Disparity Between Republics

Although the indications were present well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world was not completely ready for the end of the Cold War. The US was left alone without any major balancing opponents. Furthermore, after the dissolution of the Soviets the numbers of newly established independent states have increased significantly. All these new states were lacking of self-governing capabilities and also the Western vision, which was the victorious ideology of the Cold war. Moreover, some

The December of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Union—and with it, an entire era. Like the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in rapid succession, with both spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, there existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been proven ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative

The democratization, economic liberalization, and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union is commonly attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost reforms during the period of 1985-1991. This purpose of these reforms is still a trenchant question as the countries of the old Soviet Union, particular Russia, are being pressured to further liberalize their economies.

The Soviet Union was at one time one of the two most powerful countries in the world, and yet the Soviet Union is not longer in exists. How did this come to be? They were on the winning side of World War II, with the United States. They were growing in size, and they were spreading communism to other countries. They were on pace to be as powerful and influential as the United States. While there are many reasons as to why the Soviet Union collapsed, the main reason is the Cold War. There were also two very important people that contributed to the fall Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Moreover, while things were getting out of control in the Soviet Union, one nation that can illustrate how the Soviet Union finally collapsed is Russia. Things were like as it is when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power following the death of Konstantin Cherenko in 1985. Gorbachev used the policy of Glasnot, or “openness to freedom of

The Soviet Union was none the less held together by "…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force." (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Therefore, these new reforms could not overpower the previous ‘seventy years' of soviet rule.

Leonid Brezhnev, who took power after Khrushchev, attempted to reinstate Stalinism back into the Soviet Union. His reign created the neo-Stalinist period in Russia, albeit with a series of economic reforms that favored light industries and the production of consumer goods than heavy industry. Brezhnev also supported weakening animosities with the West in order to improve relations, attempting to improve the social and economic condition within the Soviet Union. However, due to health problems, much of the actual implementation was carried out by others within the CPSU leadership. Being on average older than the general population, the CPSU leadership was mostly conservative, which hindered the progress. Overall, through trying to combine the conservative and relatively outdated ideologies of Stalinism with failing economic reforms, Brezhnev was credited with the Era of Stagnation in the Soviet Union, being unable to deal with both internal and international affairs. Following Brezhnev was Yuri Andropov, a reformist who, during his short time as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, pushed for more freedom in media and appointed several other reformers into key positions in the CPSU. Konstantin Chernenko, who took power against Andropov’s wishes following his demise, attempted to shift back into the Brezhnev era policies, while also promoting reforms in education and the role of labor unions. However, poor health prevented him from properly implementing policies, and de facto power remained with reformer Mikhail Gorbachev. By this point, the constant fighting between reformists and Stalinists, together with conflicting and ineffective policies, had severely damaged the Soviet economy, as well as deteriorated international relations, escalating the Cold War, and slowly worsened socioeconomic and political tensions within

Gorbachev reforms were attempts to open the country, not to end communism. However, the soft power of communist promises had failed, coupled with the brutality of the state, and economic decline meant the loss of faith in communism. In attempting to reform, the state lost control of the reforming elite, who were working very hard to eliminate communism (Truman). The soft power had failed as it lacked the convention to convince the middle class, even with the reforms, that their lives were going to be better, as communism promised. Importantly, the government had many failed promised and the people lacked faith in communism to continue living in the Soviet Union. For the middle class, dictatorship seems strong, but a dictatorship's heavy-handedness is brittle and will crack under sufficient stress such as political and economic revolution from the bottom up. (the reason why the cold war ended). The long-term decay of the Soviet institutions had left the country in internal decay, that ultimately could not survive the revolution from the bottom

The USSR’s tensions with the US began quickly after the end of World War II because both nations emerged as superpowers. Both had seen the devastation created by nuclear weapons in Japan, mutual distrust between the two countries led to massive investments in nuclear armaments and the funding of countries with similar ideologies. Almost immediately after World War II the long and dreadful Cold War emerged. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1991 with the demise of the Soviet Union. How could such a large and powerful nation fall with no actual combat? It is said that the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight.

When the USSR collapsed the Cold War was ended, along with the spread of communism. In the year 1991, the USSR lost control of several Baltic States. Harsh living conditions and oppressive policies stirred rebellion in the people. Russian President Gorbachev tried in vain to restore power by first withholding, “vital supplies like oil and raw materials from the Baltic States, or even used force…where hundreds of people were killed” (Paxton 651). When deprivation and violence failed, Gorbachev persuaded member republics of the USSR to sign a “new union treaty establishing a looser federation of ‘sovereign states’” (Paxton 651). Although, he had meant to strengthen communism, Gorbachev’s bloody tactics lost support of progressives, as well as, conservatives. The final signature of the union treaty was blocked by a coup led by Boris Yeltsin, later he would become president of the Russian Federation. Secession movements brought civil war to Russia. On September sixth 1991, the Baltic States declared full independence with heartland regions similarly minded. Now considered obsolete, the USSR was replaced with a new Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev resigned and Yeltsin assumed control. The Soviet Union no longer existed.

The Soviet Union was a global superpower, possessing the largest armed forces on the planet with military bases from Angola in Africa, to Vietnam in South-East Asia, to Cuba in the Americas. When Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, nobody expected than in less than seven years the USSR would disintergrate into fifteen separate states.

The derailed, scrambled mess of the USSR that was inherited by Gorbachev from gaining Party leadership in 1985 was a daunting challenge. The legacy of Stalinism, a broken economy, a crippled political system, and the terror of Gulags and public’s fear of dissent certainly did prove too insurmountable to solve that the state collapsed in 1991 . Yet, this did not stop Gorbachev from attempting to preserve the system through his initiatives of perestroika and glasnost, which involuntarily led to the USSR’s demise. The former was an effort to restructure the economy by rejuvenating it, but what is done to the economy is inextricably linked to political changes. The goal was to redesign the Soviet’s heavy centralized government so that it was more open and responsive to market forces, thus ending the old regime’s price controls and monopolies . The nature of perestroika’s dramatic restructuring was painfully slow for Russians that they would later gather together to protest the lethargic adjustments and long lines they waited in as a result . At the same time, it uprooted the social and political system built on Communist rule so that elections were now injected with political freedom based on Leninist principles. Thus, Gorbachev attempted to imbed democratic seeds into the Soviet Union through perestroika because he stated that the

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

More than half a decade has passed since the sweeping political events of 1989 and 1990 in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. On December 26, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist . In its place are the Russian federation and 14 independent countries. The impact of this change was felt across the globe, from European countries with close economic ties with the USSR to countries as far away as Cuba and Algeria. The former republics experienced the hardest time in their existence, and entered a new period of their history.

It will be discussing how Gorbachev’s glasnost has affected the soviet union during 20th centuries. Therefore , it will be examining the positive and negative effects of the glasnost to soviet union during 20th centuries. Firstly, Gorbachev’s glasnost have some positive effects to the soviet union in 20th centuries. Glasnost was effected from 1985 to 1991 that glasnost means openness and it was named for the social and political reforms that it will give more rights and freedoms upon the soviet union people that it even came openness for public affairs, press, politics, education, and even free speech.. Also, through glasnost, he hoped it to attain a certain degree of credibility that he would able to do the economic restructuring Perestroika. Glasnost allowed for freedom of expression and the releasing of controls on radio, press, the film business and TV immediately made ready for popular sentiment to slip beyond Gorbachev's grasp.Also,the impact that glasnost had on dissenter cultural