Transcript Gorbachev and the Fall of the USSR

Gorbachev
and the Fall of the
USSR


Soviet TV, late December 1978:
Leonid Brezhnev records New
Year greetings to Soviet youth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
5j4JepHaP_w
Basic methods of social control*
authority (the power of command)
exchange (the power of deal)
persuasion (the power of idea)
moral codes (the power of belief)
Each political-economic system relies on a specific
combination of these methods
Under state socialism, the power of command dwarfed all
other methods
The command economy and one-party rule reinforced each
other
Extreme centralization of economic and political power
Fear of exchange – the specter of capitalist restoration
Inefficiency and social discontent
*See Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets, Basic Books, 1976
The Communist Party under state socialism
 The system’s core
 The principle of hierarchy (“democratic centralism”)
 The Party leadership controls all mechanisms of the state,
including economic management
 Assuring the mass base through Party membership
 Control of information (little or no media freedom, heavy use
of propaganda, control of the cultural sphere)
 The key role of security organs
Cannot be used against Party leadership
Use of force only under extreme circumstances
Manipulation of political processes
Surveillance, informer networks
Preventive measures against dissent
The Soviet society: new classes, new
expectations, new relations and structures
The ruling class (NOMENKLATURA)
Ambivalent social status: the question of ownership
 Does not need a dictator – WHY?
 Increasingly confident of its power and right to rule
 Big, diverse, interested in decentralization – WHY?
 Reformers, Stalinists, pragmatic conservatives

A new society








Increasingly urbanized
Rapidly growing educational levels
Class struggle is declared over
Raised in the spirit of democratic expectations (even if
within the limits of official ideology)
Demanding higher living standards
Women, youth, intellectuals: new social demands
Development of nationalist sentiments
Citizens losing fear of the state
The essence of the reform process
States and societies created by the communists enter into a
process of complex interactions:
--between the rulers and the ruled
--between different social groups
--between internal and external forces
Both conflicts and accomodation
Challenges to political leaders
Open-ended outcomes
Successes and failures
The main components of the reform process
– addressing the system’s flaws
DECENTRALIZATION
LIBERALIZATION
MARKETIZATION
DEMILITARIZATION
OPENING TO THE WORLD
The outcome depended on many factors – both
internal and external
State socialism had to prove its viability under
conditions of peace
Decentralization
 Achieving rational distribution of power between different
levels of communist state structure
 Within the USSR:
More power to national republics
 Within the Soviet bloc:
Loosening of Soviet control over Eastern Europe
Limits:
Fear of loss of control
Requires liberalization
The dynamics of nationalism – prospect of creation of
new nation-states, shifts of allegiance in the Cold War
Liberalization






Reducing state domination over society
New society expects the state to be democratic – serving
the people (influence of ideology – both communist and
Western)
The international environment fosters those expectations
No mass repressions; lesser role for security organs
Relaxation of controls over cultural life
Development of pluralism within the ruling party
How far could communists go down this road?
Marketization







Restoration of elements of market systems
Considerations of economic efficiency
Growing consumer demands
Interests of managers, entrepreneurs
Problems:
Does the revival of market forces make restoration of
capitalism inevitable?
What do the people want – capitalism or socialism?
ALTERNATIVE MODEL – MARKET SOCIALISM
Demilitarization






Reducing the burden of military expenditures
Dismantling the “battle order” (partial)
War is not inevitable
Counterfactors:
Power of the military-industrial complex
The international environment (competition with the West,
upheavals in the Third World)
Persistence of militarized thinking
Opening to the World







Wider participation in the global economy
Peaceful coexistence with capitalism
Arms control and disarmament
Wider cultural and human contacts with foreign countries
Counterfactors:
Moscow feared loss of control over Eastern Europe
Dangers of ideological “contamination”
International advocacy of human rights challenged
communist rulers
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, b. 1931, General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(1985-1990), President of the USSR (1990-1991)
Gorbachev’s wife Raisa (1932-1999)


Gorby on need for reform,
disarmament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
595W4JJHa2U
Time to end the Cold War
Negotiating an end to the Cold War
 The threat of nuclear war as the overriding issue
 The Cold War was undermining the Soviet system





