September 6: The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, in 1991. That recognition initiated the gradual dismemberment which ends in December with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Baltic states regions map

In late 1980s there was a massive campaign of Baltic civil resistance against the Soviet regime. Those demonstrations were known as the "Singing Revolution" of the Baltic nations in northern Europe.

Soviet Union occupation of Baltic States

The Soviet Union invaded and annexed the three countries in 1939 when the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty was signed, by which Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland in 1940.

Baltic-Way-Photo-by-Vilijus-Jasinevičius

By an admirable social call, the peoples of the three countries were cited to form a human chain of more than two million people spread across 600 kilometers of roads which they called "The Baltic Way”.

Añadir leyenda

The head of the Soviet government, Mikhail Gorbachev, understood that the independence of the Baltic republics was inevitable.

However, Gorbachev failed to visualize the scope of what was coming: a domino of independence that liquidated the Soviet Union in December 1991. As a house of cards, the Soviet Union collapsed and with it the so-called "Soviet communism".