Mikhail Gorbachev: Changing the World

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, on his country, Eastern Europe, and the Western world. The paper will briefly discuss the periods of rule of previous Soviet leaders, Gorbachev’s ascension to power, and what he inherited upon his selection as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The paper will then discuss Gorbachev’s initial reform efforts, his economic “awakening,” and the development of restructuring (perestroika) and openness (glasnost) programs within the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Finally, the paper will conclude with the impact of Gorbachev’s decisions, including the loss of the Communist empire in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

INTRODUCTION

On December 31, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist. A Communist empire that had taken over seventy years to build was destroyed in just over six years. The unanticipated end of the Cold War, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union can be attributed to the actions of one man: Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.

For almost his entire political career, Gorbachev was a model member of the Communist Party. He believed in the ideas put forth by Vladimir Lenin and remained a convinced Communist until almost the very end of his rule. On taking office in 1985, Gorbachev’s most pressing problem was the depressed state of the Soviet economy. Economic conditions in the Soviet Union had been in a period of stagnation for over twenty years, and the entire system of central economic planning was in desperate need of reform. Gorbachev recognized this need and attempted some early reforms in the hope of stimulating economic growth. However, Gorbachev quickly realized that his initial reforms were not producing the desired results, and that substantial changes would need to be made to save the Soviet economy.

In an effort to save the Soviet system, Gorbachev developed an economic plan based on the restructuring (perestroika) of the Soviet system. In order to implement his plan effectively, Gorbachev recognized the need to demonstrate how desperate things really were. He launched a campaign for openness (glasnost) to stimulate awareness and mobilize public opinion in support of his efforts. At no time did Gorbachev contemplate the Communist Party giving up its monopoly on power. His goal was to save his beloved Communism by changing it for the better, ultimately perpetuating the leading role of the Communist Party. What Gorbachev did not anticipate was the effect his reform efforts would have not only on the Soviet Union, but also on the entire world. Glasnost and perestroika set in motion forces that Gorbachev could not control, eventually resulting in the loss of Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Before analyzing Gorbachev’s reform efforts and their effect upon his Communist empire, it is necessary to examine the basic ideology that guided Soviet policies for almost seventy years before his ascension to power.

DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

Marxism is a doctrine of universal class warfare in which society is constantly undergoing social revolution. As Steve Montgomery explains, all property was once commonly held in a primitive classless communal society. This classless society was overthrown by a slave society, which was in turn overthrown by a feudal society. As social change continued, the feudal society was replaced by a capitalist society, which will eventually be overthrown by a socialist society. The development of a socialist society will allow a new classless society to once again be established. In the final stage from capitalism to socialism, it would be the actions of the working class, or proletariat, that would overthrow capitalist society (Montgomery, 1998).

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov) was born in April of 1870 at Simbirsk. Upon seizing power in the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin organized the Bolsheviks and founded the Soviet state. He imposed Marxist ideology, with some modification, on Russian society quickly and effectively. Lenin modified Marxist theory by designating the Communist Party as the “vanguard” of the working class. As the vanguard, the Communist Party was to consist of individuals charged with waging war against capitalist society on behalf of the proletariat. The Communist Party was to establish a transitional government known as the dictatorship of the proletariat that would dissolve once socialism had been achieved.

In reality, Lenin established a dictatorship of the Communist Party, quickly instituted pre-publication censorship, and banned criticism of the new government. Soviet power was to be based on four pillars: the leading role of the Communist Party, social ownership of the means of production, democratic centralism, and a monopoly on education and information (Kerblay, 1989, p. 5). The leading role of the Communist Party effectively eliminated the possibility of other groups challenging the Bolshevik government. Article Six of the new Soviet Constitution stated “âÂ?¦the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organization and public organization, is the Communist Party” (Doder & Branson, 1990, p. 410). Social ownership of the means of production gave the Bolshevik government complete domination over production, jobs, and wages. Democratic centralism allowed top government officials to appoint their choice of individuals at all levels of the bureaucracy, thus increasing the strength of the Bolsheviks. Finally, a monopoly on education and information, along with censorship, would allow the Bolshevik government to control virtually all aspects of life.

While the Constitution of the new Soviet state did permit freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the freedom of assembly, it is important to note that these freedoms were guaranteed only if “âÂ?¦in accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system” (Montgomery, 1998). In Lenin’s new government, what was in the interests of the people and the development and strengthening of socialism was to be decided by the Communist Party. Just over six years after seizing power, Lenin died on January 21, 1924. After a brief struggle for power, Joseph Stalin emerged as the new leader of the Soviet state.

THE GREAT TERROR

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Djugashvili) was born in Gori, Georgia on December 21, 1879. He was a close associate of Lenin’s in the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution and ascended to the top position in the Soviet government in 1929. Stalin’s rule left an imprint on the Soviet state that was to affect it for the rest of its existence. Upon coming to power in 1929, Stalin embarked the country on a course of forced industrialization and collectivization. Ultimately, his policies helped to turn the Soviet state into a great industrial nation. Internationally, Stalin helped the allied powers defeat Adolph Hitler in the Second World War and established Communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe.

While Stalin helped change Communism from a revolutionary movement in Russia into a governmental system both at home and in Eastern Europe, he is most remembered for institutionalizing terror as a ruling method and for being responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Terror was instrumental in Stalin’s rule from early in the 1930s. He gained absolute power by using repression against all opposition, real and imagined. Stalin was extremely suspicious of everyone, and no one was safe. He systematically arrested, imprisoned, persecuted, and executed members of the Communist Party, former political allies, family members of close political associates, and even his own relatives. When Stalin died in 1953, the Soviet state changed forever. The cult of personality fostered by Stalin was shattered. He had left the Soviet Union with problems in virtually every possible arena, including politics, the economy, ethnic relations, culture, security, and global power. Following another, more brief power struggle, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader of the Soviet Union.

