Ex-Soviet federalism
On paper, the Soviet Union was a federation: Its 15 republics even had the right to secede. In practice, under the tight control of the Communist Party although usually staffed by local talent they obeyed Moscow. Beneath a centralized veneer, however, lurked disunion. Gorbachev underestimate local nationalism, and when he allowed glasnost in the late 1980s, many Soviet republics went for independence, led by the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which Stalin had brutally annexed in 1940. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, all 15 republics proclaimed themselves independent. Now Russia aims to regain what it calls the "near abroad " either by economic ties or by military means, as in Georgia.