AJALOO RIIGIEKSAMI ÜLESANDED
made a substantial impact on political memoirs. Two contrasting opinions prevail
as regards the debacle of the Soviet Union: (1) the downfall of the empire re-
presented a natural course of events, and the Soviet Union ought to have been
demolished long ago; and (2) the Soviet Union ought to have been preserved,
which would have been indeed possible if the actions taken had displayed a
greater degree of sensibility. Gorbachev and his opponents the derzhavniks agree
that it would have been possible to sustain the Soviet Union. Both sides, however,
keep accusing each other and President Yeltsin of destroying the state. The
advocates of the modernisation theory, on the other hand, tend to blame the crash
of the superpower on the crisis of communism and the Soviet system. The majority
of the authors listed above proceed from the assumption that it was possible, and
even more so, imperative to retain the Soviet Union seeing that the consequences
annaabi.ee 