DE-STALINIZATION

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was born April 17, 1894, in Kalinovka. Khrushchev survived Stalin’s purges and rose to the top post in the Soviet government in September 1953. His rule marked a critical transition for the Soviet Union as it moved away from the terror imposed by Stalin and into a new, albeit brief, era of reform.

From the beginning, Khrushchev attempted to make the Soviet system more efficient by distancing it from the excesses of Stalin. At the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, Khrushchev delivered a “secret” speech to members of the Communist Party in which he denounced the crimes committed by Stalin and the cult of personality that had evolved around him. Shortly after the secret speech, a period of de-Stalinization began in the Soviet Union. History books were rewritten and Stalin was berated for committing ideological sins and for going too far in his repression of the Soviet people.
Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization led to a brief literary thaw that included the publication of dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This vivid portrayal of life in a Stalinist labor camp was published because Khrushchev thought it would help the de-Stalinization effort. Solzhenitsyn’s other books, as well as the books of other dissident writers, continued to be banned from publication.

As he continued his reform efforts, Khrushchev turned his attention to reorganizing the Party and state bureaucracies. As part of this political reform effort, Khrushchev managed to implement a rotation system to rejuvenate the Party leadership on a regular basis (Magstadt, 1989). Finally, he released most of Stalin’s political prisoners from the gulag prison system and allowed some political exiles to return to the Soviet Union.

In the foreign policy arena, Khrushchev bucked the traditional Communist stance and called for a peaceful coexistence with capitalism while acknowledging the possibility of worldwide Communist revolution without violence. Additionally, he abandoned the doctrine of the inevitability of war and recognized that it was possible for different states to take their own separate paths to socialism. Khrushchev’s encouragement of reform led to an upsurge of independence movements among Soviet satellite nations in Eastern Europe. While promoting the possibility of change, though, Khrushchev would not tolerate movement away from socialism, as was demonstrated by his crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

On the home front, Khrushchev attempted a number of economic reforms to stimulate a Soviet economy that had suffered tremendously under Stalin’s forced industrialization and collectivization. Some of his reform efforts included attempts to combat embezzlement, bribe taking, parasitism, and corruption. These efforts were aimed at eliminating abuses and inefficiencies in the Soviet system, but were not a fundamental overhaul of that system.
Khrushchev also split the state into agricultural and industrial sections, and attempted to decentralize the administration of the economy by creating local economic councils, called sovnarkhozi, in place of governmental ministries. Limited freedom was offered to workers and there was no intention of moving toward a free-market system. Because of the limits placed on decentralization, the sovnarkhozi ended in failure. Other attempts by Khrushchev to reform the economy included the introduction of laws designed to improve the legal position of workers, increase pensions and minimum wages, limit working hours, reform social security, and discontinue the obligatory loans which Soviet citizens had to give the State under Stalin (Laqueur, 1989, p. 18). One side effect of Khrushchev’s measures was the creation of what came to be termed “goulash communism” in Hungary. Goulash communism was distinct from Soviet-style communism and involved a consumer based approach that allowed private shops to sell Western-made goods, relaxed heavy industrial production, and relaxed some workers’ requirements (www.unc.edu).

Khrushchev had no overall plan and applied his reform measures in a disorganized and ineffective way. His economic reforms failed because they did not go to the root of the problem, which was that individual workers were not given enough incentive to make working worth their effort. Ultimately, Khrushchev’s reform efforts were unable to boost the Soviet economy enough to end its over reliance on the state for support. By 1964, Khrushchev had alienated himself with his reforms and a coalition of hard-liners, allegedly led by Leonid Brezhnev, removed him from power.

THE ERA OF STAGNATION

Following the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, Leonid Brezhnev ascended to the top of the Communist leadership in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev was born December 19, 1906, in Kamenskoye, Ukraine. He became a full member of the Communist Party on October 24, 1931 and was to rule the Soviet Union for 18 years, until his death in November 1982.
Once Brezhnev became the leader of the Soviet Union, he made it clear that de-Stalinization had been carried too far. While he did not return the country to full Stalinization, he did return to strict control, centralization and command style government. Brezhnev’s economic policies were characterized by heavy spending on the defense and aerospace industries at the expense of all other sectors of the economy. The economic situation deteriorated, industrial growth rates slowed, and poor agricultural performance forced the purchase of grain from foreign sources for the first time. The Soviet standard of living began a slow but steady decline.

Internationally, Brezhnev is best known for developing the “Brezhnev Doctrine.” Also known as Socialist Internationalism, the Brezhnev Doctrine asserted that each communist government was not only responsible to its own people, but also to socialist countries everywhere. In essence, the independence of individual socialist countries was less important than world socialism as a whole, and it was the right and duty of all socialist countries to assist any socialist nation that was being threatened (Dawisha, 1990, p. 219). In short, this meant that the Soviet Union maintained its right to intervene militarily in the Soviet bloc in order to save a communist government. Ultimately, this proved to be the key to Soviet ideological control in Eastern Europe and was demonstrated on two occasions during Brezhnev’s rule. In 1968, he sent Soviet forces into Czechoslovakia to suppress the popular uprising known as the “Prague Spring,” and in 1979, he sent Soviet forces into Afghanistan ostensibly to help Communist forces in that country.

When Brezhnev died in 1982, he left the Soviet Union in deep economic trouble. His rule was characterized by an unprecedented military buildup and political corruption and abuse. As Zhores A. Medvedev says in Gorbachev, “Brezhnev never attempted to become a dictator, enjoying the prestige and opportunities of leadership more than the power of decision-making. He transferred more power to the Party and government apparatus than any of his predecessorsâÂ?¦.However, the stability of the Party elite, the absence of a critical press and legitimate channels for expressing public opinion, together with the non-existence of an independent legal system created ideal opportunities for corruption, favoritism, and mediocrity” (www.anet.net).

