3. Brezhnev’s Legacy
• In power for 18 years, longest beside Stalin.
• Gradual increase in living standards, job security, services,
consumer products, i.e. stability.
• No social mobility.
• Economic stagnation caused by bureaucratism, over centralization,
shortage, waste, and corruption.
• Entrenched nomenklatura.
• Social security and welfare: quantity over quality.
• Falling health and life expectancy caused by alcohol, poor medical
care, environmental damage.
• Increasing “independent” culture—religious worship, national and
folk culture, personal lifestyles, tastes, and styles, importance of
family and friends over institutions, and a new public opinion.
• A rigid, stale and hollow ideology that is increasingly detached
from citizens everyday life.
4. Brezhnev’s Legacy
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
• Soviets invade in December
1979.
• Wants to overthrow radical
communist regime of Hafizullah
Amin.
• Caught in a civil war between
Afghan communists and
Islamists.
• Proxy war between USSR and
US.
• Red Army bogged down. Soviet
“Vietnam”. Exposed Soviet
military weakness, 15,000 dead,
invalids, drug addicts, shell
shock, demoralization.
Popular movements in
Eastern Europe.
• Growth of independent
labor movement
“Solidarity” in Poland
• Polish Communists lose
public support because of
crackdown
• Reform movements in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Poland, and Baltics. Call
for liberalization,
democracy, and
independence from USSR.
5. Interregnum, 1982-85
Yurii Andropov. 1982-84
• KGB background which
appealed to conservatives
• Educated, cultured which
appealed to reformers
• Moved against corruption,
inefficiency
• Arrested crooks, fired
officials
• began to decentralize
• Promoted younger, reform
minded party officials like
Gorbachev.
• Died of kidney disease
February 9, 1984.
6. Interregnum, 1982-85
Konstantin Chernenko,
1984-85.
• Brezhnev assistant.
• Symbol of Soviet
gerontocracy. Politburo
had seven members in their
70s, two in their 60s, and
two in their 50s.
• Anti-reform, Brezhnev-lite
and figurehead.
• Reformers, spearheaded by
Gorbachev gain traction
behind the scenes.
• Terminally ill with
emphysema and finally liver
disease. Dies March 10,
1985.
7. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Reformers
• Mixed market
• Decentralization
• Culturally and ideological
liberal.
• “Democratization”
• Anti-corruption.
• Cosmopolitan
• “Bukharinist”
Conservatives
• Planned socialism
• Centralization
• State power, order
• Discipline, not dissent
• Patriotic, xenophobic
• “Stalinist”
8. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Reformers’ Base
• Young party leaders
• Artists, writers
• Scientific intelligentsia
• Urban, educated
“Soviet middle class”
Conservatives’ Base
• Older party leaders
• KGB, military
• Economic
administrators
• Rural collective farm
establishment
10. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Conservatives
Stalin (to 1953)
Reformers
Khrushchev (1953-64)
11. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Conservatives
Stalin (to 1953)
Brezhnev (1964-82)
Reformers
Khrushchev (1953-64)
12. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Conservatives
Stalin (to 1953)
Brezhnev (1964-82)
Reformers
Khrushchev (1953-64)
Andropov
(1982-84)
13. Patterns of Soviet leadership
Conservatives
Stalin (to 1953)
Brezhnev (1964-82)
Chernenko (1984-85)
Reformers
Khrushchev (1953-64)
Andropov (1982-84)
Next?
14. Mikhail Gorbachev, 1985
• Born on farm in south
Russia on a collective farm
• Studied Moscow State
University in law
• Brought to Moscow in 1980.
Protégé of Andropov
• Member of reform faction
• Elected 1st Secretary in
1985.
– Groomed? Consensus?
– Support of KGB, Army
15. 1985: Stagnation Consensus
Social
• Corruption, bribery
• Drugs, juvenile
delinquency, youth
apathy
• Alcoholism
• New “cultures”
• Questioning the past
17. Gorbachev’s Plan
• Foreign policy: end the Cold War with US
• Economic: decentralized market reforms
within socialism
• Political: limited democratization to mobilize
the population for reform
• But is there really a plan? And where will it
take the Soviet Union?
18. Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy
• Agreements with U.S.
– 1986, 1987 summits with Reagan
– 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with
U.S.
