On 25 December 1991 the red flag was lowered from the Kremlin and by the end of the month
the Soviet Union had passed into history. Soviet Union had first been reformed, then
transformed, and then disintegrated all within the space of six-and-a-half years. It had
ceased to be a communist system in any meaningful sense from the time of the state-wide
contested elections of the spring of 1989. Inside the Communist Party, vigorous public
debate had replaced 'democratic centralism'. Moreover, the basic principle of the party's
'leading role' within the political system and society was being challenged from all sides
as new political organisations sprang up. In March 1990 the Communist Party's monopoly of
power was removed from the Soviet Constitution, formal recognition of what had been the
reality on the ground for the past year.