HINTS OF REFORM

Following the death of Brezhnev, conservative elements of the Communist Party turned to former KGB chief Yuri Andropov to serve as the new leader of the Soviet Union. Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was born June 15, 1914, in Nagutskaya in the Stavropol Region. He joined the Communist Party in 1939 and was a traditional hard-liner right up to his confirmation as General Secretary of the Communist Part on November 12, 1982. His brief fifteen-month rule was characterized by his attempts to reform the country by imposing strict discipline on state officials and employees.

Domestically, Andropov concentrated on political and economic reforms in an effort to improve the efficiency of the Soviet economy. He was extremely candid and critical of the Soviet system, claiming that some traditional Communist Party policies had “âÂ?¦failed the test of time” (Doder & Branson, p. 44). Before Andropov, it was almost unheard of to raise doubts about the excellence of Soviet life. Criticism became acceptable because Andropov himself was critical of the entire Soviet system. Politically, Andropov’s reforms were aimed at eliminating corruption and cutting privileges in the higher party ranks.

Economically, Andropov launched what was called the “discipline campaign.” The discipline campaign was an attempt to curb the laziness that had become common in the Soviet workplace. Additionally, Andropov experimented with greater independence for individual enterprises and quietly increased food prices by taking more items away from state-run shops and giving them to unsubsidized, more expensive cooperative shops.

Internationally, relations with the United States turned sour. President Ronald Reagan stepped up American anti-Soviet expression, provided funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative (commonly known as “Star Wars”), and deployed Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe. Additionally, the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines passenger plane with over 200 people on board contributed to the deterioration of Soviet-American relations, ultimately resulting in the breaking off of arms talks.

After just over one year in office, Yuri Andropov died on February 9, 1984. His short tenure as the leader of the Soviet Union saw the introduction of limited reforms designed to cut Communist Party privilege and improve the efficiency of the Soviet economy. No one knows where Andropov might have led the Soviet Union if he had lived long enough to continue his reform efforts. Upon his death, traditional Communists selected Konstantin Chernenko as the new Soviet leader. Chernenko’s selection would ultimately prove to be the last stand for the hardliners in the Communist Party.

THE LAST STAND

Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was born September 24, 1911, in Bolshaya Tes, Siberia. He joined the Communist Party in 1931 and his selection as General Secretary on February 13, 1984 represented a continuation of the Soviet tradition of placing aging, ineffective men at the top of the Communist hierarchy.

On the occasion of Brezhnev’s death in 1982, Chernenko had nominated Andropov as General Secretary, saying, “He will continue the Brezhnev style of leadership, Brezhnev’s care for the interests of the people, Brezhnev’s comradely relations with the party cadres” (www.anet.net). He was opposed to the reform efforts of Andropov and quickly ended the personnel changes and investigations into corruption initiated by his predecessor.

Although he only ruled for eleven months before his death in March of 1985, Chernenko did implement several measures that are worth noting. He renewed arms talks with the United States and attempted to restore Stalin’s image as a wartime leader and diplomat. Economically, Chernenko had no program of his own. While he could not reverse the efforts put in place by Andropov, he did manage to slow down the pace of reform. He called for a reduction in the Communist Party’s micromanagement of the economy, greater attention to public opinion, and more investment in consumer goods and services, as well as in agriculture. Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. The Communist Party quickly moved to select a young leader who could provide the Soviet Union with the stability that it so badly needed.

GORBACHEV

Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931 in Privolnoye, a small village near Stavropol in the Northern Caucasus. He was a third-generation communist who joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) at age fourteen. He applied to join the Communist Party as a candidate member at age nineteen, in his first year of eligibility, and was accepted as a party member two years later at the age of twenty-one. He rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a full member of the Politburo in 1980 at age forty-nine. He was a lifelong believer in socialism and communism who followed the party line and was selected as General Secretary on March 11, 1985.

Gorbachev’s acceptance speech as General Secretary strictly followed the Communist Party mantra. A New York Times editorial in March 1985 warned, “Nothing he has said or done suggests any greater degree of tolerance for unorthodox thinking than any of his colleaguesâÂ?¦” (Sheehy, 1990, p. 171). Almost every initial assessment of Gorbachev turned out to be wrong. Very few members of the ruling Communist Party had any clue that Gorbachev would embark on a radical quest for change that would completely undermine traditional Soviet communism.

EARLY REFORM EFFORTS

Gorbachev inherited a Soviet economy fraught with problems. The rate of industrial growth and agricultural output were steadily declining and shortages of even the most basic items were common. Gorbachev initiated several new economic programs in an effort to improve the deteriorating economic condition.

Recognizing that confidence and morale in the workplace were extremely low, Gorbachev launched an anti-alcohol campaign, sanctioned by the Central Committee in a resolution on May 7, 1985, designed to improve employee discipline (Laqueur, p. 170). This social reform effort included fines for public drunkenness, a reduction in the number of establishments allowed to sell alcohol, an increase in the minimum drinking age from eighteen years to twenty-one years, and a ban on liquor sales before 2:00 P.M. Gorbachev chose this particular campaign because alcohol consumption had almost quadrupled in the previous two decades and was having a negative impact on worker productivity. According to official Soviet reports, two-thirds of the increase in the divorce rate and 70-percent of all crimes were directly related to alcohol abuse (Doder & Branson, p. 85). Because alcohol sales in 1984 had represented about one-seventh of all planned state revenues, the anti-alcohol campaign ultimately cost the Soviet economy to a great extent (Sheehy, p. 178). Additional early reform efforts included allowing Soviet producers to deal directly with international companies to boost foreign trade, allowing private activity in a limited number of fields, and creating super-ministries designed to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency.

