Abstract
The August coup was a major quake in a series of political tremors that continue to shake the lands of the former Soviet Union. Societal forces had been building towards a break with the traditions of the unitary Soviet state under authoritarian Communist party rule. Gorbachev lost control and fell from power while attempting to harness rising demand for political pluralism and republican self-government. The Soviet military struggled to contain the same forces.
This article is a brief political history of the Soviet military's adjustment to political pluralism and republican political power from March 1990 through September 1991. It chronicles the end of the political commissars, that quintessential Marxist-Leninst military institution, and the beginning of the breakdown of the USSR's unified, extraterritorial, multinational armed forces.
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