The Soviet Union 's Bureaucracy

The competition and increasing awareness on democratic rights did force the Soviets to stand back and make some major policy changes in 1980s. The Soviet Premier of the time Gorbachev tried to set some political and social reforms in the soviet society in order to ease the pressure and help Soviets to continue to survive in the international arena. Moreover, the Soviets did not only make shifts in their internal policies but also in their foreign policy understanding as well. For instance withdrawal from Afghanistan, signing of various nuclear deterrence agreements with multi parties including the US are some of the key changes that occurred in the 1980s. However, the reforms of Gorbachev did not prevent the Soviets to stop its collapse and eventually after a series of events in 1991 the Soviet Union formally announced its dissolution[7].

Throughout its long history, Russia has been trapped in a continuous cycle of authoritarian regimes; only interrupted briefly with periods of tumultuous democratic transitions that were plagued by poor bureaucracy and weak institutions. Therefore, time and time again, Russia has turned towards authoritarianism. In the late 1900’s to early 2000’s, Russia again saw the fall of democracy coincide with the rise of a competitive authoritarian regime. This rise of competitive authoritarianism in Russia in the late 1900’s to early 2000’s was largely the result of the resource curse which granted Putin’s Administration false economic performance legitimacy. This in turn reinvigorated past strongman ideals, while at the same time solidified negative

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

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

Soviet rule  ended in  Eastern Europe.   Many of the  Soviet republics  passed laws  going against  Gorbachev’s  policies and  wanted to leave  the USSR.   In  1991, the Soviet  government  voted to end  itself.  Gorbachev  resigned and  resumed work in  Boris, Yeltsin.

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

The government of the modern day Russian Federation must be traced back to the early 20th century in order to understand its current posture. In 1917, tired of the sequestering limits of a Tsarist system, a small revolutionary group called the Bolshevik Party gained control of Russia . The Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin and inspired by Marxist ideology, attempted to establish a Constitute Assembly. However, a post- revolutionary environment and an unsupportive public forced Lenin to abolish rival political parties and establish a dictatorship to retain The Bolshevik Party’s power. In 1919, the

For many decades, Russia was isolated from other part of the world politically and geographically. During the First World War, Russia’s industrialization was progressing fairly, as they implemented an education reform program to promote literacy among people. The program would have been successful if it was continued without obstacles. They also implemented a program named Stolypin in order to modernize the agriculture, which was bringing successful changes to the country; however, the Stolypin program was not completed because of problems such as War, the absent of a proper parliament institutions ,the corruption and excess of power among the secret police. Ethnicity in Russia groups was also among the problems as the Russian empire was becoming anarchical and it was getting difficult to maintain it due to pressure form the population who felt that their basic need were not being responded while the monarchy was having an extravagant lifestyle (Kennan,1). By 1917, most Russian were now convinced about the fact that Czar Nicholas II was not good enough to help revive the economy in Russia. Also, Corruption in the government was still untouched and the king had already dissolved the Duma because they did not agree to his will. The economy was still backward, without jobs, frustrated people were tired of the conditions that they lived

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.

During the rule of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1989, many great and many terrible events occurred that are important and vital to our knowledge of history. The purpose of learning history is so that we as people are well-educated on different governments and ideologies and so that we, in this day and age, can do our very best to not repeat past mistakes. The USSR, while they developed culturally as a country, destroyed millions of lives all across Western Europe with their communist approach to rule and their blinded goal of total power. The history books today give a good insight into how terrible the Soviet Union really was, but these textbooks are written as objectively as possible. The future history textbooks should shed a negative light on all of the wrongdoings of the Soviet Union so that students understand that what happened this century was horrific and should never occur again.

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.

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.

Reforms and ethnic problems helped the Soviet Union collapse in 1991. What was the next move to help Russia be a major power in the world? Boris Yeltsin led Russia through most of the decade promoting something known as democracy and better living conditions than the Soviet Union. There were some failures along with success, however once Yeltsin was too old for the job he found a successor. Hence, Yeltsin passed the presidency on to Putin; the promotion of democracy was severely limited by an authoritarian leader wanting more power.

Russia’s Return as a Superpower. There are concerns that Russia may once again “reassert itself militarily” (Wood 7). After the original fall of communism in 1991, Russia seemed to be on a path to democracy. Currently the notion of a democratic Russia seems to be fading as Russia “has been centralizing more and more power in the Kremlin” (Putin 2). Regional governors, who were once elected by the people, are now being appointed by Moscow.