:51.919 Lushkov. Yes, and this little group quickly evolves 00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:54.980 into commess. The Committee on the Operational 00:10:54.980 --> 00:10:57.809 Management of the Soviet Economy. And Silyev 00:10:57.809 --> 00:11:00.110 is named the chairman. The naming conventions 00:11:00.110 --> 00:11:02.970 alone tell a story of an administration frantically 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:05.730 trying to sound legitimate, you know? Oh, absolutely. 00:11:06.029 --> 00:11:08.929 Operational management sounds so official. And 00:11:08.929 --> 00:11:11.129 the escalation of power for this committee is 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:15.580 just dizzying. By August 28th. The Supreme Soviet 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:19.399 temporarily gives Komsiks the exact same authority 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:22.059 as the Cabinet of Ministers. Which essentially 00:11:22.059 --> 00:11:24.940 makes Ivan Sileyev the de facto prime minister 00:11:24.940 --> 00:11:28.320 of the fading Soviet Union. Basically, yes. But 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.580 it doesn't stop there. Of course not. Komsik 00:11:30.580 --> 00:11:32.639 is then surpassed in authority by another new 00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:36.360 body, the IEC, the Inter -Republican Economic 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:38.379 Committee. And let me guess who leads that. Ivan 00:11:38.379 --> 00:11:40.820 Sileyev again. You guessed it. He's chairman 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:43.320 of Compass, he's chairman of the IEZ, and he 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:45.700 is presiding over an economy that is structurally 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:48.039 dissolving in real time. I'm trying to wrap my 00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:50.220 head around how impossible that job is. It's 00:11:50.220 --> 00:11:52.639 completely impossible. The sources note Silev 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.659 was supposed to initiate sweeping market economic 00:11:55.659 --> 00:11:58.320 reforms in a way that suited both the central 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:01.360 government and the increasingly independent Soviet 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.159 republics. Right. An inherently contradictory 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:07.059 mandate. He has to maintain an integrated economy 00:12:07.059 --> 00:12:10.659 across the whole union while simultaneously initiating 00:12:10.659 --> 00:12:13.659 marketization while the union itself is actively 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.500 breaking apart. Yeah. It's like trying to untangle 00:12:16.500 --> 00:12:19.559 a massive sprawling server farm while all the 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:22.299 computers are still alive. But half the IT department 00:12:22.299 --> 00:12:24.519 has already quit and locked the server racks 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:27.580 on their way out. How do you even begin to physically 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:30.080 manage that? You don't, because the mechanisms 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:32.799 of a command economy rely entirely on a commander. 00:12:33.379 --> 00:12:35.399 Right. When Siliev first took office in this 00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:38.639 new role, his initial instinct was decentralization. 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:41.320 He wanted to reduce the powers of the central 00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:43.659 government and hand more authority over to the 00:12:43.659 --> 00:12:45.980 individual Soviet republics. Letting them manage 00:12:45.980 --> 00:12:48.100 their own transitions, which actually seems like 00:12:48.100 --> 00:12:50.480 the smart political play. He's trying to adapt 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:52.340 to the fact that the republics hold all the cards 00:12:52.340 --> 00:12:55.340 now. It makes sense politically, but the physical 00:12:55.340 --> 00:12:58.259 reality of supply chains quickly destroyed that 00:12:58.259 --> 00:13:00.659 plan. Oh, because they were all connected. Deeply 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:03.600 connected. When Sileyev tried to let the republics 00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:06.360 handle their own economies, the interwoven Soviet 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:09.860 system instantly broke down. Wow. A factory in 00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:12.899 Ukraine suddenly stopped shipping vital tractor 00:13:12.899 --> 00:13:15.539 parts to a massive collective farm in Russia 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:18.539 because they no longer shared a cohesive currency 00:13:18.539 --> 00:13:20.899 policy. Or they just wanted to hoard the parts. 00:13:21.419 --> 00:13:23.980 Right. They had instituted sudden export bans 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:27.600 to protect their own local markets. Selyev realized 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.779 you can't have a functioning economy if 15 different 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:33.320 republics are writing 15 different sets of trade 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:36.659 rules overnight. Chaos. Total chaos. Without 00:13:36.659 --> 00:13:39.620 a functioning center to force coordination, mass 00:13:39.620 --> 00:13:41.740 starvation and total industrial collapse were 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:44.440 imminent. So his view abruptly changes? Completely. 00:13:44.620 --> 00:13:47.899 He does a total 180 and demands that Boris Yeltsin 00:13:47.899 --> 00:13:50.100 give back much of the central authority he had 00:13:50.100 --> 00:13:52.639 just usurped. Wait, wait, I'm confused. You just 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.360 said the central government was practically a 00:13:54.360 --> 00:13:56.960 ghost and the republics held all the actual power 00:13:56.960 --> 00:14:00.580 on the ground? Siliev is a smart political operator. 