Over the next several years, puppet regimes and states that were independent in name only broke away from Soviet domination and formed sovereign states.
Some states which had completely ceased to exist-such as the Baltic states-declared independence and became states in their own right.
In total, secession and decentralization in this era brought about more than a dozen newly independent states.
State opposition to any movement toward dismemberment is partly due to the fact that state organizations-that is, the people who control them-are motivated to cling to the benefits conferred by bigness.
More specifically, states must, as described by political scientist Charles Tilly,.
Efforts to subordinate neighbors and fight off more distant rivals create state structures in the form not only of armies but also of civilian staff that gather the means to sustain armies and that organize the ruler's day-to-day control over the rest of the civilian population.
In terms of population size, state control over larger populations means more human workers to tax.
The post-Soviet states seceded when the Soviet state had been rendered impotent by decades of economic decline and a failed coup.
Large states such as these are limited only by the military capabilities of other states, and by the threat of domestic unrest and resistance.
This relationship between bigness and state power has been illustrated in the fact that totalitarian states are virtually always large states.
Contrary to promises of machine-like efficiency made by advocates of ever more powerful states, totalitarian states are absurdly wasteful both in terms of capital and human life.
https://mises.org/wire/why-regimes-want-rule-over-big-states-more-land-and-more-people
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