Gorbachev's Reforms in the USSR Collapsing - Essay Example

The old Soviet Union system was dominated by four main principles; these were federalism, dominance by the communist party, ethnic federalism and hierarchy of the Soviet Union. Glasnost (meaning political openness) and Perestroika (meaning economic reconstructing) were programs which were introduced by Gorbachev that produced unforeseen radical effects that resulted to the collapse of the system. He further tried to revive Soviet Union by creating new arenas and political bases and coalition with the political parties advocating for reforms. His intentions were to improve the political arena and to resolve the great economic problem that had put the state in stagnation for a long period of time. Through these structural reforms which were meant to broaden the opportunities for the popular movements and the political parties so as to gain influence, Gorbachev made it easy for the orthodox communists, populist forces and nationalist to go against his wishes and oppose his efforts to revitalize and liberalize the soviet communist. This led to different opinions with some advocating for the liberalizing of the Soviet Union, others wanted the republics to be independent while the rest demanded for the restoration of old ways of the soviet union. These forces from below, top and sideways could not be compromised by Gorbachev leading to the consequent fall the Soviet Union.1 Between the year 1969 and 82 is when the reforms for Soviet Union stalled but generational shift introduced these demand s for the reform. There was change on the relations with the US after Reagan was elected and was against the Soviet Union and further termed it as the evil empire and his initiative to build a strong defense system (star wars) which the Soviet Union could not compete with. The public was not satisfied with the Moscow government because of the war in Afghanistan and the Chernobyl catastrophe gave the Glasnost and Perestroika which were introduced by Gorbachev gain momentum but eventually led to fall of the Soviet Union.2 After many years of stagnation new thinking younger communists emerged and after the death of Chernekno Konstantin made is ease the elected general secretary rise to leadership. Though he was relatively young he introduced a new momentum that advocated for economic and political liberation with better trade relation with the west. By 1866 when Gorbachev was introducing the Glasnost and Perestroika programs, the union was already suffering from supply shortages and inflation due to black market practiced by official economy. The state subsidies and cost of superpower were not proportional to the economy of the soviet and the union was craving for the unmatched western technology.3 One of the radical economic reforms was put in place in May 1988, the cooperative law that allowed the private ownership of manufacturing, retailing and al l other business including the foreign business and this became the soviet scene. A conference convened in 1987 by an economist who was as adviser to Gorbachev concluded that political openness was essential to pressure those who were opposing his economic reforms, the conservatives, to support his initiatives. This resulted to increased freedom of press and speech, many political prisoners were released, and public opinion polls could be conducted without restriction. The government records became accessible and gender studies were introduced. Gorbachev introduced democratization which came had in had with multi party elections in January 1988 in the Soviet Union. This was followed by the CPSU's 19th party conference that reduced the ruling party's control of the government. A legislative body (congress of people's deputies) was approved in December 1988 and the elections to that congress were held the following year in March-April. The first president of the Soviet Union was Gorbachev who was elected on 15th of March 1990. Flow of uncontrollable events made it inevitable to dissolve the Soviet Union despite efforts to by Gorbachev to meet his promises as unforeseen negative consequences to of Glasnost and Perestroika began being realized. The Glasnost lost its meaning with the media taking control and exposing social-economic problems which were continuously being denied by the soviet government. Serious crimes of corruption and treaties dating back the time of Hitler were exposed and the poor living conditions of the people in the Soviet Union besides the drug abuse, alcoholism and pollution but continued to be denied by the official media. The government further lost its credibility due the dissatisfaction on the way the Chernobyl and Afghanistan war were being handled in 1986. The positive life of the soviets people as being presented by the state media was replaced with the negative poor life of the people by the media and this made the integrity and identity of the union at stake as people lost faith in the soviet system there making the communist party lose popularity. In 1989 the Moscow government disclaimed the Brezhnev doctrine there none of the Warsaw pact allies could intervene with the soviets internal affairs and therefore the signatories of this treaty had nothing to do but watch as the Soviet Union government fell from power through the elections as it had happened earlier in Romania. Revolution in the Eastern Europe