The dissolution of the Soviet Union[a] was the process of internal disintegration

within the Soviet Union (USSR) which resulted in the end of the country's and its

federal government's existence as a sovereign state, thereby resulting in its

constituent republics gaining full independence on 26 December 1991. It brought an

end to General Secretary (later also President) Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to reform

the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political

stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal

stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years,

the country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as homelands for

different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several

republics already departing the Union and the waning of centralized power, the

leaders of three of its founding members declared that the Soviet Union no longer

existed. Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev

resigned in December 1991 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to end

itself.