The Decline of the Gerontocracy

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The Decline of the Gerontocracy
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Stagnations Bitter End

• Leonid Brezhnev, Yury Andropov, Konstantin
  Chernenko the decline of the old party
• Tight party control
• Suppression of dissidents and artists
• Military build-up
• Reliance on oil money to fill the gaps in the
  economy

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Brezhnev dies 10 November 1982

• Succeeded by Yury Andropov, who presided at the
  funeral

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Andropov dies 9 February 1984

• Long-time head of the KGB
• Tried to tighten discipline
• Promoted his protégé Mikhail Gorbachev

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to be succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko who
died on 10 March 1985.

• One of the old Ukrainian Mafia, came to power in
  a deal with reformers on sequence of succession.

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The minuses and the pluses of stagnation

• Tight ideological control
• Dissidents persecuted exiled, put in mental
  hospitals
• Creaky economy produced shortages, poor quality
  goods
• Decline in health of the nation

• Everyone had a job of sorts
• Life was predictable
• One did not have to try too much
• Many look back today with nostalgia to the zastoy

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Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev (b. 1931)

• The last leader of the USSR, architect of the end
  of the Cold War and of the confrontation in Europe

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Gorbachev The path to power

• 1978 Appointed to Central Committee as secretary
  for agriculture
• 1982 Nov 10. Brezhnev dies, Yuri Andropov
  replaces him
• 1984 Feb 9. Andropov dies, Konstantin Chernenko
  replaces him
• 1985 March 10 Chernenko dies. Gorbachev replaces
  him as General Secretary of the CPSU.

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Alexander Yakovlev (1923-2005)

• 1983 Gorbachev visits Canada, meets Alexander
  Yakovlev, Soviet ambassador
• Famous talk in Eugene Whelans back yard
• Eugene Whelan and Gorbachev

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Alexander Yakovlev

• So we took a long walk on that Minister's farm
  ... I somehow, for some reason, threw caution to
  the wind and started telling him about what I
  considered to be utter stupidities in the area of
  foreign affairs, especially about those SS-20
  missiles that were being stationed in Europe and
  a lot of other things. And he did the same thing.
  We were completely frank. He frankly talked about
  the problems in the internal situation in Russia.
  He was saying that under these conditions, the
  conditions of dictatorship and absence of
  freedom, the country would simply perish. So
  during our three-hour conversation we poured it
  all out and during that three-hour conversation
  we actually came to agreement on all our main
  points. He left, and literally two weeks later I
  received an invitation to take the post of the
  head of the Institute of International
  Relations and
• the World Economy. I went back to Russia.

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Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

• 1978 Pro-Soviet Government set up in Afghanistan
  
• Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
•  
• 5 December 1978 Friendship treaty with the
  Soviet Union - excuse to invade.
• December 24, 1979 Invasion by USSR forces
•  

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Afghan war The Russians Viet Nam

• 1980 Boycott of Summer Olympics in Moscow - USA,
  Canada, other western countries
• 1985-6 Civil war with mujahideen at its height
•  
• April 14, 1988 Negotiated settlement in Geneva
• February 15, 1989 USSR withdraws from Afganistan

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1989 Soviet troops leave Afghanistan
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The toll of the Afghan War

• USSR 14453 dead 19 751 disabled
• Huge material losses
• Afghan 1 - 2 million killed, millions displaced
• The Taliban, fuelled by American, British, Saudi
  money, eventually take over

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Problems abroad

• 1978 Karol Wojtyla elected pope.
• Growing independence of Soviet bloc members, esp.
  Poland
• Solidarnosc movement

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More problems abroad

• Ronald Reagan opposes evil empire.
• Cranks up the arms race Star Wars
  anti-ballistic missile system
• Price of oil falls catastrophically

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Disasters at Home

• 1986 April 26 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
• Revealed secrecy, incompetence of Soviet
  authorities
• Courage of those who fought the disaster
• Dramatized ecological problems of USSR

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Gorbachevs Six Years1985-1991

• Perestroika, glasnost, democratization

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Gorbachevs First Move

• "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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Perestroika, Glasnost, Democratization

• February 1986 27th Party Congress
• Perestroika the restructuring of the economy,
  injecting reality into targets and prices,
  allowing enterprises to make their own decisions
• Prices not decontrolled budget had huge deficit,
  money printed to cover deficit led to huge
  increase in real price inflation

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Glasnost

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

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Democratization

• 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.
• Gorbachev elected president of Supreme Soviet.

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Nationalism

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

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Molotov-Ribbentrop PactAgreed division 1939
(left) Actual division 1940 (right)
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Gorbachevs Six years 1985

• Eduard Shevardnadze becomes Foreign Minister,
  proclaims the Sinatra doctrine

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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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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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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
• December 14 Sakharov dies

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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
• 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
• The hard-liners begin to plot. Crisis looms in
  Soviet leadership Yakovlev, Shevardnadze forced
  out in December. Is another Tiananmen looming?

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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 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.