30 Years After the USSR: No End to History

In: Russia in Global Affairs, Band 19, Heft 4

Abstract

From the standpoint of world history, the collapse of the Soviet Union is unremarkable. That this event took the world by surprise suggests that political analysts, their attention focused on current affairs, can overlook underlying trends and countertrends that eventually make even dramatic events seem secondary. When trends and countertrends are in equilibrium, they generate an illusion of stability. But in the long run, the possibility of disequilibrium approaches certainty and the result is discontinuity.