The following lists events that happened during 1991 in the Soviet Union and Russia. The Soviet Union had a transitional government in 1991, during the fall of communism. Every republic in the union had growing nationalism until Christmas of 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and President of the Soviet Union, abandoned the Union at the time of its dissolution. The dissolution created huge changes in politics and territorial claims. NATO scaled back its presence following the dissolution.