Dear comrade, My dear friend, I regret to inform you that our beloved Soviet society has ceased to exist. Our sturdy red flag with its magnificent golden sickle and hammer emblem flew over the Kremlin for the very last time on Christmas Day 1991. Before that dark day, eleven of the fifteenth Soviet republics that once constituted the Soviet Union strong and prosperous Soviet Union, gathered in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, to announce that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union and that they had created a Commonwealth of independent states. Our Baltic brothers: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were the first to secede, while Georgia remained the last republic of the Soviet Union. I served the Soviet Union as foreign minister for nearly two decades, and in recent days I have reflected on the past to understand why our mighty society dissolved. I wonder if it is because of Comrade Mikhail Gorbachev and his new policies, the ethnic divisions of the Soviet Union, or if this communist ideology that we have tried so hard to implant in the minds and hearts of our people have simply failed to take firm root. The beautiful Soviet society was born in 1917, with the Bolshevik Revolution resulting in the creation of a new government that would focus on socialism and eventually transform into communism. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsarist autocracy and succeeded to the lands of the Russian Empire, eventually leading to the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under the control of Marxist revolutionary and first leader of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin. For centuries, the Tsarist autocracy oppressed its people, despite the Soviet Union's goal of creating a truly democratic society. The sad truth is that it was like a tyrannica... middle of paper... on December 25, 1991. To my great surprise, this immense military power that we called the USSR, which created enormous bloodshed and created a constant feeling of fear and terror, had somehow ended very peacefully. Because what had united so many republics no longer exists, it was the cement that kept us united as one. We now remain in 15 republics with the difficult task of creating economies and social and political organizations to lead us towards a democratic future. I feel like my world has been turned upside down because I no longer feel repressed or forced to live in fear. I am excited about what the future holds, as I see a peaceful new beginning in a world that has seen so much hatred, dismay and bloodshed. Sincerely, Joe Doe