Economic Prosperity During The Soviet Union

One can easily admit that the Party had failed to properly economically plan the needs of each state. The Soviet Union economy was complex and massive, it became an impossible task for the state planners to manage, as they did not want to grant and create more managerial levels that would proceed to the local level resulting in failed timely attempts to the constant changes the economy was going through. Since the Soviet economy was based on state planning, it failed in encouraging innovation and motivating productivity. Managers would also alter numbers in order to produce the quotas that they were required to meet. The growth of the Soviet economy had been in a constant decline since the 1950’s and this progressed to the 1980’s. This was a clear sign that the Soviet economy was in need of a complete economic overhaul. Gorbachev succeeded power in March, 1985 and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. His main goal was to revive the Soviet economy, and he strongly believed that success was tied to loosening the governments control and creating a system that included less government intervention and more freedom to allow private initiatives. This new market economy would allow for private enterprise, which what Gorbachev believed would create more innovation. For the first time since 1920’s, individuals were able to own and create businesses.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia were now able to own their own businesses. They could move freely for jobs and homes. The countries are now able to vote as they wish. They did however change their language. All countries in the Soviet Union used to speak German. Now Czech is spoken in the Czech Republic and Slovak is spoken in Slovakia. The national anthem changed, both countries now have their own. In the Soviet Union the religion was Atheism, and now Czechoslovakia is free to believe whatever they want. The soviet Ruble was the currency in the Soviet Union and then it changed to the Czechoslovak Koruna and finally, when Czechoslovakia split, it changed to Czech Koruna in the Czech Republic and the Euro in Slovakia. The government in the Soviet Union was dictatorship. Now, a Parliamentary Republic is the form of government in Slovakia and Czech Republic. Although life after the Soviet Union collapsed was free, some people say it was easier to live in the Soviet Union because everything was already set and organized for you. They were not making many of their own decisions. However, when Czechoslovakia became free, the people realized that they had more freedom. They had to make decisions on their

Under the pressures of the Soviet regime's plans for economic development, the Russian people were worn down. Subsequently, the willingness of these people to do further work for the Soviet cause was wavering. The transfer of power within the Communist Party also provided a source of instability within the USSR. Infighting over potential leadership changes provided a very real force of upheaval within Russia. These weaknesses showed that the USSR may bring about its own downfall.

Forty-four years (1947-1991) of the “Cold War”, also known as communism, was overpowering many of the nations from Russia, Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia and South Africa – just to name a few places. Communism was a very powerful issue in 1981. During this time, Reagan was taking his stand as the 40th President of the United States. During this time, Russia was under the leadership of Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.

Before World War II, Soviet troops occupied most of Eastern Europe. Stalin promised to hold “free elections” in these Eastern European nations. Later he broke that promise. By 1948, Communists controlled the governments of every Eastern country except Yugoslavia. In each country the Soviets placed dictators.

Soon after the World War II was finished, the confrontation between the Soviet Union on in the United States of America unleashed (Holitz, 2010, 162). Despite being in the convenient marriage during the war (Holitz, 2010, 165), these great powers started their own campaigns for global supremacy and international economic and social influence. The United States of America was recognized as a leader of the free world and the main protagonist of the capitalistic model of country development. The USSR, in its turn, emphasized the role of socialism, controlled market and development of the communistic state as the most benevolent mode of state construction.

The Soviet Union did a few things that are notable of mentioning as positive aspects of the Cold War and of the USSR’s mindset. One example of something positive yielded from

