A historic date in history....

It was 25 years ago today the Hammer and Sickle flag of the USSR was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin in Moscow.  On that day the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was officially dissolved.  A political movement that began with a bang, literally, 70+ years earlier ended with just a whimper.

I just finished listening to a fascinating 6-part podcast series (Dan Carlin's Hardcore History / Blueprint for Armageddon) about The Great War, aka World War I, and how it changed the course of history from June 1914 to this very day.  As it pertains to Russia, the short version:

Unable to withstand the hardships and hunger of everyday life in war-weary Russia, by 1917 the people seized control and, after a series of revolutionary consolidations, the USSR was born.  By the 1980's the old Communist revolutionary zeal was long gone, and their system, which was slowly withering away, was as rotten as the Czar's was back in its dying days.

Russia to this day seems to have a never-ending inferiority complex.  They SO want to be a respected world power, but they simply have never quite been able to pull it off.  You can only rule by intimidation for so long, and by the late 1980's they were losing their iron grip.  Unable to afford an arms race with the West, with a population begging, then demanding a better life, and with nations on their periphery they had effectively controlled since the end of WWII now beginning to stand up to them, the hopelessly exhausted USSR finally lost power.  

Their last (nominal) Communist leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, after desperately trying a series of life-saving institutional reforms, finally accepted the inevitable and officially dissolved the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991.

Most reading this probably haven't given the passing of the USSR much thought since that historic day 25 years ago.  But at least one person, one Vladimir Putin, probably hasn't let a day pass since that event 25 years ago without thinking about it.  And he isn't smiling.

S

The linchpin of 20th Century history

Here's another Paul Harvey-ish "The Rest of The Story" (stay with me here):

Those of us who stayed awake in history class already know the story of how this meek looking Serb...

 ...Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the heir to the Austo-Hungarian throne, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia 100 years ago in Sarajevo. 

 The last photo taken of Ferdinand and Sophia before they were killed moments later.

This led to war between Austro-Hungary and Serbia, which also brought in Germany, England, France, Russia, the US, The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and others to what we know today as...

...World War I.

Because of Russia's disastrous showing under the corrupt Czar Nicholas his people revolted, eventually leading to the rise of....

...Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks/Communists.

After The Great War the victorious Allies put in place very harsh terms on the vanquished which brought great misery to average Germans, eventually leading to the rise of....

...Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party and World War II.

The new Post War League of Nations gave administration of the Mid East to France and Britain, who set up the boundaries of many of the present day countries there.

The newspapers still remind us every day how well THAT worked out! 

And of course Lenin's legacy brought us the Cold War...

 ...which lasted until the end of 1991.

All things considered, it was a pretty crappy century.

Now for The Rest Of The Story:  How exactly did Princip come to assassinate the Archduke and his wife?  He had fashioned a crude bomb which he dropped from a bridge onto the Archduke's automobile, but it bounced off the car's folded-back canvas top and exploded without causing injury to the Royals. 

To avoid capture Princip ducked into a nearby business to hide.  The Archduke insisted on completing his ceremonial rounds in Sarajevo so he set out again, but his driver MADE A WRONG TURN which took them right by the shop where Princip was hiding.

Seeing his opportunity, Princip came out and fired 2 shots at Ferdinand and Sophia, killing them both.  Many would argue that that wrong turn set off the chain of events that defined the 20th Century.

Without that wrong turn there might not have been an assassination, WWI, Lenin's revolution, Hitler's WWII, the Cold War, or the current Mid East debacle. 

It goes to show the tiniest things can have the most profound effects on history.

S