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Gorbachev And The Fall Of The Soviet Union

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Gorbachev and the fall of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was an empire centered in Moscow, Russia. The Soviet Union consisted of more than just Russia, it consisted of fifteen sovereign republics, and its formal title was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In addition to the 15 sovereign republics that comprised the Soviet Union after World War II there was also the Soviet Outer Empire. The Soviet Union Outer Empire was commonly referred to as the Soviet Bloc, which consisted of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Soviet empire extended from Berlin in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east.
The Soviet Union was a communist country, meaning that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, herein referred to as CPSU, exercised absolute rule. The Communist Party controlled both the government and the economy. The Soviet Union’s economy was based on a centrally planned economy, which was composed every five years at the CPSU Party Congress. Despite early successes under Stalin, the five-year plan system proved to be a mistake. The plans that were produced were unrealistic, and inconsistent with sound economic policy. The ideology that motivated people in the early years of the Soviet Union started to fail to serve as sufficient motivation, and without further incentives, the workforce remained unmotivated and inefficient. In addition to the failures of the planned economy, the people who ran the party were thoroughly corrupt,

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