When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the program said that nearly 20 million members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did not organize to take to the streets to defend the Soviet Communist regime.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 is generally regarded as marking the end of the Cold War.
Yeltsin took control of Russia to halt tax remittances to the center and seized central financial institutions, causing the Soviet central fiscal deficit to skyrocket. On December 25, Gorbachev handed over the nuclear briefcase, and the Soviet Union officially dissolved.
The once arrogant Soviet Union declared its dissolution two years after the upheavals in Eastern Europe. In the course of its transition, the lack of mature institutions allowed state-owned wealth to fall into the hands of a few oligarchs.