By mid-1986, Gorbachev realized that his economic and disciplinary reforms were not working. The Communist Party maintained strict control of all aspects of the economy and the situation continued to deteriorate. Goods became even scarcer and lines for basic items continued to get longer. Gorbachev came to understand that the real source of the country’s economic woes was not poor worker discipline or poor organization, but the centralization of the system itself. He started working on a new series of reform measures that he called perestroika, or restructuring. These new measures were designed to move the Soviet economy away from Stalinism and toward a more decentralized, market-style system.

THE TURNING POINT

Two events in 1986 caused Gorbachev to launch a new effort that would facilitate the implementation of his new economic program. The first incident occurred in the Ukraine on April 26, 1986, when the nuclear facility at Chernobyl exploded and spread radiation contamination as far away as Western Europe. The accident was immediately followed by a governmental cover-up of the negligence, procedural failures, and equipment failures that contributed to the explosion. Gorbachev was profoundly disturbed by the suppression of facts and information and did not attempt to deflect international pressure from those involved in the cover-up (Sheehy, p. 238).

The second event was the showing of the movie Repentance in late 1986. Repentance, which was made by a Georgian named Tengiz Abuladze, was a story about the terror inflicted by Stalin during the late 1930s. The movie proved to be an emotional event for Gorbachev, whose family had suffered as a result of Stalin’s political repression (Sheehy, p. 239-240). These two experiences made it clear to Gorbachev that he would have to reduce political repression and encourage openness if his economic reforms were to be successful.

GLASNOST

To rally the Soviet people behind the economic reforms of perestroika, Gorbachev and a close political ally, Alexander Yakovlev, introduced glasnost in an effort to bring out into the open the corruption and inefficiency of the Soviet system.
Glasnost translates into English roughly as “âÂ?¦to make known something that was previously concealed” (Kerblay, p. 23). Glasnost was not a new phenomenon that came as a sudden shock to the Soviet people. The term was mentioned forty times in Lenin’s works and appeared in a September 18, 1920, Pravda article that suggested glasnost in the press should serve as a tool for the mobilization and education of the people (Laqueur, p. 50). Under Brezhnev, Stalinist words for criticism were more frequently used, but there were still periodic references to glasnost. In subsequent years, the idea of glasnost was revived by Andrei Sakharov and other dissident writers, and was used by General Secretary Andropov in 1983. Gorbachev himself had first mentioned the concept in a 1984 speech:

Glasnost is an integral part of socialist democracy�.Wide, prompt,
and frank information is evidence of confidence in the people and
respect for their intelligence and feelings, and for their ability to
understand events for themselves. It enhances the resourcefulness
of the working people. Glasnost in the work of Party and state organs
is an effective means of combating bureaucratic distortions and obliges
us to be more thoughtful in our approach to the adoption of decisions
and�to the rectification of shortcomings and omissions (Kaiser, 1991, p. 78).

A great many top Soviet governmental officials were extremely concerned about the potential consequences of Gorbachev’s glasnost program. Previous Soviet leaders had stressed strict control over criticism while professing their obligation to answerability to the citizenry. Their hypocrisy stemmed from the fact that they all believed that openness would undermine the Communist Party and socialism, and that the people needed firm rule. Gorbachev approached glasnost differently, saying “The new atmosphere is perhaps most vividly manifested in glasnost. We want more openness about public affairs in every sphere of life. Truth is the main thing. Lenin said: More light! Let the Party know everything. As never before, we need no dark corners where mold can reappearâÂ?¦” (Laqueur, p. 51).

Gorbachev realized early on that the various print media could be used to promote glasnost because of the large audiences they were capable of reaching. He recruited new editors for three leading publications: Yegor Yakovlev for The Moscow News, Vladislav Starkov for Arguments and Facts, and Vitaly Korotich for Ogonyok. These new editors were instructed to relax the traditional rules and publish what they saw fit. Korotich, in particular, took a new approach by publishing investigative reports about the Soviet Army and the KGB. Ogonyok’s circulation exploded, increasing from 200,000 in 1987 to 4.6 million by 1990 (Sheehy, p. 279).

Glasnost continued to expand by allowing the discussion of social problems that had previously been banned. Stories and editorials were published about drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, venereal disease, natural disasters, and airplane accidents. Additionally, accurate descriptions of living conditions, income distribution, and the homeless problem were published for the first time.

Before glasnost, occasional editorials were published on corruption, embezzlement, and other such topics, but these were considered anomalies that required the imposition of stricter control and more administrative measures. Gorbachev promoted a radical new view of the press, saying, “It should unite and mobilize people rather than disuniting them and generate offense and a lack of confidence” (Laqueur, p. 51).

Soviet culture and intellectual thought experienced somewhat of a comeback under glasnost. Creative openness unparalleled in the previous sixty years was marked by the publication of banned works by dissident Soviet writers, including Anatoli Rybakov’s Children of the Arbat. Rybakov’s novel was a damning account of the “Great Terror” conducted by Joseph Stalin in the late 1930s. Previously banned movies, as well, were allowed to be shown. American films such as “Platoon,” “Amadeus,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” made their Soviet debut because of Gorbachev’s glasnost (Magstadt, 1989).

