Breakup Of The Soviet Union And Gorbachev

Essay, Research Paper

In one week, the summer of 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, became history. The forces of reform unleashed by President Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid 1980 s generated a democratic movement. Mr. Gorbachev may be revered for the democratic forces he unleashed- his policies of perestroika, or reconstructing, and glasnost, or openness. However, his failure to put food on Soviet tables and his reluctance to move boldly on economic reforms doomed him to be a failure (Sieff). His economic policies threw his country into even more turmoil and chaos, as the different nationalities used their new freedoms to move away from the union. Gorbachev sincerely wanted to reform the communist system, but he did not want to eliminate it. He recognized there was a lot of wrong with his country, but right to the end, he never grasped the extent of the problem (Russia). As a result, the breakup of the Soviet Union was not a singular event that occurred overnight, rather was caused by decades of neglect and abuse to the former nations by the central communist government. A government that would never end, but find ways to cover-up its identity.

From the start of the Twenty- Seventh Party Congress in 1986, perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev s program of economic, political, and social reconstructing, became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three- quarters of a century to erect (Perestroika). Conservatives have called it as a public effort to subtly seduce the Western world to lower its guard (Corpus), believing it was a disguise just to distract foreign nations. Liberals believe it that it is a mandate for disarmament and cooperation between two extremely different value systems while under the death threat of nuclear war (Corpus). However, Gorbachev declares that it is a union of principals and socialism and not a response to a poor domestic economy or wholesale abandonment of basic communist tenets (Corpus). Furthermore, he asserts that perestroika is a blueprint for the Soviet Union to emerge from the economic backwardness into global industrial competitiveness (The Meaning Perestroika). He believed that was the only way that the Soviet Union would be able to survive now. Yet, the question of what is perestroika. still exists. Some believe that it is a conspiracy organized by the CIA, and by the West in general, a conspiracy which aimed at military/political subversion of the USSR and of communism in general (Yakovlev). Some say perestroika was a betrayal either intended as such from the very beginning and quiet conscious, or a betrayal that just happened to occur (Yakovlev). While others still declare that perestroika was stupidity, probably caused by good intentions, which resulted in an absolute lack of responsibility (Yakovlev). In truth, perestroika was a historical significance, which was noble in its goals but had major repercussions to the nation, as well as to its people. Gorbachev s perestroika confirms a desire to discard the Stalinist days of forced collectivization and terror. Furthermore, it is not only a declaration of Leninist s ideas that will insert a new dose of motivation into the national awareness, but a hopeful effort to restore trust between the people and their government. Perestroika is an effort to inspire Russia towards values and high standards (Rodrigue). However, Gorbachev s solutions are flawed because of the lack of an ethical framework to guide his programs (The Collapse of Stalinism). He did not have a clear plan of what kind of political and social system must be created, says Fydor Bulatsky, a speechwriter for Krushchev, close aide of Andropov, and former advisor to Gorbachev (Sneider). Perestroika has focused on three planes, three trends, three directions of problem. First is the struggle for priority either ideology or of common sense, second is a struggle for supremacy either of the party or of the state, and third is the struggle for redistribution of power and property. In part, it was due to the objective tasks of perestroika itself that we had so many lanes, so many trends of confrontation within perestroika process (Yakovlev). At this point, the party was too busy restoring its image and trying to prove to its people that life could be good; as a result, these three struggles show how perestroika was developed and implemented. Gorbachev had a choice, he could turn perestroika into a truly, people s democratic revolution, going to the utmost, really bringing the society total freedom, or to remain a Communist reformer, operating in the familiar and controlled milieu of the party bureaucracy (Sneider). He attempted to make a society that was totally free, but this obviously did not happen. In 1990, Gorbachev again had an opportunity to allow perestroika to be seen as a glorious theory that will save the nation when Article Six of the Constitution giving the Communist Party a monopoly had been abolished and a presidential system was to be established (Nadler). Nevertheless, he chose to be elected by the Congress instead of by the people; this was his greatest mistake. Again, a cover- up was made. While he did allow elections to take place, Congress chose him in reality. The only person on the ballot ticket was Mikhail Gorbachev of the former communist party. No one was allowed to run because the government did not choose him or her. Perestroika didn t manage to overcome itself. Public, social, a