Many, from the peripheries of the Soviet Union to the Yugoslav republics and Central European countries eager to leave the Bloc, saw 1989 as the culmination of struggles for independence. Yet often these were scripted only as national stories, left unconnected to global histories of empires’ ends. On one hand, 1989 represented a Westernising civilizational realignment following the weakening of the anti-imperialism that postwar global decolonisation had once inspired: the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from its global project was an important facet of such ideological exhaustion. On the other, this was part of an ongoing global process of self-determination. Here we trace the growth of opposition to ‘Soviet Empire’ or unwanted federalisms through these broader transformations: from an internationalist era of high decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s to much more regional languages of struggle in the 1980s. Although self-determination was for the most part peaceful, the breakup of Yugoslavia marked the greatest return to bloodshed in Europe since 1945: we explore the international context – from non-aligned connections to the return of exiles and the production of civilizational divides – that underpinned the outbreak of violence.