Gorbachev and the Fall of the USSR

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Gorbachev and the Fall of the USSR
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• Soviet TV, late December 1978 Leonid Brezhnev
  records New Year greetings to Soviet youth
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v5j4JepHaP_w

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• Basic methods of social control
• authority (the power of command)
• exchange (the power of deal)
• persuasion (the power of idea)
• moral codes (the power of belief)
• Each political-economic system relies on a
  specific combination of these methods
• Under state socialism, the power of command
  dwarfed all other methods
• The command economy and one-party rule reinforced
  each other
• Extreme centralization of economic and political
  power
• Fear of exchange the specter of capitalist
  restoration
• Inefficiency and social discontent
• See Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets,
  Basic Books, 1976

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• The Communist Party under state socialism
• The systems core
• The principle of hierarchy (democratic
  centralism)
• The Party leadership controls all mechanisms of
  the state, including economic management
• Assuring the mass base through Party membership
• Control of information (little or no media
  freedom, heavy use of propaganda, control of the
  cultural sphere)
• The key role of security organs
• Cannot be used against Party leadership
• Use of force only under extreme circumstances
• Manipulation of political processes
• Surveillance, informer networks
• Preventive measures against dissent

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• The Soviet society new classes, new
  expectations, new relations and structures
• The ruling class (NOMENKLATURA)
• Ambivalent social status the question of
  ownership
• Does not need a dictator WHY?
• Increasingly confident of its power and right to
  rule
• Big, diverse, interested in decentralization
  WHY?
• Reformers, Stalinists, pragmatic conservatives

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• A new society
• Increasingly urbanized
• Rapidly growing educational levels
• Class struggle is declared over
• Raised in the spirit of democratic expectations
  (even if within the limits of official ideology)
• Demanding higher living standards
• Women, youth, intellectuals new social demands
• Development of nationalist sentiments
• Citizens losing fear of the state

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• The essence of the reform process
• States and societies created by the communists
  enter into a process of complex interactions
• --between the rulers and the ruled
• --between different social groups
• --between internal and external forces
• Both conflicts and accomodation
• Challenges to political leaders
• Open-ended outcomes
• Successes and failures

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• The main components of the reform process
  addressing the systems flaws
• DECENTRALIZATION
• LIBERALIZATION
• MARKETIZATION
• DEMILITARIZATION
• OPENING TO THE WORLD
• The outcome depended on many factors both
  internal and external
• State socialism had to prove its viability under
  conditions of peace

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Decentralization

• Achieving rational distribution of power between
  different levels of communist state structure
• Within the USSR
• More power to national republics
• Within the Soviet bloc
• Loosening of Soviet control over Eastern Europe
• Limits
• Fear of loss of control
• Requires liberalization
• The dynamics of nationalism prospect of
  creation of new nation-states, shifts of
  allegiance in the Cold War

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Liberalization

• Reducing state domination over society
• New society expects the state to be democratic
  serving the people (influence of ideology both
  communist and Western)
• The international environment fosters those
  expectations
• No mass repressions lesser role for security
  organs
• Relaxation of controls over cultural life
• Development of pluralism within the ruling party
• How far could communists go down this road?

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Marketization

• Restoration of elements of market systems
• Considerations of economic efficiency
• Growing consumer demands
• Interests of managers, entrepreneurs
• Problems
• Does the revival of market forces make
  restoration of capitalism inevitable?
• What do the people want capitalism or
  socialism?
• ALTERNATIVE MODEL MARKET SOCIALISM

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Demilitarization

• Reducing the burden of military expenditures
• Dismantling the battle order (partial)
• War is not inevitable
• Counterfactors
• Power of the military-industrial complex
• The international environment (competition with
  the West, upheavals in the Third World)
• Persistence of militarized thinking

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Opening to the World

• Wider participation in the global economy
• Peaceful coexistence with capitalism
• Arms control and disarmament
• Wider cultural and human contacts with foreign
  countries
• Counterfactors
• Moscow feared loss of control over Eastern Europe
• Dangers of ideological contamination
• International advocacy of human rights challenged
  communist rulers

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Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, b. 1931, General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (1985-1990), President of the USSR
(1990-1991)
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Gorbachevs wife Raisa (1932-1999)
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(No Transcript)
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• Gorby on need for reform, disarmament
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v595W4JJHa2U