• Cut foreign commitments
– 1988 Afghanistan pull-out
– Reduce aid to Cuba, Africa
• Demand Eastern Europe reform
– Stand on their own
– Soviet troops neutral
– 1989: revolutions in E. Germany, Poland, others
19. Economics:
Perestroika, a neo-NEP
Perestroika
(“restructuring”)
• Use market regulators
• Break up central planning
• Private “cooperatives”
Goals:
• Efficiency through competition
• Make socialism work better
• Unleash creativity through
incentive
• Prosperity, national power
Obstacles:
• No precedents, models
except NEP
• No capitalist culture
– “don’t get rich”
– “businessman” a bad
word
• No cost accounting
• No work ethic
• How to privatize?
• How to transition?
20. Glasnost’ (Openness)
• Civil rights
– Free speech,press
– Free association
– Tell the truth about past, less secrecy
– Right to publically criticize
• Political rights
– Genuine elections
– Multiple political parties
– Remove CPSU from
administering country
• Goals:
– Increase participation
– Beat bureaucracy
– Check against Conservatives.
21. Chernobyl
April 26, 1986
• Chernobyl nuclear power plant in
Ukraine explodes. 30 dead, 300
hospitalized. Long term damage to
health and environment up to the
present.
• 40,000 people evacuated from area.
• Radioactive debris spreads across.
Ukraine, Belorussia, and eventually
Eastern and Western Europe.
• Damaged credibility of Gorbachev and
Soviet regime. No information released
for 10 days. Stories in the West full of
rumors and sensationalism.
• Government forced to allow reports in
press.
23. Course of Glasnost’
Key Events
1988: Conservative reaction:
Nina Andreeva letter
“I Cannot Deny My
Principles”
1989: Outbreak of
nationalism in
Caucuses.
“Velvet Revolutions”
in Eastern Europe.
1990: Baltics break away.
Gorbachev appoints
conservatives to slow
down unraveling
events.
1987: Sakharov, dissidents
freed. Party adopts
glasnost’
1988: Conservatives purged
from Politburo
Gorbachev becomes
President of Soviet
Union.
Elections
democratized
1989: New Congress of
People’s Deputies
elected to bypass Party
All victims
rehabilitated
24. Article Six Revoked
December 9, 1989
The leading and guiding force of the Soviet society and the
nucleus of its political system, of all state organizations and
public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. The CPSU exists for the people and serves the people.
The Communist Party, armed with Marxism-Leninism,
determines the general perspectives of the development of
society and the course of the home and foreign policy of the
USSR, directs the great constructive work of the Soviet people,
and imparts a planned, systematic and theoretically
substantiated character to their struggle for the victory of
communism.
All party organizations shall function within the framework of
the Constitution of the USSR.
25. Course of Perestroika
1987:
• Gorbachev announces economic reforms to 1991
1988:
• Law on State Enterprises (Jan.) and Law on Cooperatives
(May). Breaks centrally planned economy and allows for
private ownership.
• Beginning of inflation, shortages, Mafia power
1989:
• Economic ministries abolished
• Economic trouble spreads
• Labor unrest. Economy goes into a tailspin.
1990:
• “500 days” approved to rapidly privatize economy, release price
controls, integrate with world economy. Stalled by
conservatives. Reformers quit.
26. The 1991 Crisis
Jan.: Vilnius Lithuania massacre, 15 killed.
Mar.: Democracy, anti-party demonstrations;
Gorbachev rejects use of repression
Apr.: Negotiation of Union Treaty with Republics begins
June: Yeltsin elected President of Russia
July: Yeltsin bans Communist Party in workplaces
Divided Central Committee meeting
Aug.: Conservative coup against Gorbachev
• Yeltsin resists, mobilizes democratic politicians
• KGB and Army split; coup fails
Nov.: Yeltsin takes emergency powers
Dec.: Minsk Agreement; USSR dissolved; Gorbachev
resigns
27. Reasons for USSR Collapse
Short and Long Term
Short Term:
• Gorbachev overestimated:
– party’s ability to lead reform
– party’s support among people
• Underestimated nationalism
• Too much too fast:
– Dismantled old economy before
new was ready
– Political + economic reform
together.
• Trusted party conservatives
• Indecisive zig-zags.
– Wants to hold system together.
– Must balance conservatives and
radicals.
Long Term:
• Population lost faith in the
system. System too rigid.
• Rapid economic collapse
• Party elite, KGB, Army all
divided
• No tradition of democracy
• No tradition of legal
capitalism
• Deep national resentments
• Cultural and economic
globalization