The economy could not keep pace with the United States. The standard of living for Soviet citizens were steadily declining since the 1970s (Miller 2016, 17). The military was embroiled in the Afghanistan conflict which was producing massive causalities for the Soviet public and consuming scarce resources for its military that was needed for domestic consumption (Gaddis 2007). Secondly, the Soviet Union was plagued by appointing leaders who had fought in World War II, but with Gorbachev, they appointed a younger generation to take the mantle of leadership of the Soviet Union (Gaddis 2007). Gorbachev announce his economic restructure, Perestroika, and openness of the government, glasnost. Perestroika started the process of introducing market based principles into the operation of the state (Miller 2016, xii). State industries were allowed to determine output based on the will of the consumers as along as the orders from state bureau were fulfilled. Individuals would have the ability to own small-scale businesses and the property rights of those businesses would be respected (Miller 2016, 89). It also introduced competition in terms of foreign trade by allowing each ministry to pursue policies in their direct control when dealing with foreign companies and nations (Miller 2016, 71). The last major element of this would be allowing foreign investment by coupling Soviet resources such as

The many long-term internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union centralized around weaknesses in their economy. They had an inflexible central planning system, the inability to modernize, and the inefficiency in their agriculture production. Sometime around the 1970's the computer and automation revolution had emerged. This revolution took over the West, but practically missed the Soviet Union, except in the military sector (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev's goal in economic restructuring was to create a separation between the economic and the political. The major changes began with the legalization of private farming and business co-operatives, and the allowing of foreign company ownership over Soviet enterprises (Baylis &Smith, 2001) All of Gorbachev's ideas on economic restructuring backfired on him since the price levels were inconsistent, and a sense of social confusion about the future of their state was created.

Russia and Poland were once under the single party control, communism. Communism is when the government owns nearly all aspects of society. The government controlled everything from means of production, property, to even media. The fall of communism throughout the world began in the late 1980s. Since the liberalization of the two countries, Russia and Poland have come to long ways. After independence, both countries faced many struggles but are now considered to be powerful middle-class nations today.

Furthermore, due to the ethnic tensions and allowing non-communist political party to organize, one by one the Soviet Republics voted for independence and finally led to a fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

One of the most revolutionary historical events in the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. The dissolution of the USSR was at the time, not immediately foreseen nor expected. There was neither a civil war nor people’s revolution in a military coup that stormed the King’s castle. The only very evident factor, however, was that the economy of the Soviet Union preceding its dissolution was in free fall to be eventually coined the Era of Stagnation. But an economy in trouble could not be the cause that would lead to the collapse of seventy year-old seemingly powerful nation. It would not be the first first-world nation in economic trouble. It would take the Soviet Union’s last leader’s misguided attempts at reforms within his own party that intermixed with loosening the nation’s century old political ideology to open the floodgates for a chain of events and repercussions that would lead to the USSR’s collapse. If not for Gorbechav’s liberal sentiments at reforming a communist nation under democratic ideologies that had only previously survived under totalitarian oppression, the USSR might exist today given no other major historical events succeed and alter its continuing Communist pathway.

In the aftermath of WWII, the Yalta conference of 1945 determined the faith of the shattered eastern European countries. Due to the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany, Stalin demanded to be granted buffer zones as protection from future invasion. In exchange, President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill wished to see the buffer states in autonomy with free elections. Out of the many countries that came under Soviet influence such as Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Albania, and Yugoslavia, one of Stalin's satellites states was Hungary, a war-torn nation that suffered so much, it tried to stage a revolution in 1956. One of the primary reasons why the Hungarian Revolution broke out was Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech. In his speech, Khrushchev denounced

In 1988 the world begun to see the start of the most drastic change in geo-politics since the end of the Second World War. New policies set in place by Premier Gorbachev had intended to jump start the failing Soviet economy, instead they solidified the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By 1986, Perestroika and Glasnost had led to the liberalization of the USSR economies and politics as never before seen in history. In 1988, the Communist party lost elections and governmental control in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belorussia, Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. The revolutions started in Poland in 1989 and spread to Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania declaring independence from the Soviet Union. Moscow did not interfere with any of these uprisings within the eastern bloc.

The events that eventually led to the successful revolution in 1989 got their start in the “Prague Spring” in 1968. There was a brief period of political reform in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when Alexander Dubcek was elected to be the First Secretary of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Many of Dubcek’s reforms were trying to give more rights to the citizens as well as relaxing government censorship.