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Time to end the Cold War
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• Negotiating an end to the Cold War
• The threat of nuclear war as the overriding issue
• The Cold War was undermining the Soviet system
• The economic burden
• A militarized state ensured bureaucratic
  paralysis society lacked basic freedoms, the
  state was losing its capacity to govern
• The atmosphere of confrontation with the West was
  stifling impulses for necessary reforms, imposing
  ideological rigidity
• Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was now seen
  as an obsolete, counterproductive policy. Lessons
  of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Poland (1980-81).
  Reforms in Eastern Europe are necessary for
  Soviet reform.
• Solution New Thinking, a plan to negotiate an
  end to the Cold War to assure security and free
  up Soviet and East European potential for reform.
  The Sinatra Doctrine

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• Options for reform
• Conviction that Soviet socialism could only be
  revived through the creation of a market
  mechanism and political liberalization (presented
  as democratization)
• Linkages between economic and political reforms
• At first priority of economic over political
• Economic reform impossible without political
  liberalization
• Political liberalization leads to the emergence
  of political divisions within the Party and
  society rise of pluralism as a natural
  condition
• Managing a pluralistic society requires political
  democracy

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• Novoye myshlenie (new thinking) reform of the
  international system, also used to refer to
  reformist thinking in the USSR
• Perestroika (restructuring) a comprehensive
  overhaul of the Soviet system, involving all
  areas of public policy
• Glasnost a shift to an open information order
• Demokratizatsiya (democratization) building a
  new Soviet political system

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• Which forces supported the reform process?
• The spectrum inside the Party from anarchists to
  monarchists
• The Party-state bureaucracy mostly
  conservative, fearful of change potential loss
  of power and privilege
• The managerial class is interested in greater
  autonomy, limited market freedom
• The intellectuals overwhelming support for
  liberal reform, democratization
• Rank-and-file Party membership predominantly in
  favour of Gorbachevs reforms
• The ideological legitimacy of democracy
• The working class
• Nationalists in non-Russian republics

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• From reform to collapse
• 1. 1985-86 negotiating an end to the Cold War.
  Cautious attempts at reforms, with the main
  emphasis on the economy
• 2. 1986-88 End of the Cold War. A more decisive
  policy of market reforms, accompanied by
  glasnost, liberalization, and political reform
• 3. 1989 First democratic election in USSR,
  emergence of democratic opposition, fall of
  communist regimes in Eastern Europe
• 4. 1990 Democratic elections in the 15 Soviet
  republics, push for sovereignty, Gorbachevs
  desperate attempts to maintain control
• 5. 1991 Escalation of conflict between
  conservatives and democratic reformers. The
  August coup and the paralysis of the Soviet
  state. Dissolution of the Soviet Union.

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November 1989 the fall of the Berlin Wall,
symbol of Cold War division of Europe
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Moscow, August 1991 hard-liners
attempt a coup to stop democratic reforms
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Leaders of the August 1991 coup present
themselves at a Moscow press-conference
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August, 1991 Barricades in front of the
Russian Parliament building
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• The August 1991 coup
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v-4bWo49OoFo

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The military desert the coup and join protesters
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Russians celebrating the defeat of the August
coup
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Freed from house arrest in Crimea, Gorbachev
returns to Moscow
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After the coup, Gorbachev was rapidly losing
power to Boris Yeltsin
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December 1991 the three men who dissolved the
Soviet Union, left to right Presidents Kravchuk
of Ukraine, Shushkevich of Belarus, Yeltsin of
Russia
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• FACTS BEHIND THE DRAMA
• THE SOVIET EMPIRE WAS DISSOLVED
• IN A SERIES OF POLITICAL DEALS,
• INITIATED BY MOSCOW
• ROUND ONE Gorbachev encourages East European
  communists to act on their own USSR loses
  control over Eastern Europe Soviet republics get
  more power
• ROUND TWO Yeltsin and leaders of the other 14
  republics move to dissolve the USSR
• ROUND THREE Yeltsin and leaders of Russias
  regions sign the Federal Treaty to establish the
  Russian Federation

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• THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO FALLS OF THE
  RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
• The Romanov Empire collapsed as a result of a
  revolution, the elites were overthrown and
  replaced by new elites as a result of the civil
  war
• The Communist elites moved to divide the empire
  to recast themselves as leaders of independent
  nation-states
• or of units of the Russian Federation
• A key reason why the Soviet empire made a
  relatively quiet exit was because key Soviet
  elites saw a future for themselves after
  communism

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Gorbachev in Toronto, March 2005