Terdahulu, bermula bulan Ogos hingga Disember; semua republik individu termasuk Rusia sama ada telah memisahkan diri mereka sendiri daripada Soviet atau membatalkan Perjanjian Penubuhan USSR. Seminggu sebelum pembubaran rasmi, 11 buah republik telah menandatangani Protokol Alma-Ata yang mana secara rasminya menubuhkan CIS dan mengistiharkan bahawa USSR tidak lagi wujud.[3][4] Kedua-dua Revolusi 1989 dan pembubaran USSR juga menandakan berakhirnya Perang Dingin.
^Bahasa Rusia: Распа́д Сове́тского Сою́заcode: ru is deprecated , tr.Raspád Sovétskovo Sojúza, though more frequently a negatively connotated Bahasa Rusia: Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́заcode: ru is deprecated , tr.Razvál Sovétskovo Sojúza variant is used.
Dawisha, Karen & Parrott, Bruce (Editors). "Conflict, cleavage, and change in Central Asia and the Caucasus". Cambridge University Press (1997). ISBN0-521-59731-5
Gvosdev, Nikolas K., ed. The Strange Death of Soviet Communism: A Post-Script. Transaction Publishers (2008). ISBN978-1-41280-698-5
Kotz, David, and Fred Weir. “The Collapse of the Soviet Union was a Revolution from Above.” In The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, edited by Laurie Stoff, 155–164. Thomson Gale (2006).
Strayer, Robert. Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? Understanding Historical Change. M. E. Sharpe (1998). ISBN978-0-76560-004-2
Suny, Ronald. Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Stanford University Press (1993). ISBN978-0-80472-247-6
Walker, Edward W. Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2003). ISBN978-0-74252-453-8
Guide to the James Hershberg poster collectionDiarkibkan 2017-10-10 di Wayback Machine, Special Collections Research Center, The Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University. This collection contains posters documenting the changing social and political culture in the former Soviet Union and Europe (particularly Eastern Europe) during the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. A significant portion of the posters in this collection were used in a 1999 exhibit at Gelman Library titled "Goodbye Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the Revolution of '89 and the Collapse of Communism."