The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR in 1991 shed new light u pon the character of the two political systems, causing us to re-exami ne many of the standard interpretations of Soviet and Yugoslav politic s. This work is a comparative study of the disintegration of Yugoslavi a and the USSR--as multinational, federal communist states--and the re action to these parallel collapses of European and US foreign policy. Structural similarities in the destabiliazation of the two states mean that their comparative study provides great insight into the demise o f both.