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Mikhail
Gorbachev |
The
Gorbachev Revolution
Mikhail
Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader. He recognized that
the Soviet Union could not remain politically and economically isolated
and that the Soviet system had to be changed if it was to survive.
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More Information
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| The
key pieces to Gorbachev's plan for the survival of the Soviet Union
were a series of reforms:
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| When
Gorbachev took power he knew that the Soviet Union would have to
change if it was to survive.
- Central
planning in a modern industrial economy brought many inefficiencies.
- The
factory management system provided little incentive to make technological
improvements and every incentive to hide factory capacities to
ensure low quotas
- The
socialist farm system was inefficient – there were poor worker
incentives and storage and transportation problems.
- The
Soviet State could no longer afford the high defense spending
that went along with the Cold War.
He
believed that his reforms were necessary and used his leadership
and power to attempt to implement them. The policy of glasnost
made it possible for people to more freely criticize the government's
policies. When people realized it was safe to speak out, the calls
for change became more insistent. The gradual market reforms and
decentralization of the economy (perestroika)
were too slow and failed keep pace with the crisis and his people's
demands. The Soviet Union was suffering a deterioration of economic
and social conditions and a fall in the GNP. |
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Soviet
tanks in Czechoslovakia in 1968 put down an uprising |
The
Brezhnev Doctrine allowed armed intervention where socialism was "threatened
by counter-revolutionary forces," primarily Eastern Europe |
| The
renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine released the Eastern European
states from Soviet domination and lifted the Iron Curtain. The communist rulers of these states
could not survive without the support of the Soviet Union. |
| The
Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and communism collapsed in Eastern
Europe. This improved relations with the West and progress was made
in Arms Control talks but this only angered the hard-line conservatives
and further weakened Gorbachev's position. |
Ecstatic
West Germans take apart the Berlin Wall
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| His
attempts to reform the Communist Party
were a failure. Change was too slow to keep pace with events and he
was continually hampered by his need to give in to the hard-liners
in order to retain power. As communism collapsed in Eastern Europe,
reform of communism within the Soviet Union became unlikely. |
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Soviet
poster showing the flags and people of the Soviet Republics
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With
the iron grip of the centralized Soviet state relaxed and the growing
failure of the state to adequately feed and clothe its people, nationalism
in the republics surged and separatist movements threatened the very existence of the Soviet Union.
The
now weak Soviet state was unable to prevent the separation of the
republics, and even the republic of Russia turned away, choosing
Boris Yeltsin as its leader. Gorbachev found that there was no
Soviet Union to be the leader of, and retired into private life.
The cold war was over. |
Gorbachev
won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. He brought a peaceful end to
the cold war, and dramatic change to his country's economy, though
not in the way he intended.
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