Gorbachev 's Impact On 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 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.

Blaming Gorbachev for the Collapse of the Soviet Union On December 5 1991 the Soviet Union was declared officially non-existent, radically changing the world’s economic and political environment. On the 10 February 1991 Heydar Aliyev spoke in Parliament warning of his anticipation that the Soviet Union was to collapse, “The Culprit to be blamed is Gorbachev”. There is no doubt Gorbachev played a prominent role in the fall of communism in the USSR and the collapse of the USSR itself, as well as acquiring the responsibility for ending the Cold War, a major post-war tension. What I will endeavour to conclude in this essay is the extent to which Gorbachev was responsible for the USSR’s downfall

Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of a government that was set up to make reform impossible and a stagnant economy. Due to these two hurtles Gorbachev tried to improve the Soviet Union. But his improvements would only make the Soviet Union’s problems worse. He did this by introducing two knew polices. These polices were called Glasnost and Perestroika. Glasnost was a policy put into effect for political openness. Through Glasnost Gorbachev hoped to eliminate Stalinist repressions, such as banning books and the secret police. It gave new freedoms to the Soviet citizens. Through the Glasnost policy political prisoners were released. The Soviet Union newspapers were now allowed to print criticisms of the government, something had not been allowed under communism. Probably the most important change brought on by Glasnost was that other political parties, besides the communist party were now able to participate in

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

19)Glasnost in the Soviet Union was leading to the end on communism in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev urged this glasnost. He would end censorship and encourage his people to discuss the country’s problems. He also wanted the government and economy of his nation to be reconstructed. All of these actions would lead to the end of

As one of the leaders of the Soviet Union, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a canny and careful Communist Party functionary who sought to make his country the military equal of the United States and promote its political influence around the world through the policy of detente. While Nikita Khrushchev another leader of the Soviet Union during the climax of the cold, largely pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, he instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by placing nuclear weapons 90 miles from Florida. At home, he initiated a process of “de-Stalinization” that made Soviet society less repressive. I think it would have been a good idea to keep Khrushchev in power. Because, although he played major roles in things that could of lead to a global tragedies like the Cuban missile crisis or the berlin wall. Khrushchev was the first of the Soviet leaders who begin the trend of liberalization that ultimately peaked with Gorbachev. He also ended the "socialist primitive accumulation" that spanned all of Stalin 's rule. He also abandoned the concept of class struggle. In actual fact, while “revisionistically" breaking from the industrialization-and-purge era of 1929-1941, he ensured continuity with the immediate post-war era of 1946-1953. In 1966, China’s Communist leader Mao Zedong launched what became known as the Cultural Revolution, in order to reassert his authority over the Chinese government. Believing that current Communist leaders were taking the party, and China

Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the disintegration of a country based on an uncompromising ideological dogma, the unlikely inheritor of Marxist/Leninist communist philosophy. The Soviet Union’s unwieldy economic superstructure left it vulnerable to Ronald Reagan’s aggressive economic/military policy, an approach based on the belief that a military build-up would force the Soviets to spend to keep pace, an effective strategy because it pushed the Soviet economy over the edge into ruin. The subsequent implosion ended communist domination in Eastern Europe and opened the way for democratic elements that radically altered the political landscape in Moscow. When the Soviet Union officially came to an end in 1993, it briefly recalled the end of tsarist rule in 1917, with the potential for the kind of chaos and violence that turned the Russian Revolution into a bloodbath. President Boris Yeltsin used the military to disband parliament but his call for new elections moved the country toward a more open, democratic form of government. Lacking any real background in representative government, Russia ultimately proved incapable of fulfilling the promise of democratic government and descended into a form of anarchy riddled by increasingly strong criminal elements. In recent years, the rise of Boris Putin, a new strongman in Moscow, helped restore a sense of order and allowed the resurgence of communist elements. The government that now holds power, and which

President Reagan and the White house began a military buildup that stimulated a new arms race. Subsequently, the Reagan administration adopted the Strategic Defense Initiative to build up a space shield for security and drove the Soviet Union into an arms race. As a result of the competition created by the Cold War between the two superpowers, the USSR challenged by the US, heavy industrialization was introduced to accommodate defensive expenditures and as a result a strain was imposed on the Soviet budget. Economically under pressure with the combination of Mikhail Gobrachev’s radical policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (free market economy) the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and gave rise to 15 different nations.

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.

By the time of the 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev take over control of Soviet Union. He was the Soviet Union’s last leader. “ This split the scientific community up into factions and promoted conflict. It permitted him to intervene and take sides whenever deemed necessary” (Martin McCauley. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union). The country was in a state of serious inactivity, with severe economic and political dispute, which were required to be fix and conquered. Knowing this deep in mind, Gorbachev initiated a policy of reform. First ,he proposed a policy of freedom of speech. Next, he started a plan of economic reform known as perestroika, rebuilding. However, Gorbachev did not noticed that by offering people complete freedom of speech, he was unintentionally released emotions and political feelings that had been hold up for decades. Also, it seemed to be exceedingly powerful when brought out into the open. Moreover, his policy of economic reform did not have the obvious results he had anticipated for and had publicly conjectured. The Soviet people eventually utilized their recently granted freedom of speech to criticize Gorbachev for his deficiency to boost the economy.

In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the Glasnost and Perestroika. These economic policies aimed for a much-needed improvement. The Glasnost eventually led to greater freedom of information. More importantly, it opened up the minds of the public about the mistakes and limitations of the government. Aside from a bad economy, some of satellite states in the eastern part of Europe started to abandon the ideals of communism. These factors pressured Gorbachev to put an end to the Cold War.

#1. In the late 1980s, Soviet Union had brought its glasnost (openness) era. Soviet president Mikhail G. introduced the revolutionary idea of Perestroika, which refers to “economic restructuring.” Gradually, Soviet’s culture and business began to grow. The political parties began to spring up, and farmers began to sell their products on the open market. In 1987, the Kremlin passed a new law on the joint ventures, easing restrictions on the importation of foreign capital, technology, and expertise.

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.