I'd argue USSR collapse was a messy dissolution. A failure would be: Tatarstan declares independence, regular fighting in the streets of Moscow for months.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster in itself. People had their savings wiped out, lost their jobs, and had to barter beg and steal just to feed themselves. Organized criminals bought up the state's assets for pennies on the dollar and set themselves up as oligarchs. Several former soviet allies turned into dictatorships or failed states.
No, the creation of the Soviet Union was a disaster of unimaginable scale. It simply had to end at some time, because it was corrupt and the economy inefficient in every way and morally bankrupt. The forced annexation of other countries and deportations of nations inside the SU were horrible crimes.
Do you suggest that the soviet union should not have collapsed?
And on top of that go over what every post soviet republic went through after USSR collapsed.
Those countries were under dysfunctional system for 70 years and suddenly they're being thrown in a 180 turn economy without any institutions.
Also keep in mind that majority of republics were left on their own and had to become satellites of Russia if they wanted to survive.
That collapse certainly wasn't peaceful within the nations of the former Soviet Union. There was no military uprising but thre was utter chaos among the civilian population.
This should be the top comment. As a Russian myself I totally agree.
The USSR should've been broken up until a number of sustainably small republics left. Let Islamic regions go that themselves wanted out (and Russians wanted and still want them out as well) and which resulted in bloody wars on Caucausus.
What actually happened is a quiet takeover by party apparatchiks. The "dissolution" of USSR was performed by three major communist party members so that most important asset Russia (de facto RSFSR left intact) was not broken up.
The power was still centralized in Kremlin as well. The first and last actually elected parliament (elected back under Gorbachev) was crushed in 1993 by Kremlin.
KGB was allowed to regroup as FSB, hide a lot of crimes and then run for power in 1999.
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