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Introduction

The history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics begins the 7th of November of 1917. By this time, the Russian Revolution was being held. The power by the Congress of the Soviets of Russia was taken by the Bolshevist party. Immediately, the congress promulgated a series of decrees by which Russia would stop being part of the coalition in World War I. (Historia de la Civilizacin V.II, page 546 - 551). To follow the book of the new communist system, all the land became property of the State and all the fundamental standards and thoughts were consolidated in the Constitution of 1918, giving birth to the USSR. (Historia de la Civilizacin V.II, page 546 - 551). The USSR, with their communist policy has been protagonist of one of the fastest development transformation a nation could have suffered. (Historia de la Civilizacin V.II, page 580). It has been also host of many victories in the course of the history (e.g. the take of Berlin in World War 2, May of 1945) that made out of the Soviet Union, an actual empire that spread among almost all of Eastern Europe. (Historia de la Civilizacin V.II, page 627). On the other hand, all this majesty gained by this nation started having several problems in the middles of the 1970s that would, in the future, trigger the succession of events that would uphold the collapse of the whole communist block. Apparently, the communist system was not efficient enough to maintain a politic and economic stability in the extensive territory acquired by the Soviet Union. These issues with the system entailed to a series of problems which are going to be explained subsequently. The Russian economic situation was situated at the edge of a state bankrupt and the soviet society was situated immersed in a truly moral crisis characterised by a lacking of ideological commitment (this is, since Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy in 1921, getting away from the communist economy ideology) and general scepticism regarding the efficiency of the whole system. An economic diagnosis was made to the USSR in 1984. The country was suffering a great economic stagnation. Since the beginning of the seventies, a lack of economic growth affected the regular Russians lifestyle and also childhood mortality was increased to an amazing 25%. All these facts, adding the disastrous war of Afghanistan and the disaster of Chernobyl, together with the open atmosphere of criticism allowed by former president Mikhail Gorbachev were the key to the fall of the Red Giant, The USSR.

The Fall of the Soviet Union


Economic Crisis
The economic crisis that affected Russia in the eighties comes as a result of an elderly inefficient economic system. We can summarize the crisis in two main points, the decreasing production of grains, and the tremendous problems with the price of the crude oil.

Grain
Lets go back for an instant to the late twenties, (1929 to be precise) when the head of the Soviet government was Mr. Aleksei Raykov, who, with the in that time chief ideologist of the Communist Party, Nikolai Bukharin defended the point of view of a privatized agriculture and a market economy, but still embraced onto the partys political control. The course of action chosen by Joseph Stalin was the expropriation of the peasants property, the non privatization of the agriculture, but collectivization of it and the forced extraction of grain. Of course, this is a not a very smart decision for a country with a majority of peasants, and when your whole internal economy is based on agriculture. This method obviously promoted the lack of motivation for the farmers that worked at the collective farms. Bukharin and Raykov fundamentally told Stalin: In a peasant country it is impossible to extract grain by force, there will be civil war. To this statement Stalin answered I will do it nonetheless. The result of this decision entailed in the late 1920s and 1950s to one of the greatest decrease of productivity experienced in the twentieth century. In a matter of decades, the collection of grain had not increased at any time, and the urban population was becoming every time bigger in number. This implied a great problem. Since the year of 1963, the Soviet Union stopped providing grain to the composing countries of the communist bloc, and not much time after that, the USSR, after being one of the biggest producers of grain of the world, became one of the biggest importers of it. Gorbachev himself said it. We are buying because we cannot survive without it. There were, however, countries that imported a great amount of grain. Nevertheless these countries, like Japan, were able to produce, manufacture and sell back to the world market their own manufactured products. On the other hand, the communist economic policy of the USSR has not been able to produce valuable

manufactured products for the international market, only in its time, exclusively raw material.

Oil
Regarding the oil, Russians were very fortunate to discover, at the same tame they were having the grain problem, vast and rich oil fields in the region of west Siberia, Tyumen. As the time passed, and like every petroliferous businesses, as crude oil is extracted from the ground, it required more and more effort and investment to bring out the material. This meant for the Soviet Union, an extra giveaway of money which they could not at any chance, afford. Fortunately, in the beginnings of the seventies, crude oil prices started unusually to rise considerably. For the Soviet Union, this rise of prices entailed a major effect on GDP (Gross Domestic Product, in Spanish, PIB) and represented the beginning of a real economic crisis. Therefore began the breakdown of the Soviet Block. In addition, its essential to mention one (if not the biggest) Soviet mistake. This is the waste of a significant amount of resources and profit (which came from the oil trading, of course) in the war against Afghanistan. This move created conflict among the oil manufacturer countries in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. This country understood that this move of taking Afghanistan was just the first step for the takeover of Arabian oil fields. As a result, Saudis monarchy decided to change their protectionist policy over crude oil prices, and start sharing their material in the market. This action, entailed to a sharp fall of the crude oil price in 1985. This represented to the URSS, a loss of twenty billion dollars per year, money without which they basically wouldnt be able to survive. In order to solve this major problem, the Soviet Union came out with three options. Firstly, the cut off of 20 billion dollars (the amount lost) in food imports. Secondly, the separation or disband of the eastern empire they own, this would mean, the resign to all their achievements in World War II., and finally, a drastic cut off in the military and industrial budget. Of course, none of these procedures were able to be taken; instead, they started to heavily borrow money from abroad. This of course represented a significant increase of the external debt. However they were in a way able to recognize the flaws of their system, and without noticing, they were getting every time more distant of their original guideline.