Soviet history presented the greatest problem for Gorbachev’s glasnost, in no small part due to the legacy of Joseph Stalin. De-Stalinization, which had begun under Nikita Khrushchev, had disappeared during the tenures of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko. With the launching of glasnost, Soviet history and its Stalinist past were subjected to a significant reassessment. Under Gorbachev, Communist Party history was rewritten with greater attention to the facts, while history books underwent extensive revision. One example of historical change was the de-mythologizing of Pavlik Morozov. As a boy, Morozov was praised as a model young Communist for turning his father in to the Soviet authorities for anti-communist thought in 1932. Morozov is now being portrayed as an example of the tragic consequences of the Stalinist system (Sheehy, p. 178). Another example of historical change was the rehabilitation of Nikolai Bukharin. Bukharin was an early ally of Lenin and an advocate of free-enterprise economics. He was executed for treason by Stalin in 1938 as part of the Great Terror.

While glasnost was originally intended to focus on economic problems, Gorbachev’s program of openness produced incredible results. Public opinion emerged as a means for voicing differing opinions, Stalinism was condemned, purge victims were rehabilitated, and the true effect of the Soviet command economy became known. Soviet citizens were free to express themselves and, gradually, larger and larger numbers of citizens lost their fear of the Communist Party and the state security organization, better known as the KGB.

The truth about the Soviet system, both past and present, had always been known. What changed with glasnost was the fact that people were all of a sudden free to discuss openly the very topics that had been banned for decades. Glasnost was supposed to be a self-criticism instrument designed to strengthen and legitimize the Soviet state by allowing the truth to finally be told. One joke about glasnost was very popular during Gorbachev’s reforms: the Soviet Union was likened to a train that was stopped because there were no more railway tracks. Each Soviet leader dealt with the crisis in his own particular way. Stalin had the conductor and engineer shot. Khrushchev rehabilitated them. Brezhnev closed the curtains and ordered that the train be shaken from side to side to create the illusion of movement. Finally, Gorbachev opened the curtains, leaned out the window, and shouted, “We’re out of rails, we’re out of rails” (Doder & Branson, pp. 143-144).

PERESTROIKA

Perestroika was Gorbachev’s program of economic restructuring. The term was popular during the early Stalinist period, generally meaning some kind of reorganization. In the 1980s, it became a synonym for the change and reform of the Soviet Union’s economic, social, and political institutions. Gorbachev and the Communist Party Plenum of January 1987, officially defined perestroika as follows:

Perestroika is the decisive defeat of the processes of stagnation, the
destruction of the braking mechanism, the creation of a reliable and
effective mechanism for increasing the pace of the social-economic
development of society. The main idea of our strategy is to unite the
achievements of the scientific-technical revolution with a planned
economy and to bring into action the entire potential of socialism.
Perestroika is the buttress for the vital creativity of the masses; it is the
all-sided development of democracy and socialist self-direction, the
encouragement of initiative and independence, the strengthening of
discipline and order, the widening of glasnost, criticism and self-
criticism in all spheres of social life; it is a greatly heightened respect
for the value and worth of the individual.

Perestroika is the steady elevation of the role of intensive factors in the
development of the Soviet economy, the reestablishment and development
of the Leninist principles of democratic centralism in the direction of the
national economy, universal introduction of economic methods of management,
rejection of administration by command, assuming the transfer of all levels
of the economy to the principles of complete financial self-sufficiency
and new forms of the organization of labor and production, the utmost support
for innovation and socialist enterprise.

Perestroika is a decisive turn to science, a business-like partnership with science
in order to achieve optimal final results, the ability to place any initiative
on a firm scientific basis, the readiness and fervent desire of scientists to
actively support the course of the Party for renewing society; at the same time,
it is concern about the development of science, the growth of its cadres, and
its active participation in the process of reform.

Perestroika is a priority on the development of the social sphere, a more complete
satisfaction of the demands of the Soviet people for good working conditions,
everyday life, rest, education, and medical services; it is a constant concern for
the spiritual wealth and culture of every individual and of society in general; it
is the ability to combine the solution of wide-ranging, cardinal problems of
society with the solution of ongoing questions of concern to people.

Perestroika is the energetic liberation of society from the distortions of socialist
morality, the consistent realization of the principles of social justice; it is the
unity of word and deed, of rights and responsibilities; it is the elevation of honest,
high-quality labor, and overcoming the equalizing tendencies in terms of pay
and consumer items.

The final goal of perestroika, it seems is clear: a profound renewal of all aspects
of the nation’s life, imparting to socialism the most contemporary forms of
social organizations, and the most complete disclosure of the humanitarian
character of our society in all its decisive aspects-economic, social-political,
and moral (www.anet.net).

When Gorbachev launched perestroika in his second attempt at economic reform, he had two primary goals: to speed up economic growth by modernizing industry and to eliminate shortages by replacing command economy administrative methods with economic regulation and democratic management (Kerblay, p. 30). Gorbachev acknowledged that this was a monumental task when he said, “Profound transformations must be carried out in the economy and in the entire system of social relations, and a qualitatively higher standard of living must be ensured for the Soviet peopleâÂ?¦.This, comrades, is a problem of truly huge scale. From it arises the main task of our time, the achievement of a palpable acceleration of social and economic progress” (Kaiser, p. 76).

One of Gorbachev’s first reforms under perestroika was the legalization of cooperatives, or small group businesses on May 1, 1987. This was as close as the Soviet Union would ever come to true private enterprise, and the results were astounding. Two years after their legalization, the output of cooperatives rose from 300 million rubles to 41 billion rubles, accounting for 8-percent of the Soviet Union’s Gross National Product (Sheehy, p. 264). However, this boost in production was not enough to lift up the economy as a whole, primarily because the cooperatives focused on soft goods and services, leaving the nation’s industrial base unaffected. Additionally, restraints such as limits on full-time participation and on what could be sold and who could sell set it undermined the entire cooperative effort. Gorbachev also allowed foreign businesses to start joint ventures in the Soviet Union. This decision, which was far-reaching by Marxist standards, met with stiff resistance from many Party members.