brought down the governments of the East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland by 1991 all which had been established in the after the second war. Glasnost had now completely lost its meaning since efforts by Gorbachev could not maintain the political heat from the republicans as his party lost many seats in the assembly meaning that the government lost in most debates and its efforts were undermined. Great peaceful demonstration followed such as the Singing movement that called for change gained international attention. Though Perestroika was a great idea, the other principles did not have radical effects, more so there were no changes in some of the policies that like the state control of production in all major areas, price control that were employed in the Stalinist era.4 The economic condition were so bad by 1990 as the government lost control of the economy since the government spending was greater than the revues as it continued to give subsidies and operating unprofitable business, tax revenues were withheld by the local government who supported the regional autonomy, the anti alcohol campaign reduced the government revenue though this tax had contributed 12% of the in state revenue 1982. In February 1990, the communist party's central committee surrendered its governmental monopoly powers and this was followed by competitive elections in the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union which were marked massive defeat of the Communist party by the ethnic nationalists and reformers. Many of the Soviet Union constituents began to form laws which were against the Moscow government thereby declining to give pay taxes and further leading more economic stress to the government. Latvia and Lithuania became independent by March 1990, after many violent demonstrations. In the 1991 January 13th, 14 innocent Lithuanians were killed after the go0vernment used excessive force against the reformist media. A referendum was conducted in March 1991 and the results indicated that 78% of the Soviet Union population preferred retention and reformed union, some of the constituents like Baltics, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, boycotted the referendum. The election were held in June where by Gorbachev sponsored candidate, Nikolai lost to Yeltsin who gathered 57% of the total votes. Yeltsin preached against the political dictatorship of Gorbachev and promised to control the uprising prices of commodities in his political campaigns. The soviet government lost its grace domestically and internationally further when the government troops attacked and killed Lithuanian servicemen at Medinnkai border. The new union treaty was an idea by Gorbachev to restructure the union to a less centralized union having the same military, foreign policies and president; the radical reformists were even ready to for disintegration of the union and introduce the market economy upon eradicating the communist ideologies. This treaty boycotted by senior government official who put Gorbachev under house arrest and called for a state of emergency. Efforts to arrest Yeltsin failed leading to the failure of the coup after three days leading to Gorbachev restoration as the president. After the failed coup, many states speeded up their demand to become sovereign states with some declaring their independence. Though the economy continued to decline with serious food rationing Gorbachev continued to economic reforms at the expense of the collapsing economy. Yeltsin used the 1922 union treaty to remove Gorbachev from power to save the economy from collapsing completely The Belavezha treaty that dissolved the union was signed in December 9th 1991; it was replaced by a commonwealth of independent states (CIS) despite efforts by Gorbachev to outlaw it. In December 25th 1991, Gorbachev resigned from the post of the president since most of the union constituents had joined the CIS and by 31st December all the Soviet Union institutions had ceased to operate. Gorbachev led collapses of the union because his ideas and principles could were not water prove leading to their abuse, he also did not adjust his system of leadership to meet the demands from the people leading to a strong opposition arising against him. This made him lose popularity and eventually being removed from power. Though his principles were a nice idea that bore historic fruits home and abroad, they had many loopholes which lead to the government losing its control of the union and consequently collapse of the union. REFERENCES Albert J. Schmidt, (1990) the Impact of Perestroika on Soviet Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Moscow Donald Filtzer A. (1994) Soviet workers and collapse of perestroika, Cambridge University publishers, Cambridge Geoffrey Hosking (2000) the First Socialist Society, History of the Soviet Union from Within, Harvard University Press, Harvard Martin McCauley (2003) The Soviet Union 1917-1991, Longman publishers, New York Michael Kort (1996) the Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath, Armonk publishers, New York Thomas Sherlock, John M. Battle, (1988) Gorbachev's Reforms, Academic International Press, Robert Strayer, (1988) why did the Soviet Union Collapse, Sharpe publishers, New York Stephen White, Pravda Alex, Y. Gitelman, (1997) Developments in Russian, Politics, Duke University Press, Russia Read More