As a critic evaluation, the economic crisis, namely because of the grain and oil problems, together with the disastrous Afghan war, helped the Russians to realize the problems of their actual system. The general morale of the people was devastated, and a spirit urging for a radical change was every time stronger. This same spirit would, in 1985, sponsor the fall of the block with the take in office of Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev.

Mikhail Gorbachev
Before Gorbachev got to be the Head of State, there were 3 changes in 3 years, from 1982, to 1985. The first one was Mr. Brezhnev, who died in 1982. He was replaced by Andropov, ex commander in chief of the KGB, who knew the Russian people very well. He was very expected by the people, but he could have never accomplished any of his plans since he died in 1984. His successor was the conservative Konstantin Chernenko, who after his election got a very serious sickness and couldnt assume his responsibilities. Thus, the 11 of March of 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as the President of the URSS. Since the beginning of his charge, Gorbachev knew that several changes and reforms should be made to the system. He spoke of the necessity of the democratization (demokratizatsiya) of the soviet society. As a result he started what most historians argue to be the real reasons of the fall of the URSS, the Perestroika, word in Russian which meant Restructure, specifically in this case, the soviet system. Also, he would apply the Glasnost, which meant the total openness of state, and finally the uskoreniye, which meant the fast economic development. This modifications to the system implied getting every time more far away from what the original communist system stipulated.

Reforms
Initially, in 1987, Gorbachev called for democratization, which meant, the introduction of democratic elements to the soviet-communist system, such as having more than one candidate for elections, and allowance of dissident parties to run for election. Also, for the first time since the NEP (New Economic Policy) implemented by Lenin, the state allowed privatization of companies, manufacturing diligences, and exporting sectors. Gorbachev also implemented the Glasnost which meant the total openness, allowance of publicity, freedom of speech and press, and also transparency in every governmental activity by the state.

With the implementation of glasnost, which gave allowance to free speech to the people, the press went mad. The media began to show all the serious social, economic and politic problems that the State was having, and was also covering up. There was mainly, a lot of criticism to the actual system that before was not allowed to be mentioned. In addition, thanks to the free speech, people could actually become conscious of the horrors committed by Joseph Stalin, his crimes for lack of humanity, murder, abuse, etc.

The Dissolution of the Communist Block


Gorbachev started changing Russian diplomatic condition towards the United States, in order to finish the Cold War. Also, he allowed the conforming countries of the block to have their independency from the URSS, the right to choose. As a result, several countries declared their independency in the fall of 1989, such as Germany (with the fall of the Berlin Wall) Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, etc. In 1993, Slovakia got separated from the Czech State. Yugoslavia got split in 1991, the 25th of June, into Croatia and Slovenia. The final collapse of communism in the USSR was very fast. The 19 of August of 1991 the communists took control of the press and the television. They declared that Gorbachev was very sick and was substituted by the vice president. The strike was a total failure, and the 21st of August, Gorbachev was going back to Moscow. Three days later, the 24th, Gorbachev quitted as chief of the Communist Party, and ended with the seventy four years of reign of Communism. The communist block had collapsed.

Conclusion
In the present paper I have been writing about the succession of events that happened in order to concrete the collapsing of the USSR, and turned into a democratic, non communist country. To begin with, I find important to recall the economic crisis the country was suffering before the arrival of Mr. Gorbachev in 1985. Evidently some kind of change was desperately needed since the system apparently was not going that well anymore. Second of all, the fall of the Soviet Union was only possible thanks to the reforms that Mr. Gorbachev implemented in Russia since 1987. The Perestroika, and the Glasnost, permitted in first instance to move away from state centralized economy and moving forward to a more contemporary market economy, which would allow easier development compared to the one with the flaws of the centralized system. Secondly, the Glasnost, the non censorship policy permitted the Russian people to realize the horrors committed by the dictatorship of Stalin. It allowed them to see their situation from a more critic point of view. They were not listening just to what the State wanted them to listen. Also, the final, but unwanted move that totally destroyed the communist empire was the right to choose that President Gorbachev implemented in the late eighties. Since long time ago nationalist spirits have been waking up in certain points of the empire, they found this right as the right opportunity to consolidate their common beliefs and kinship into a new, independent, non communist government. In synthesis, we can say that the fall of the Soviet Union was a result of their own governments mistakes. Getting away from their communist position, and giving the freedom to choose to their people made their own sabotage that implied the dissolution of the union in the beginnings of the nineties, and thus, the end of the USSR.

Emilio Sosa

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