Gorbachev

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Gorbachevs Six Years1985-1991

• Perestroika, glasnost, democratization

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the fateful Soviet years from 1985 to 1991

• when four great transformations - even
  revolutions - were begun under the leadership of
  Mikhail Gorbachev attempts to transform the
  authoritarian political system into some kind of
  democracy, the state command economy into a
  market-based one, the Moscow dominated union
  into an authentic federation, and the countrys
  forty-year Cold War with the West into a
  strategic partnership. (Stephen F. Cohen)

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Gorbachevs Six years 1985

• Eduard Shevardnadze becomes Foreign Minister,
  proclaims the Sinatra doctrine

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Gorbachevs NemesisBoris Eltsin (1931-2007)

• 1985 December Gorbachev brings Eltsin to Moscow
  to head the party apparatus for the city
• 1987 Eltsin criticizes Gorbachev openly in
  Committee, divested of power

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Gorbachevs First Policy

• "Struggle against alcoholism May 1985-1990
• Clumsy program of destroying vineyards,
  increasing cost of vodka, closing beer halls
• Government propaganda created resentment
• Loss of 10 billion Rubles of state income
• Huge growth in production of samogon

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Gorbachevs Six years 1986

• February March First mention of perestroika at
  Party Congress
• April Chernobyl disaster
• December Sakharov brought back from exile in
  Gorky

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Perestroika

• February 1986 27th Party Congress
• Objective acceleration of the economy,
  overcome stagnation
• Restructuring of the economy, injecting reality
  into targets and prices, allowing enterprises to
  make their own decisions, keep the profits from
  new enterprises and production
• Central planning and control remained half-way
  solution

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Gorbachevs Six years 1987

• January at Plenum of Politburo economic and
  political reforms announced
• Rehabilitation of victims of Stalin announced
• Eltsin attacks Gorbachev, resigns from Politburo

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Gorbachevs Six years 1988

• The year of glasnost
• March Nina Andreyevas letter in Sovetskaya
  Rossiya
• May Law on cooperatives, allowing private
  business
• June Gorbachev proposes a new Congress of
  Peoples deputies
• December Armenian Earthquake, 45,000 killed.

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The move to a free economy

• Inspired by the NEP (Lenins New Economic
  Policy) of the 1920s
• May 1988 Law on cooperatives - essentially
  private businesses - approved
• Private banks began to be allowed
• Russian businesses permitted to deal with foreign
  partners directly

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Problems with perestroika

• No rules to govern private economy laws,
  contract enforcement
• Criminals quickly learned to exploit system
  take-overs of businesses, protection rackets
• Prices not decontrolled budget had huge deficit,
  money printed to cover deficit led to huge
  increase in real price inflation
• Profits syphoned into offshores
• Shortages continued perestroika discredited

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Glasnost

• Theory Open discussion of problems as a means to
  achieve real efficiencies
• By 1988 censorship lifted from literature, film,
  the arts. Now Soviet citizens can read anything
• Led to questions about blind spots of history
  Katyn execution of Polish officers, the hidden
  protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939,
  the Gulags and Stalins show trials, esp. Nikolai
  Bukharin

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Molotov-Ribbentrop PactAgreed division 1939
(left) Actual division 1940 (right)
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Democratization

• Approved by 19th Party Conference in July 1988
• Objective Transfer of control of state from
  Party to semi-elected Congress of Peoples
  Deputies and Supreme Soviet elected by it
• 750 members from districts, 750 from territories,
  750 from public organizations including 100
  from Communist Party First meeting 1989.
• 15 March 1990 Congress elected President of the
  USSR.

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Gorbachevs Six years 1989

• January February withdrawal from Afghanistan
• March-April Elections to Congress
• June Tianan Men Square incident in China
  dissidence suppressed
• 9 November Berlin Wall comes down
• November December Communists ousted throughout
  Soviet bloc GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
  Romania.
• December 14 Sakharov dies

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Nationalism

• Open discussion of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
• As central power was loosened, republics begin to
  demand their languages be given prime status over
  Russian Ukrainian, Georgian, etc.
• Baltic Republics Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and
  also Moldova (formerly Bessarabia) demand and
  start to declare their independence

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1990 A fateful year

• Germany is being reunited
•  Other Soviet bloc members do it their way
• Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
• Gorbachev chosen president of the Supreme Soviet
  of the USSR
• BUT crisis looms in Soviet leadership Yakovlev,
  Shevardnadze forced out in December. Is another
  Tiananmen looming?

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Gorbachevs Six years 1990

• September 9 Alexander Men murdered
• September Battle over 500 Days reform program
  for economy

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Gorbachevs legacy

• Ended Cold War
• Brought the USSR out of Afghanistan
• Moved USSR towards elected democracy and free
  economy
• Nearly succeeded in saving a reformed USSR

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Gorbachev and ideology

• Was he a dissident or a Menshevik?
• Many reforms resembled those proposed by Sakharov
• Remained wedded to Communist Party
• Economic difficulties created by gradual reforms
  made him deeply unpopular.