On January 1, 1988, Gorbachev embarked upon what is generally regarded as the centerpiece of his economic reform program. The Law on Socialist Enterprise was the beginning of the first real reform attempt that would affect state-owned enterprises, and was to be implemented over the course of two years. The intent of the law was to attack the central planners and shift decision-making power from Moscow to the individual enterprises. This was to be accomplished by allotting a portion of the enterprise’s yield for factory profit and by allowing factory workers to elect their own managers in each of the enterprises. While the law acknowledged profit as the means for achieving higher efficiency, it did not produce the desired results and the economic situation continued to deteriorate.

In May 1988, Gorbachev introduced the Law on Cooperatives, which allowed cooperative members to set their own prices and make their own deals both domestically and internationally. This law allowed for the first time the creation of enterprises not owned by the state. Despite the legalization of cooperatives, the establishment of joint ventures, the Law on Socialist Enterprise, and the Law on Cooperatives, Gorbachev did not generate the improvement in economic performance that he was looking for with the implementation of perestroika. By May 1990, the Soviet government announced that it would begin to move to a regulated market economy and began to implement severe price increases.

Several factors contributed to the failure of Gorbachev’s perestroika program. First, he never really intended to restructure the entire Soviet system. As Gorbachev said, “We have not made any proposal that steps beyond the bounds of the planned economy. Our intention is not to replace socialism by some other system, but to reinforce it” (Kerblay, p. 27). Second, the reforms were not far-reaching enough to lift the economy out of its depression. Third, late moves toward a market economy, such as the significant price increases, caused panic buying and hoarding, resulting in a further deterioration of the economic situation. Finally, the failures of perestroika were intensified by Gorbachev’s continued promises of economic improvement, resulting in his loss of credibility.

For these reasons, Gorbachev’s second attempt at economic reform, his perestroika program, failed to reverse the continued slide of the Soviet economy. A joke that was widely circulated during the late 1980s captured the mood of the population and made light of the increased shortages of most goods: A man goes into a bar. “I’ll have a pitcher of beer,” he orders. “That will be a ruble,” responds the bartender. “A ruble? I was just here a month ago and it was only fifty kopecks.” “But now we have glasnost. You have to pay fifty kopecks for glasnost.” “Okay, I like glasnost, here is my ruble.” Bending over, the bartender takes the ruble and hands the customer fifty kopecks change. “But I thought you just said that I had to pay fifty kopecks for glasnost.” “Yes, I did-but we don’t have any beer” (Doder & Branson, p. 104). Gorbachev, convinced that real reform was the only way to save the socialist system, clung to his beliefs. As the standard of living continued to deteriorate, Gorbachev remarked, “It’s my lifework. It’s my way of seeing things and I am not giving up” (Doder & Branson, p. 392).

THE FALL OF EASTERN EUROPE

In the years following World War II, Stalin established Communist regimes in the Eastern European nations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. These regimes were supposed to lessen the likelihood of an attack on the Soviet Union by creating a buffer zone with Western Europe. For over forty years, these regimes were kept in place by the use or threat of Soviet military intervention, and Gorbachev himself touted the success of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe by referring to the end of conflicts that had plagued the region for centuries:

Socialism has marked a crucial turn in the centuries-old history of this part of the world. From time immemorial, wars have been milestones here. The routing of Fascism and the victory of socialist revolution in Eastern European countries brought about a new situation on the continent. A powerful force arose here which set itself the aim of breaking the continuous chain of military conflicts. It is precisely to Socialism that Europe is indebted for the fact that over four decades of its peoples have known no wars (Dawisha, p. 26).

As Gorbachev attempted his economic reforms in the Soviet Union, he began to reexamine the country’s attachment to the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. He quickly realized that the economic burden imposed on the Soviet Union by the dependent Warsaw Pact nations was too great to sustain. In early 1987, Gorbachev began to talk about the possibility of removing that economic liability by suggesting that each Eastern European country was free to choose its own course, which he hoped would be the road to socialism. In his book, Perestroika, published in 1987, he wrote “âÂ?¦the time is ripe for abandoning views on foreign policy which are influenced by an imperial standpoint. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States is able to force its will on others. It is suppress, compel, bribe, break, or blast, but only for a certain period. From the point of view of long-term, big-time politics, no one will be able to subordinate others” (Kaiser, p. 177). On July 7, 1989, Gorbachev officially declared that Warsaw Pact members were uninhibited from choosing their own road to socialism. Citizens of Eastern Europe decided to take advantage of their opportunity and break from the Communist Soviet Union.
Poland was the first Soviet bloc nation to overthrow its communist government in July of 1989. Hungary, which had begun to remove its barbed-wire border with Austria in May, followed suit in October. In addition, in October, the Communist leader in East Germany, Erich Honecker, stepped down and the Warsaw Pact nations issued a statement endorsing the right of each member nation to choose its own political course. In November, the Berlin Wall was opened and for the first time since the early 1960s, East Germans were free to enter West Germany. In December, Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria and Milos Jakes of Czechoslovakia were removed from power, and Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu was executed in a violent revolt, completing the dissolution of the Soviet Union’s outer empire.

The rapid collapse of Communist Eastern Europe caught the West completely by surprise. A New York Times article in March 1985 had warned, “âÂ?¦foreign affairs is the field of Soviet endeavor least likely to change under a new generation” (Sheehy, p. 171). Gorbachev’s policies, which were enthusiastically received around the world, and the announcement on February 8, 1988 that Soviet troops would be out of Afghanistan by February 15, 1989, increased his popularity in the West (Doder & Branson, p. 291). A poll in the British press listed Gorbachev as their favorite foreign leader, with a rating twice as high as U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s (Sheehy, p. 214).