The economic burden
A militarized state ensured bureaucratic paralysis: society
lacked basic freedoms, the state was losing its capacity to
govern
The atmosphere of confrontation with the West was stifling
impulses for necessary reforms, imposing ideological rigidity
Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was now seen as an
obsolete, counterproductive policy. Lessons of
Czechoslovakia (1968) and Poland (1980-81). Reforms in
Eastern Europe are necessary for Soviet reform.
Solution: New Thinking, a plan to negotiate an end to the
Cold War to assure security and free up Soviet and East
European potential for reform. “The Sinatra Doctrine”
Options for reform
 Conviction that Soviet socialism could only be
revived through the creation of a market
mechanism and political liberalization (presented
as democratization)
 Linkages between economic and political reforms
 At first – priority of economic over political
 Economic reform impossible without political
liberalization
 Political liberalization leads to the emergence of
political divisions within the Party and society –
rise of pluralism as a natural condition
 Managing a pluralistic society requires political
democracy




Novoye myshlenie (new thinking) – reform of the
international system, also used to refer to
reformist thinking in the USSR
Perestroika (restructuring) – a comprehensive
overhaul of the Soviet system, involving all areas
of public policy
Glasnost – a shift to an open information order
Demokratizatsiya (democratization) – building a
new Soviet political system
Which forces supported the reform process?
 The spectrum inside the Party: from anarchists to
monarchists
 The Party-state bureaucracy – mostly conservative, fearful
of change – potential loss of power and privilege
 The managerial class is interested in greater autonomy,
limited market freedom
 The intellectuals: overwhelming support for liberal reform,
democratization
 Rank-and-file Party membership predominantly in favour
of Gorbachev’s reforms
 The ideological legitimacy of democracy
 The working class
 Nationalists in non-Russian republics
From reform to collapse
 1. 1985-86: negotiating an end to the Cold War. Cautious
attempts at reforms, with the main emphasis on the
economy
 2. 1986-88: End of the Cold War. A more decisive policy of
market reforms, accompanied by glasnost, liberalization,
and political reform
 3. 1989: First democratic election in USSR, emergence of
democratic opposition, fall of communist regimes in
Eastern Europe
 4. 1990: Democratic elections in the 15 Soviet republics,
push for sovereignty, Gorbachev’s desperate attempts to
maintain control
 5. 1991: Escalation of conflict between conservatives and
democratic reformers. The August coup and the paralysis
of the Soviet state. Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
November 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbol of Cold War division of Europe
Moscow, August 1991: hard-liners attempt a coup to stop democratic reforms
Leaders of the August 1991 coup present themselves at a Moscow press-conference
August, 1991: Barricades in front of the Russian Parliament building


The August 1991 coup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bWo49OoFo
The military
desert the
coup and
join
protesters
Russians celebrating the defeat of the August coup
Freed from house arrest in Crimea, Gorbachev returns to Moscow
After the coup, Gorbachev was rapidly losing power to Boris Yeltsin
December 1991: the three men who dissolved the Soviet Union,
left to right: Presidents Kravchuk of Ukraine, Shushkevich of
FACTS BEHIND THE DRAMA
THE SOVIET EMPIRE WAS DISSOLVED
IN A SERIES OF POLITICAL DEALS,
INITIATED BY MOSCOW
1.
ROUND ONE: Gorbachev encourages East European
communists to act on their own; USSR loses control over
Eastern Europe; Soviet republics get more power
2.
ROUND TWO: Yeltsin and leaders of the other 14
republics move to dissolve the USSR
3.
ROUND THREE: Yeltsin and leaders of Russia’s regions
sign the Federal Treaty to establish the Russian
Federation
THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO
FALLS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE 20TH
CENTURY:


The Romanov Empire collapsed as a result of a
revolution, the elites were overthrown and replaced
by new elites as a result of the civil war
The Communist elites moved to divide the empire
to recast themselves as leaders of independent
nation-states –
or of units of the Russian Federation
A key reason why the Soviet empire made a
relatively quiet exit was because key Soviet elites
saw a future for themselves after communism
Gorbachev in Toronto, March 2005