00:14:00.899 --> 00:14:03.559 Why would he think he could just demand power 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:06.679 back from Yeltsin? What leverage did he possibly 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:09.100 think he had at that point? He had absolutely 00:14:09.100 --> 00:14:11.860 no leverage, only desperation. Seriously, he 00:14:11.860 --> 00:14:14.679 just asked nicely. He was relying on the terrifying 00:14:14.679 --> 00:14:18.000 reality of the looming economic collapse to convince 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.700 Yeltsin to cooperate. He was essentially telling 00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:23.320 Yeltsin, if you don't give the center some power 00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:26.019 back to manage the supply chains, your own Russian 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.379 Republic is going to starve. But Yeltsin didn't 00:14:28.379 --> 00:14:31.080 blink. Not for a single second. Yeltsin had the 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:33.659 momentum. He had the popular support and he had 00:14:33.659 --> 00:14:35.620 the actual resources. The republics were not 00:14:35.620 --> 00:14:37.480 going to surrender the autonomy they had just 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:39.779 seized. Even if it meant economic chaos in the 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:42.159 short term. Selyev's attempt to rein Yeltsin 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:44.980 back in severely weakened his own political position. 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:47.080 He tried to put the genie back in the bottle. 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:50.639 And the genie simply fired him. Wow. By September 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:54.820 26, an anti -Silev faction, led by his own first 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:58.399 deputy premier Oleg Lobov, manages to oust him. 00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:00.899 And Lobov succeeds him as the acting premier 00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:03.879 of the Russian Republic. So Silev's ousting was 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.600 the glaring signal that the experiment was over. 00:15:07.139 --> 00:15:10.059 It proved that the central Soviet government, 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:12.740 despite all its new councils and committees, 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:15.720 was rapidly losing any remaining grip it had. 00:15:15.870 --> 00:15:18.610 The real consequential power struggles were now 00:15:18.610 --> 00:15:21.029 happening entirely within the republics themselves. 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:24.220 Not at the federal level. OK, so Suleyev's utter 00:15:24.220 --> 00:15:26.799 failure to reign in Yeltsin proved the center 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.840 was dead domestically. But a dying empire doesn't 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:32.100 just have to manage its own citizens, it has 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:34.820 to manage the rest of the world. Right. How on 00:15:34.820 --> 00:15:37.100 earth did they project power to Europe or the 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:38.820 United Nations when they couldn't even control 00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:41.059 the tractor factories in Moscow? They did it 00:15:41.059 --> 00:15:43.419 through pure diplomatic theater. The central 00:15:43.419 --> 00:15:45.700 government was still trying to project an illusion 00:15:45.700 --> 00:15:47.860 of authority on the international stage. Even 00:15:47.860 --> 00:15:50.879 though the house was burning down. Exactly. So 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.700 the IEC, that Inter -Republican Economic Committee 00:15:53.700 --> 00:15:56.279 we just talked about, eventually transforms yet 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:58.500 again. Now it's called the Interstate Economic 00:15:58.500 --> 00:16:01.080 Committee of the Economic Community. That is 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:03.700 quite the mouthful. And its sole function at 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:06.139 this point is just trying to coordinate relations 00:16:06.139 --> 00:16:08.879 between republics that are actively declaring 00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:11.500 their secession from the USSR. They are essentially 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:13.919 managing their own divorce proceedings. Pretty 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.720 much. Yeah. But they're still trying to act like 00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:19.659 a unified entity to the outside world. And this 00:16:19.659 --> 00:16:22.960 leads to one of the most incredible, tragicomic 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:25.500 details in the entire source text. Oh, I know 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:27.179 exactly what you're talking about. The Energy 00:16:27.179 --> 00:16:30.960 Charter. Yes. We are in mid -December, 1991. 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:33.779 The Interstate Economic Committee decides to 00:16:33.779 --> 00:16:36.580 show the world that it still has international 00:16:36.580 --> 00:16:39.919 intent. and relevance. So on December 16th and 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:42.279 17th, they participate in the signing of the 00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:45.320 European Energy Charter alongside 35 other countries. 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:47.899 The Central Soviet government proudly puts its 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:50.399 pen to paper on a major international agreement. 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:52.779 But the authority of that signature was entirely 00:16:52.779 --> 00:16:54.940 hollow because the constituent parts of the state 00:16:54.940 --> 00:16:57.259 were ignoring it in real time. Right. The article 00:16:57.259 --> 00:16:59.720 notes that this grand international gesture was 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.259 completely undermined. Because nine of the 12 00:17:02.259 --> 00:17:05.000 remaining Soviet republics also stepped up and 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:08.000 signed the charter individually. Right. You have 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.740 the ghost of a central government signing a document 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:13.660 while its own constituent parts are standing 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:15.660 right over its shoulder signing it for themselves. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:18.839 It's amazing. It is the diplomatic equivalent 00:17:18.839 --> 00:17:21.119 of a teenager's parents signing a permission 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:24.319 slip and the teenager tapping the teacher on 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:26.220 the shoulder and saying, actually, I'm an adult. 00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:29.000 I'll sign for myself. Thanks. Exactly. And this 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.640 raises a really profound question about the very 00:17:31.640 --> 00:17:35.200 nature of state legitimacy. When does a government 00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:38.680 actually cease to exist? Because legally, formally, 00:17:39.059 --> 00:17:41.339 the Soviet Union was still a recognized state 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:45.000 on December 16th. Yes, but practically, mechanically. 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:47.660 That energy charter incident proved it was a 00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:49.940 phantom. The international community and the 00:17:49.940 --> 00:17:52.359 republics themselves had already moved on. The 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:54.759 central authority was a costume with no one inside 00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:57.599 it. Just an empty suit. And the timeline of the 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:00.140 final collapse from there is just breathless. 00:18:00.259 --> 00:18:02.640 I mean, December 16th and 17th is the energy 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:05.920 charter debacle. By December 19th, ComSE, that 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:08.299 operational economic committee, is just outright 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:10.579 dissolved by a decree from the Russian Republic. 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:13.839 Not a union decree. Yeltsin's Russian decree 00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.680 simply deletes a Soviet federal committee. Incredible. 00:18:17.259 --> 00:18:20.500 Then December 25th Gorbachev announces his resignation 00:18:20.500 --> 00:18:23.440 as president and the union government essentially 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.279 ceases to exist. And finally, on December 26, 00:18:27.900 --> 00:18:31.220 1991, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved 00:18:31.220 --> 00:18:34.500 by the Soviet of the republics. Just 112 days. 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:37.039 That's it. That was the entire lifespan of the 00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:39.220 State Council of the Soviet Union for September 00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:42.400 5th to December 26th, an institution that started 00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:45.319 in the 1970s as a petty scheme to get Leonid 00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:47.740 Brezhnev a better seat at a banquet lay dormant 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:50.480 for a decade and a half and was suddenly revived 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.720 in 1991 as an emergency life raft for a drowning 00:18:53.720 --> 00:18:56.160 superpower. And it sank in less than four months. 00:18:56.339 --> 00:18:58.700 This is the exact aha moment you were looking 00:18:58.700 --> 00:19:00.880 for, though. We often assume that institutions 00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:03.160 create power. We think the title, the office, 00:19:03.299 --> 00:19:05.279 the constitution is what gives a government its 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:07.660 strength, but the state council proves the exact 00:19:07.660 --> 00:19:10.240 opposite. Power creates institutions. And when 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.880 the actual power leaves, when the physical control 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.079 of the economy and the trust of the constituent 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:17.759 parts evaporates, the institution is just an 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:20.660 empty shell. It's just paper. Yeah. No amount 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.460 of renaming, restructuring or forming new emergency 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:26.299 councils can mandate unity if the underlying 00:19:26.299 --> 00:19:29.160 reality has fractured. The structure only exists 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:31.789 because we collectively agree it does. which 00:19:31.789 --> 00:19:33.750 leaves us with a pretty chilling thought to carry 00:19:33.750 --> 00:19:36.730 forward. Well, we've talked deeply today about 00:19:36.730 --> 00:19:38.869 the bureaucracy of this collapse, right? The 00:19:38.869 --> 00:19:41.890 committees and the paperwork. But what happens 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.450 to the physical assets when the legal fiction 00:19:44.450 --> 00:19:47.529 of a state vanishes overnight? That is the scary 00:19:47.529 --> 00:19:51.130 part. On December 25th, Gorbachev resigned. On 00:19:51.130 --> 00:19:55.130 December 26th, the state legally dissolved. Think 00:19:55.130 --> 00:19:57.430 about the thousands of nuclear warheads sitting 00:19:57.430 --> 00:20:00.230 in silos across Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia. 00:20:00.309 --> 00:20:02.450 Just waiting there. Think about the millions 00:20:02.450 --> 00:20:05.210 of active -duty soldiers, the global spy networks, 00:20:05.589 --> 00:20:08.369 the submarines patrolling the oceans that suddenly, 00:20:08.630 --> 00:20:11.150 legally belong to a country that no longer existed. 00:20:11.289 --> 00:20:13.690 It's a terrifying implication of a bureaucratic 00:20:13.690 --> 00:20:16.470 collapse. In those chaotic 24 hours, while the 00:20:16.470 --> 00:20:18.289 politicians were busy dissolving the paperwork 00:20:18.289 --> 00:20:20.470 of the empire, who was actually holding the steering 00:20:20.470 --> 00:20:22.700 wheel for all those weapons, When the paper state 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:26.220 vanishes, the physical reality remains. Something 00:20:26.220 --> 00:20:28.200 for you to mull over the next time you see a 00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:30.660 massive system start to fracture. Thank you for 00:20:30.660 --> 00:20:32.819 joining us on this deep dive. Keep asking great 00:20:32.819 --> 00:20:33.299 questions.