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As the power of the central state rapidly withered away through the fall of 1991, almost all the Soviet republics established themselves as independent states. At the same time a series of attempts were made to resurrect the some form of central authority or at least linkages between republics. Gorbachev tried in vain to resurrect the union treaty, but inter-republic cooperation could be achieved only on the economic level. In early October ten republics, including Armenia, agreed to an economic treaty, though only eight (including Armenia) actually signed it on October 18. Armenia did not join in Gorbachev's efforts in November to form a new confederation, the Union of Sovereign States.

On December 8 the leaders of the three Slavic republics – Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus – announced that the USSR had ceased to exist and that the three republics had set up a commonwealth, to which other republics were invited to join. An economic declaration linked the three republics in a common currency system and joint economic program. In Yerevan Ter-Petrosian offered "full support" for the initiative and signalled Armenia's intention to join the new commonwealth. On December 21, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Ethnically the most homogenous of Soviet republics, Armenia was perhaps the most unfortunate economically – nearly a quarter of its population was homeless, the victims of both political and natural earthquakes. Armenia had a population of about 3 283,000. Neighbouring Azerbaijan had a population of 7,029,000 and Georgia, 5,449,000. With less than 16 million people, Transcaucasia represented just under the 6 percent of the whole Soviet population. Armenia made up only 1.1 percent of Soviet population, produced only 0.9 percent of USSR's national material product (NMP) (1.2 percent in industry, 0.7 percent in agriculture), retained 1.4 percent of the state budget revenue, delivered 63.7 percent of its NMP to other republics, and exported 1.4 percent abroad. It was highly integrated into the Soviet economy. Its exports flowed almost entirely to other parts of the Union, and its imports came from its sister republics. Along with Estonia and Tajikistan, Armenia had the highest level of imports of any Soviet republic. Forty percent of all enterprises in Armenia were devoted during Soviet times to defence and were now in particular trouble.

For all its faults, Soviet-style communism and imperialism had managed a rough peace throughout the Soviet empire, both within the USSR and along its borders, that precluded interethnic warfare and interstate hostilities. With the end of Pax Sovietica, each republic was confronted with internal ethnic problems and external security threats that it would have to deal with on its own. Armenia entered its second period of independence in the twentieth century with war raging on its frontiers. The Ter-Petrosian government tried to distance itself from the Karabakh problem by portraying it as an internal Azerbaijani matter, but at the same time it was aware that Armenia had a moral and political commitment to support its compatriots in Karabakh. The Armenian voters of Karabakh responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union by declaring themselves an independent republic. Both Armenia and Karabakh seized the opportunity presented by the collapse of the Soviet empire to shape their own futures. The post-Communist governments of the Republic of Armenia and of Karabakh combined a cautious pragmatism with a bold faith that they could construct stability and prosperity in the troubled and treacherous world in which they were forced to live.