Transcript Duties and Responsibilities of US Citizens

Decline of the Soviet Union
The Brezhnev Era
• Alexi Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev
replaced Nikita Khrushchev when he was
removed from office in 1964
• Brezhnev emerged as the dominant
leader in the 1970s
• He was not interested in any reforms and
believed that Eastern Europe needed to
remain in Soviet control
• Brezhnev Doctrine  Soviet Union has
the right to intervene if communism was
threatened in another communist state
The Brezhnev Era
• Brezhnev benefitted from détente (a relaxation of
tensions and improved relations between the United
States and the Soviet Union
• In the 1970s, the two superpowers signed SALT
(strategic arms limitation treaty) I and II and the
Ballistic Missile Treaty, which limited nuclear arms
• With the feeling of being more secure, Soviet
leaders relaxed their authoritarian rule and allowed
more access to Western music, dress, and art
• However, dissidents (people who spoke out against
the regime) were still suppressed
The Brezhnev Era
• In his economics policies, Brezhnev continued to
emphasize heavy industry
• However, two problems weakened the Soviet economy:
– The central government was a huge, complex, but inefficient
bureaucracy that led to indifference
– Many collective farmers preferred working their own small
private plots to laboring the collective work brigades
• By the 1970s, the Communist ruling class become
complacent and corrupt
• Party and state leaders, army leaders, and secret
police (KGB), enjoyed a high standard of living
• However, Brezhnev did not want to tamper with the
party leadership and state bureaucracy
The Cold War Intensifies
• By the 1970s, détente allowed U.S. grain and
consumer goods to be sold to the Soviet Union
• However, détente collapsed in 1979 when the
Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan
• The Soviet Union wanted to restore a pro-Soviet
regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. viewed it as an
act of expansion
• To show his disapproval, president Jimmy Carter
canceled U.S. participation in the 1980 summer
Olympics in Moscow
• He also placed an embargo on the shipment of
U.S. gain to the Soviets
The Cold War Intensifies
• Relations worsened when Ronald
Reagan became president
• He called the Soviet Union an “evil
empire” and began a military buildup
and a new arms race
• Regan also gave military aid to the
Afghan rebels, helping to maintain a war
that the Soviet Union could not win
Gorbachev and Perestroika
• By 1980, the Soviet Union had a declining economy, a rise in
infant mortality rates, a dramatic surge in alcoholism, and
poor working conditions
• A small group of reformers emerged and, eventually, Mikhail
Gorbachev was chosen as leader in March 1985
• Perestroika  restructuring of the Soviet system
– At first, this meant restructuring the economy
– Gorbachev wanted a market economy that was more responsive to
consumers
– It would have limited free enterprise so that some businesses would
be privately owned and operated
– However, he realized that this would not work in the established
political system
Gorbachev and Perestroika
• Glasnost  a policy of perestroika that encouraged
Soviet citizens and officials to discuss openly the
strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet Union
• At the 1988 Communist Party conference,
Gorbachev set up a new Soviet parliament of
elected members, the Congress of People’s
Deputies
• It met in 1989, the first such meeting in the country
since 1918
• He then created a new state presidency
– Under the old system, the most important position was
the first secretary of the Communist Party
End of the Cold War
• Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in the
1980s brought about a drastic end to the
Cold War
• His “new thinking” – his willingness to
rethink Soviet foreign policy – led to many
changes
• Gorbachev made an agreement with the
United States in 1987, the Intermediate
Range INF Treaty
– Eliminated intermediate range nuclear weapons
– Both superpowers wanted to slow down the
arms race
End of the Cold War
• Gorbachev stopped giving Soviet military support
to Communist governments in Eastern Europe
• This led to the potential of overthrowing those
governments
• A mostly peaceful revolutionary movement swept
through Eastern Europe in 1989
• The reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990,
was a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War
• In 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved
• The long rivalry between the superpowers was
over
End of the Soviet Union
• The Soviet Union included 92 ethnic groups and
112 languages
• As Gorbachev relaxed the control of the Soviet
Union, old ethnic tensions grew
• Nationalist movements began throughout the
former republics of the Soviet Union
• The conservative leaders of the traditional Soviet
institutions – the army, government, KGB, and
military industries – were worried that the breakup
of the Soviet Union would end their privileges
End of the Soviet Union
• On August 19, 1991, a group of these
conservative leaders arrested Gorbachev and
tried to seize power
• The attempt failed when the new president of
Russia, Boris Yeltsin, along with thousands of
Russians, resisted the rebel forces in Moscow
• The Soviet Republics eventually moved towards
full independence
• Ukraine voted for independence on December 1,
1991 and Belarus did the same weeks later
Russia Under Yeltsin
• Gorbachev resigned on December 25,
1991 and he turned over his
responsibilities to Boris Yeltsin, the new
president of Russia
• Yeltsin was committed to introducing a
free market economy as quickly as
possible
• Economic hardships and social disarray
were made worse by a rise in organized
crime
Russia Under Yeltsin
• Yeltsin also faced a problem in
Chechnya, a province in the south that
wanted to secede from Russia and
become independent
• Yeltsin used brutal force against the
Chechens to keep the province as part of
Russia
• Yeltsin also dealt with former Soviet
satellite states, like Poland, Hungary, and
the Czech Republic, who wanted to join
NATO
Russia Under Putin
• At the end of 1999, Yeltsin resigned and
was replaced by Vladimir Putin, who was
elected president in 2000
• Putin, a former KGB officer, was widely
seen as someone who wanted to keep a
tight rein on government power
• In July 2001, Putin launched reforms to
boost growth and budget revenues
• The reforms included the free sale and
purchase of land and tax cuts
Russia Under Putin
• Putin also applied for Russia’s admission to
the World Trade Organization and worked out
a special partnership with the European Union
• Despite the changes, the business climate
remained somewhat uncertain, and this stifled
foreign investment
• Since Putin’s reforms, Russia experienced a
budget surplus and a growing economy
• Much of this growth is due to oil and gas
exports
Russia Under Putin
• Russia often uses its supplies of oil and gas as a
political lever to wield power over former Soviet
states and to influence world energy prices
• A trans-Siberian oil pipeline, which was completed in
2009, had Asia more dependent on Russian oil
• Chechnya and terrorism also continues to be a
problem for Russia
• In 2002, Chechen terrorists took about 600 Russian
hostage in a Moscow theater
• Between 2002-2004, terrorist attacks in Russia killed
an estimated 500 people
A New Russia
• Russia still faces problems like rising alcoholism,
criminal activities, and a decline of the traditional family
system
• In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev became president of Russia
• Putin could not run for reelection because of limit’s in
Russia’s constitution
• Many question the validity of the 2008 presidential
because few opposition candidates participated
• Putin became prime minister and it is unclear how
much power they share
• In 2012, Putin became president of Russia once again