The political failure of the Warsaw Pact nations was a direct result of Gorbachev’s desire to release the Soviet Union from the Eastern European economies that were dragging down the Soviet economy. It was fueled by Gorbachev’s refusal to intervene to save the Communist governments that had ruled since the end of World War II, as illustrated by a speech in Helsinki, Finland, on October 25, 1989: “The events that are now taking place in the countries of Eastern Europe concern the peoples and countries of that regionâÂ?¦.We have no right, moral or political, to interfere in events happening there” (Dawisha, p. 9).

While Gorbachev had not intended the complete collapse of Communism in the Eastern European bloc, he had initiated the process and then refused to stop it. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe brought the entire region back into contact with the West and set in motion the unrest that would lead to declarations of independence in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in the Spring of 1990.

RETURN TO CENTRALIZATION

As Gorbachev’s Communist empire in Eastern Europe was collapsing, the economic situation at home was continuing to get worse. Demands from the public and the military-industrial complex increased, grave shortages of the most basic items caused increasingly longer lines, and civil disturbances resulted in violent attacks, mainly in the Caucasus and Baltics. In an effort to salvage the socialist system and the Communist Party, Gorbachev began to forsake his reform efforts and move back toward the traditional Soviet conservative base.

In early 1990, Gorbachev decided to allow candidate choice in local elections in the hope that the credibility of the Communist Party would be restored. He did not expect the hostile response to the party that resulted when candidates with democratic proposals seized power. Gorbachev had attempted once before to gain standing with the populace by replacing hardliners in the government with political allies who were open to reform. By early 1987, Gorbachev had changed 70-percent of the Politburo, 60-percent of the local party secretaries, and 40-percent of the Central Committee (Goldman, 1991, p. 173). The difference was that these were Gorbachev’s personal appointees, not popularly elected candidates.

On June 11, 1990, Gorbachev amended the Law on Socialist Enterprise by stripping workers of their right to elect their own managers. In September of 1990, Gorbachev allowed other candidates to compete for the Presidency. Even though he tampered with the election process in order to ensure victory for himself, he only managed to secure 59.2-percent of the vote (Sheehy, p. 325). After the election, Gorbachev took steps to place all law enforcement agencies, courts, attorneys, judges, and KGB personnel under his personal control. He further consolidated his power by naming his own Presidential Council, effectively negating the Politburo as a political entity and allowing him the power to act unilaterally as President. On October 16, 1990, Gorbachev declared that further market reforms were being postponed.

Gorbachev was unable to come up with a plan for the effective administration of the Soviet economy and constantly changed his mind about what measures should be taken. A popular joke about Gorbachev’s confusing policies went as follows: “There are two ways-one realistic, the other fantastic-for resolving the crisis of the Soviet economy. The realistic way is to have people from outer space come and straighten out the mess. The fantastic way is for the Soviet people to sort it out on their own” (Doder & Branson, p. 391). The fact that he began to revert to traditional Soviet methods was indicative of the fact that Gorbachev never abandoned his commitment to socialism and the Communist Party. As Gorbachev exclaimed during these troubled times, “I am a Communist, a convinced Communist. For some that may be a fantasy. But for me it is my main goal” (Doder & Branson, p. 390). However, as Gorbachev was to see, the powerful chain of events that he had set in motion could not be turned back.

THE BREAKUP

The years from 1985 to 1990 saw Marxist-Leninist ideology completely undermined in the Soviet Union. The economic situation continued to deteriorate, the budget deficit grew, prices sharply increased, and Soviet citizens began to buy and hoard whatever they could. The desire to abandon the Soviet system spread from Eastern Europe to the Soviet republics, and labor unrest increased because of depressed wages and rising prices. During the first half of 1990, the number of striking workers averaged 130,000 per day (Goldman, p. 151). The unrest began with coal miner strikes in Siberia after demands for better living and working conditions rapidly turned into political protests. Many Soviet citizens correctly believed that Gorbachev had failed to deliver on his economic promises and that things were only getting worse.

The revelations in 1989 and 1990 about imminent price increases resulted in the collapse of the Soviet distribution system as producers demanded something other than devalued rubles for their goods. Gorbachev began to sense that the end of the socialist system was inevitable. The citizens of the various Soviet republics demanded greater autonomy and freedom from Soviet economic control. On February 5, 1990, Gorbachev asked the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to give up the monopoly on power guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution. On June 8, Gorbachev’s political rival Boris Yeltsin won the presidency of the Russian republic and quickly declared the sovereignty of Russia’s laws over the laws of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was quickly becoming irrelevant, and his overall popularity rating, which by July had dropped to an incredibly low 20-percent, continued to decline (Goldman, p. 17). A short ditty captured the popular mood: “Sausage prices twice as high, where’s the vodka for us to buy? All we do is sit at home, watching Gorbachev drone and drone” (Doder & Branson, p. 404).

As 1991 began, industrial and agricultural productivity declined severely, resulting in an extreme reduction in Soviet Gross National Product and national income. The GNP dropped over 10-percent in the first half of 1991 and by April retail prices had risen by 300-percent (Goldman, p. 11-12). On August 19, conservative Soviet traditionalists attempted a hardliner coup in an effort to remove Gorbachev and restore the Communist Party’s power and authority. The coup conspirators were concerned about the collapse of the Soviet economy and the decline of the Soviet Union as a political body. While the coup failed to oust Gorbachev, he knew that he could hold on no longer. Gorbachev resigned from the Communist Party on August 24, as the country found itself in a depression caused by severe supply shortages. The Soviet Union began to break up as most of its constituent republics declared their sovereignty. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine signed the Belovezh Forest Agreement on December 8, forming the Commonwealth of Independent States. Twenty-three days later, on December 31, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved.

