The Economic Crisis And The Arms Race

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.

When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.

The era that preceded the formation of the Soviet Union was earmarked with social unrest, famine, and failed governments. After many struggles, many smaller soviet republics joined to form a large conglomerate nation, known as the Soviet Union in 1922. Vladimir Lenin, leader at the time, replaced the failing capitalist government with a communist government. . At the end of WWII, most of Eastern and Central Europe’s countries were being occupied by the soviet army. They came to be controlled by the Soviet government and pulled back behind an “iron Curtain”. Winston Churchill’s famed Iron curtain remark refers to the countries that fell under the spell of the Soviet Union and shut out the western world ways of capitalism. The countries of

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 Soviet Union, a communist state whose more equal distribution of income and state-controlled economy had generated impressive growth with no unemployment in the 1930s,

The cold War is over but the influence of the Soviet Union is not and soviet union was a communist. The Soviet Union grew out of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war in 1917. Therefore it started after the Russian revolution in the early 1920s and lasted until 1991. However, three areas are most necessary to understand its cultural achievements. Its military strength and its political oppression.

“The Evil Empire” — that is what, at the height of the arms race, United States President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union (Rudolph 1). Unsurprisingly, the Soviet Union was similarly upset at the United States. This anger is what fueled the arms race. During the Cold War, due to fears of nuclear attack, the US and Soviet Union designed and deployed thousands of nuclear warheads, each hoping to deter the other from nuclear launch with threat of counter attack (O’Neal 1). This massive arms buildup, however, had many negative effects on the US. To recognize the impact that the arms race continues to have on today, it is crucial to understand not only its causes, but also its immediate impacts on the US economy, society, foreign

Firstly, background to the rise of the Soviet Union is examined. Keenan states that the Communists rose to power on ideas which denounced capitalism and

August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a five- ton atomic bomb over the Japanese city, Hiroshima, causing the Arms race. The Arms race was a competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons, especially, between the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Cold War began two years after World War II, and ended forty- four years later in 1991. By this time the Soviet Union had fallen apart due to all the foreign controversy. The Cold War had begun due to the United States attempting to force the Soviet Union to give up land, and the Soviets refusing. Following the Soviets refusing to give up their land, the United States gave European countries a tremendous amount of money in attempt to help them fight off communist forces which caused a threat to the Soviet Union, causing competition between the two. Although the Soviet Union started the Space Race, the United states is to blame for the Cold War because they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, causing the Arms Race, gave European countries economic aid in an attempt to help

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.

On July 16th, 1945 at about 5:45 a.m., the world was forever changed. Man had harnessed the awesome power of the atom and created the most destructive weapon ever, the atomic bomb. On that fateful day in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the United States detonated the first atomic bomb. The destructive power of the explosive was a sight never seen before. The mushroom cloud and searing light reached 40,000 feet in the air, and the bomb generated the power of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of conventional TNT. The bomb was so deadly, the detonation tower on which the bomb sat was vaporized, (History.com Staff). After said test, the United States military decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in hopes to end the war. The bombs, codenamed Little Boy and Fat

Before the nation of Russia became the international powerhouse that we knew as the USSR, it was first the small backwater country, whose economy ran on the use of serfs, Czar 's ruled every aspect, and the chance of growth was limited; however, once the year 1917 came along, the entire aspect of what was to be the Russia nation changed into a very strange and new one, called the United of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was, at one point, second only to the United States of America and had the power to destroy the entire planet with the single acknowledgement of their leader, because of their nuclear capabilities and their political power. The Russian country became the great Communist powerhouse after a great revolution in

The soviet Union was insecure and had to do whatever they could to insure a prosperous future

World War 1, a War fought between Germany, Russia, France, Great Britain, The United States, and many others. This war left 9,906,000 soldiers dead, 21,219,000 soldiers wounded and 7,750,000 soldiers missing. The issue of which country was to blame for causing this great war is very controversial. Being the bloodiest war known to man, it was started by simply moronic reasons, such as militarism, alliance systems, and nationalism.

Before one can understand the fall of the Soviet Union, he has to know how the nation came into being and the leaders, and the location of the country and the time period of its reign. How did the Soviet Union come into existence? Through the 1900’s the Soviet Union was entangled in a vast number of conflicts all because they wanted to spread communism. Subsequently, the rampant spread of communism and Soviet ideals had an impact in the First World War, Second World and Cold War. Under the authoritarian control of Russian leaders the budget for the military and various sectors clarifies that the Soviet Union in its existence failed.