Collapse of the Soviet Union (1922-1991)

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Collapse of the Soviet Union (1922-1991)

• The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was an
  astonishing, unanticipated event.

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Eastern Bloc
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
15 Republics Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia,
Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
7 Satellite Countries Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia
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Was the Collapse Due to Force? No

• The Cold War cost more than 11 trillion. But the
  collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites
  was not a result of force.
• No NATO tank fired a shot.
• No bomb fell on the Kremlin.

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A Home-Grown Insurgency

• Instead, a massive, home-grown insurgency, led by
  a number of different participants, contributed
  to the collapse
• Workers
• Dissident intellectuals
• Advocates of national self-determination
• Reformers (within the Govt)

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The Death of Stalin

• Stalin died in 1953 and a power struggle ensued.
• Party leaders settled on the choice of Nikita
  Khrushchev for the next Premier of the USSR.
• Khrushchevs policies DeStalinization less
  govt control, peaceful coexistence with
  capitalism
• Conservative or Liberal?

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Krushchev replaced

• His policies made him enemies within the
  conservative leaders
• The handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis lost him
  many allied in the Soviet Military
• Leonid Brezhnev comes to power and took on a much
  more conservative governmental role.
• Brezhnev comes dies in 1982 replaced by a
  reformer from a younger generation of Soviets.

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The Gorbachev Revolution

• Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 as
  the General Secretary of the Communist Party of
  the Soviet Union (CPSU), 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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Gorbachev's Plans

• The key pieces to Gorbachev's plan for the
  survival of the Soviet Union were a series of
  reforms
• Glasnost (openness) greater freedom of
  expression many republics within the USSR were
  venting hostility towards the Soviet authorities
  (Poland, Yugoslavia)
• Perestroika (restructuring) decentralization of
  the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms
  private industry allowed, price reforms
• Renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine (armed
  intervention where socialism was threatened) and
  the pursuit of arms control agreements
• Democratization Created the Congress of Peoples
  Deputies with directly elected reps. (many newly
  elected were critical of Gorbachev

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The Objective Survival

• Gorbachev 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 accompanied the Cold War.

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Insistent Calls for Change

• He believed that his reforms were necessary and
  used his leadership and power to attempt to
  implement them.
• The policy of glasnost (openness) 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.

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Reforms Were Too Slow

• The gradual market reforms and decentralization
  of the economy (perestroika) were too slow and
  failed to keep pace with the crises 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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Release from Soviet Domination

• The renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine (armed
  intervention in support of socialism) released
  the Eastern European states from Soviet
  domination.
• The communist rulers of these states could not
  survive without the support of the Soviet Union.

The Brezhnev Doctrine was articulated in 1968
when the Soviet army occupied Czechoslovakia to
end the Prague Spring, an attempt by Alexander
Dubcek to build socialism with a human face.
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Reagans Brandenburg Gate Speech

• President Ronald Reagan called upon Gorbachev to
  tear down the Berlin Wall "In the Communist
  world, we see failure, technological
  backwardness, declining standards... Even today,
  the Soviet Union cannot feed itself. The
  inescapable conclusion is that freedom is the
  victor. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek
  peace,if you seek prosperity for the Soviet
  Union, if you seek liberalization Come here to
  this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr.
  Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

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President Reagan giving a speech at the Berlin
Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Federal Republic of
Germany. June 12, 1987
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Wave of Demonstrations

• Beginning in September 1989, a wave of huge
  demonstrations shook Communist regimes across
  eastern Europe. A massive tide of East German
  emigrants surged through Czechoslovakia and
  Hungary to the West, undermining the authority of
  the Communist hard-liners who still clung to
  power in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

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A tram is blocked by East German demonstrators in
the center of the city in October 1989. Their
banner reads 'Legalization of opposition
parties, free democratic elections, free press
and independent unions.'
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The Berlin Wall Came Down

• Finally, on the night of November 9, 1989,
  ordinary Germans poured through the Berlin Wall.
  The GDR quickly disintegrated, and by the end of
  1990, all of East Germany had been incorporated
  into West Germany

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The Rise of Nationalism

• 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.

Moldova The angry face of nationalism - Apr 13,
2009
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Events in Eastern Europe

• Communist governments in Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
  and Bulgaria either tumbled or underwent reform.
• The Communist dictatorship in Romania fell after
  a week of bloody street battles between ordinary
  citizens and police, who defended the old order
  to the bitter end.

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Radical Change

• USSRs conservatives (who wanted to remove
  Gorbachevs reforms led a coup detat. Members
  inclued the VP, head of KGB and military leaders
• The coup failed when Boris Yeltsin and other
  citizens (with the help of military defectors)
  defeated the coup and announced the creation of
  the Russian Federation Republic December,
  (1991).

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Boris Yeltsin

• Boris Yeltsin, who headed the Russian Republic,
  replaced Gorbachev as president of a much-
  diminished state. Gorbachev found that there was
  no Soviet Union to lead and retired into private
  life.

Time magazine's July 15, 1996, issue, featured a
10-page spread about a squad of U.S. political
pros who "clandestinely participated in guiding
Yeltsin's campaign.
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Nobel Peace Prize

• 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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The End of the Cold War

• The Cold War was over, brought to a close not by
  the missiles and tanks of the principal
  participants, but by the collective courage and
  willpower of ordinary men and women throughout
  the USSRs nations.

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Ronald Reagans Role

• In the United States, partisans of Ronald Reagan
  claimed much of the credit for ending the Cold
  War. Reagan's frank denunciation of the Soviet
  Union as an evil empire," along with his
  administration's military buildup, were said to
  have inspired eastern bloc dissidents at the same
  time the arms race exhausted the productive
  capacity of the Soviet Union and other
  inefficient Communist regimes.

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Another Side to the Story

• According to U.S. diplomat George Kennan, author
  of "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (1947) and
  architect of the containment policy, the West's
  militarized posture helped the Communists to
  rationalize their authoritarian rule. The more
  U.S. policies followed a hard line, the greater
  was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the
  controls and to discourage liberalizing
  tendencies.

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The Collapse of the Soviet Unionand the End of
the Cold War
John Paul IIsCATHOLICCHURCH
East GermanNATIONALISM
Lech Walesa'sSOLIDARITY
Berlin Wall
Gorbachevs REFORMS
Eastern Bloc
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Glasnost
Ronald Reagans FOREIGN POLICY
Perestroika
EVIL EMPIRESpeech
No BrezhnevDoctrine
MILITARY BUILDUP
Ordinary MEN WOMEN
ReformKGB
ARMS RACE
COURAGE
ReformComm Party
WILL POWER
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Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006
Source data from Robert S. Norris and Hans M.
Kristensen, "Global nuclear stockpiles,
1945-2006," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 62,
no. 4 (July/August 2006), 64-66. Online at
http//thebulletin.metapress.com/content/c41206509
12x74k7/fulltext.pdf
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Communist Countries

• At its peak, communism was practiced in dozens of
  countries
• Soviet Union Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
  Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia,
  Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan,
  Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan
• Asian Countries Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia,
  and Yemen
• Soviet Controlled Eastern bloc countries
  Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary,
  Poland, Romania, Slovakia.
• The Balkans Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina,
  Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia,
  and Slovenia.
• Africa Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia,
  Eritrea, and Mozambique.
• Currently only a handful of countries identified
  as communist remain Laos, North Korea, Vietnam,
  China, and Cuba.