The collapse of the Soviet economy had accelerated the political dissolution of the nation as economic difficulties spawned feelings of anger toward and criticism of Gorbachev. While Gorbachev had set in place the mechanisms for the collapse of the Soviet system, he was shunned as the populace looked to Yeltsin to guide them through even more sweeping reforms and the troubled times that were sure to come.

CONCLUSION

Prior to his appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party in March, 1985, Gorbachev’s career path represented that of a model young Communist who followed the Party line and faithfully adhered to the socialist principles that were supposed to lead to the creation of a utopian Communist state. Upon coming to power, he attempted some half-hearted measures that he hoped would provide a desperately needed boost to the suffering Soviet economy.

As he began to realize that his initial reform efforts were not working, he drafted a series of radical proposals that ultimately became perestroika. If he was going to implement these new, comprehensive measures effectively, Gorbachev knew that he would have to “open up” the traditionally secret Soviet society. Glasnost was supposed to be a publicity tool that would gain support for the radical economic changes that would be necessary for the Soviet state to survive. Ultimately, it became a program of complete openness, where public opinion emerged, investigative journalism flourished, attacks on the Party elite became common, and previously banned dissident writers were published.

As Gorbachev’s perestroika programs were implemented, economic conditions continued to deteriorate and civil unrest began to grow. Gorbachev never intended to introduce a full market economy. He merely wanted to encourage initiative and efficiency by promoting more involvement from the people in the hope of stimulating the declining economy. As part of his plan to improve economic performance, Gorbachev attempted to free the Soviet Union of the fiscal burden imposed by the dependent economies of the Soviet bloc. As he steadily distanced himself from the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, democratic governments swept to power, Germany was reunited, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and the Cold War came to a peaceful end.

The economic difficulties at home continued to get worse, prompting Gorbachev to revert to traditional Soviet rule by centralizing his power and cracking down on republics seeking independence. Gennady Lisichkin, a member of the Supreme Soviet, remarked: “It’s most important to understand that Gorbachev is a Bolshevik, that Gorbachev is a Communist, that Gorbachev is a son of the Party. He has gone a long, hard way of development. The Gorbachev in Stavropol and the Gorbachev now in the Kremlin are two different people. You can compare him to Khrushchev in this regard. Khrushchev, who was a faithful son of Stalin, rejected with a lot of effort part of Stalin’s bloody past. So Gorbachev makes one more step and rejects one more part of Stalin’s heritage-remaining, unfortunately, a Bolshevik and a Communist” (Sheehy, p. 297).

With Boris Yeltsin’s victory in the Russian presidential election and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the end of the Soviet Union was inevitable. By the end of 1991, Gorbachev had resigned from the Communist Party and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had ceased to exist.

Gorbachev, in an attempt to save the socialist system and restore the credibility of the Communist Party, had set in motion forces for change that grew beyond his control. If Chernenko had lived longer, or if a traditional hardliner had come to power in 1985, it is likely that the status quo would have been maintained and that the Cold War would have continued. As Robert Service says in A History of Twentieth Century Russia, if Gorbachev had not been General Secretary, “âÂ?¦the USSR’s long-lasting order would have endured for many more yearsâÂ?¦” (Service, 2001, p. 447). Gorbachev, who had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his non-intervention in Eastern Europe, was dubbed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter the “most humanitarian of the world’s leaders” (Laqueur, p. 234). However, as Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to be revered abroad, he became despised in his native land. While people outside the Soviet Union saw him as the man who ended the Cold War, the people at home held him responsible for the economic collapse and the decline of the nation as a world power.

Gorbachev’s insistence on preserving Communism ultimately undermined his reform efforts. Lonnie Johnson says in Central Europe that “As long as Communists believed in method-the possibility of reforming or perfecting the Communist system-it was viable. But once they recognized that the principles on which the system was based had to be changed-such as the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power or the state’s monopoly on the economy-it was not” (Johnson, 1996, p. 252). Gorbachev, more than any other figure, was the catalyst for the democratization of Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, Gorbachev was not so sure that he had accomplished anything at all.

As Gorbachev biographer Martin McCauley says in a Europe magazine interview with Axel Krause, “He reformed the Soviet Union out of existenceâÂ?¦from his own point of view, he was a failure” (Krause, 2002).

WORKS CITED

Montgomery, S. (1988). Glasnost-Perestroika. Retrieved November 24, 2002, from the World Wide Web: http://www.geocities.com/athens/crete/4516/gp/glasnost-perestroika.html.
Kerblay, B. (1989). Gorbachev’s Russia. New York: Random House, Inc.
Doder, D., and Branson, L. (1990). Gorbachev: Heretic In the Kremlin. New York: Penguin Books.
Magstadt, T. (1989). Gorbachev and Glasnost-A New Soviet Order?. Policy Analysis No. 117. Retrieved November 23, 2002, from the World Wide Web: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA117.htm.
Laqueur, W. (1989). The Long Road To Freedom. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Hungary Up To Today. Available on the World Wide Web: http://www.unc.edu.
Dawisha, K. (1990). Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform (Second Edition). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Medvedev, Z. (1986). Gorbachev. Available on the World Wide Web: http://www.anet.net.
Chernenko Biography. Available on the World Wide Web: http://www.anet.net.
Sheehy, G. (1990). The Man Who Changed the World. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Kaiser, R. (1991). Why Gorbachev Happened. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Perestroika. Available on the World Wide Web: http://www.anet.net.
Goldman, M. (1991). What Went Wrong With Perestroika. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Service, R. (2001). A History of Twentieth Century Russia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Johnson, L. (1996). Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends. New York: Oxford University Press.
Krause, A. (2002, June). The Return of Mikhail Gorbachev. Europe, pp. 14-17. Retrieved from Ebscohost database on the World Wide Web: http:ebscohost.com.