The Collapse Of The Soviet Union

In 1989, the world saw the fall of the United Soviet Socialist Republic (U.S.S.R.), which was also known as the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a block of 15 Communist Eastern European states that was ruled by one government with various puppet governments located throughout the states. Its collapse brought about new issues that the world had never had to deal with before. The fall of such a large block of Soviet states created many problems and some of the solutions that were used to solve these problems, as well as many of the tensions that were created during this time, still affect the world today. Some of the ramifications resulting from the Soviet Union’s collapse are still being felt; however, many problems have been solved

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.

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 collapse of the communist Soviet Union ultimately led to the end of the cold war. The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. Thus highlighting the inferiority of communism and the superiority of western capitalism. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, however, was a result of both domestic and international factors including policies established by both the US and the Soviet leaders, most importantly Gorbachev’s ‘New Thinking’ reforms combined with the hard-line approach of Ronald Reagan. It has also been argued that the collapse of communism in eastern Europe was inevitable due to its moral bankruptcy, as well as the growing economic pressures which ultimately forced the Soviet Union to

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

During the era of the Cold War, starting in 1947 and definitively ending in 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in conflicts with each other through smaller states.

The Soviet Union was one of the three strongest nations in the world. Between 1964 and 1982, the Soviet Union competed militarily with the world’s best. The Soviet Union and its system appeared impervious to rudimentary change especially when Politburo was headed by Leonid Brezhenev. It was almost impossible even for the most disaffected nationalities like Baltic people of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia to think that the Soviet Union could fall leading

However, the economy in the Soviet Union under both Brezhnev and Gorbachev was bad. According to Brezhnev, the government’s central planning led to a huge and complex bureaucracy, collective farmers had no incentive to work hard, and there were high standard of living. Also, under Gorbachev, the economic issues led to a slow-down in the arms race. It tripled the national debt in US and the cost of maintaining satellite states and an enormous military budget under communism were too high that they would not afford it.

The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government

The United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was experiencing extreme pressure from NATO in the mid-1980’s. Warsaw allies were having difficulties to maintain the control over their border by placing some nuclear arsenal pointing at one another. While keeping cohesion within the USSR umbrella and with insurmountable of debt the USSR was expanding their resources through trade deals it was becoming difficult to assist various countries. However, by the mid-1980’s, the USSR political system was gradually changing from a Federalist government into a Socialist system as Mikhail Gorbachev became elected as the leader of the USSR after the death of Konstantin Chernenko. Gorbachev policies was a shift of political, militarily, and social

The Rise of Leonid Brezhnev saw a return to “Stalin” type leadership within the Soviet Union, many of the social reforms that

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR was at one time one of leading world powers, only rivaled by the United States. So that begs the questions, “how could a country that was at one time so dominant fall so far?” In this essay I will examine the circumstances that led up to the Soviet Union’s eventual downfall by mainly focusing Mikhail Gorbachev’s term as leader of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and what changes he brought about through glasnost and perestroika, democratization and the national independence movements that began as a result of it, and lastly failed coup by conservative members of the USSR against Gorbachev that ultimately became the last nail in the coffin for the

In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union continued to control every aspect of national life. The large state and party bureaucracy was beginning to experience serious economical problems. So when Brezhnev died in 1982, a change needed to be made to improve the performance of the economy. In 1985 a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was here to change the situation. Although Gorbachev believed in communism, he understood that it was unsuccessful and set out to change this by introducing new reform policies labeled as democratic socialism. The first of his new policies was called perestroika, it eased the government price controls on certain goods, gave added independence for state enterprises, and establishment of profit-seeking private cooperatives.

At the point when Mikhail Gorbachev came to control in 1985, he attempted to train the Soviet individuals as an approach to defeat financial stagnation. At the point when train neglected to take care of the issue, he propelled perestroika ("rebuilding"). What's more, when officials constantly upset his requests, he utilized glasnost, or open dialog and democratization. Be that as it may, once glasnost let individuals say what they thought, many individuals stated, "We need out." By December 1991, the Soviet Union stopped to exist. Gorbachev's outside strategy, which he called "new considering," likewise added to the Cold War's end. Gorbachev needed to change socialism, not supplant it. Gorbachev said that security was a diversion from which

Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet economy, but then he discovered that he cannot give people a little bit of freedom and starting “in 1989 the Warsaw Pact nation has rejected communism in a series of peaceful revolutions. Since 1987, with the signing of the agreement of IRBM treaty with Washington the Soviets tempered their positions in the face of continued US confrontation. In 1989, the Soviets acknowledged they could not win in Afghanistan and withdrew their military from the country. In 1991, the Soviet regime collapsed because of the double pressure of political reformists and decline of the