Essay on The Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communist Rule

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

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

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

Khrushchev was desperate to present himself as a reformer, completely breaking away from the reliance of ‘fear into submission’ tactics of the Stalinist era, by presenting

The Soviet Union was none the less held together by "…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force." (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Therefore, these new reforms could not overpower the previous ‘seventy years' of soviet rule.

Since he first came into power, Mikhail Gorbachev had set into motion the most aggressive economic agenda since the Khrushchev era; 1. A modernization of the country’s stock and equipment, and a revitalization of management and planning to rid the Soviet bureaucracy of incompetence and put more operational control of enterprises in the hands of managers on the scene. All of Gorbachev’s agendas were aimed to raise productivity and efficiency throughout the economy by matching more and better equipment with a motivated work force. However, Gorbachev came to realize that his early economic and disciplinary measures offered no basic solution. In Lenn’s Tomb, David Remnick delivers a captivating story of different episodes pertaining to Gorbachev’s

Gorbachev's goal was to revive the Russian economy and elevate the country's standard of living. Gorbachev reduced the size and value of the centralized economic ministries, and by 1990, the Marxist principles abandoned. Gorbachev advocate private ownership of property and liberalization of the economy toward free market mechanisms, and despite their, determination the Soviet economy remained stagnated, and Gorbachev's policies failed.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in the winter of 1991 sparked various reactions among Soviet citizens, government officials, Western onlookers and the rest of the world. The Soviet Union was once one of the most powerful military empires in the world suddenly saw itself crumble to the ground. Mikhail Gorbachev, the dynamic leader at the helm of the Communist Party of the United Soviet Socialists Republic, (USSR), at the time, was a key contributor to its demise. Gorbachev, born into a poor family in an agricultural community, emerged through the rankings of Soviet leadership, finding himself at the top of the Communist Party. He established a new era and a new beginning of reform. Although former Soviet leaders left problems with the government that set the stage for a collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev was responsible for the final dissolution of the USSR, due to his reforms in foreign policy, domestic policy, society and the economy of Russia.

When Joseph Stalin died in March of 1953 he was initially succeeded by the ‘collective leadership’ of his most loyal lieutenants at the forefront of the Soviet government. While the parameters of ‘collective leadership’ originally prevented any single successor from gaining full control of the Soviet Union, by June 1957 Nikita Khrushchev had emerged as the clear successor of Joseph Stalin (Bociurkiw, 1960). However, Khrushchev was not the most compelling contender for succession following Stalin’s death, and this essay will address the failures and errors of the front runners for succession, L.P. Beria and G.M. Malenkov, and how this allowed for Khrushchev to be the ultimate heir to the Soviet Union. This essay will analyze the events which led to the the downfall of Beria and Malenkov and the actions taken by Khrushchev that led to his culmination of supreme power in the Soviet Union.

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,

Although the collapse of the Soviet Union caught many scholars and politicians off guard, the Soviet empire had shown signs of deterioration since the late 1960s. Although the stability of the system couldn’t be questioned, the rigidity of the system hindered the readjustment in crucial sectors, necessary to adapt to the rapidly changing world. One of the first attempts to update the system and rid it from the excesses of its last rule, came with the ascension of Khrushchev to power. In the 20th Party Congress he established his idiosyncratic position that put a clear end to the Stalinist era. The “secret speech” sent a powerful

After the Russian Revolution, there was a lot of confusion on how to establish institutions strong enough to rebuild and hold the state and society together. An issue with Marxism is that it is is not a theory of governance, rather a theory of how to bring a socialist regime into power—hence explaining the lack of guidance. At this time, Lenin took control. But after his death, the Russians were once again faced with appointing a leader to direct them. The domestic and international conditions in which the Soviet Union found itself, the legacy of Leninist ideology and organization, and Stalin’s overall character were all factors that helped determine the policies Stalin adopted.

After graduating from law school he worked to promote the Communist Party programs in the region he came from. He saw the horrible living conditions in the villages and had concerns about his country and wanted to change things and make life better for his people. Gorbachev knew that the country was spending too much on the military and that it didn’t produce enough food to feed its people. He knew the answer was to change the system. He knew that he had to open relations with the west and have a more open political system (Ratnesar Pg. 74-74).

and then the sudden and expected by no one collapse of the whole system leading

Not long after becoming the president of the Soviet Union in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev made a phone call that symbolized many of the reforms he would soon bring to his country. He called Andrei Sakharov, a human rights activist who was exiled to the closed city of Gorky, to tell him that his exile was over: The famous dissident and his wife could return home to Moscow. The very next year, Gorbachev pardoned all Soviet political prisoners: Hundreds of people were freed. After many decades, the Soviet government’s political repression of its own people was finally ending, and Mikhail Gorbachev was the man who made it happen. In addition, the