Soviet Union Failures

One can easily admit that the Party had failed to properly economically plan the needs of each state. The Soviet Union economy was complex and massive, it became an impossible task for the state planners to manage, as they did not want to grant and create more managerial levels that would proceed to the local level resulting in failed timely attempts to the constant changes the economy was going through. Since the Soviet economy was based on state planning, it failed in encouraging innovation and motivating productivity. Managers would also alter numbers in order to produce the quotas that they were required to meet. The growth of the Soviet economy had been in a constant decline since the 1950’s and this progressed to the 1980’s. This was a clear sign that the Soviet economy was in need of a complete economic overhaul. Gorbachev succeeded power in March, 1985 and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. His main goal was to revive the Soviet economy, and he strongly believed that success was tied to loosening the governments control and creating a system that included less government intervention and more freedom to allow private initiatives. This new market economy would allow for private enterprise, which what Gorbachev believed would create more innovation. For the first time since 1920’s, individuals were able to own and create businesses.

The democratization, economic liberalization, and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union is commonly attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost reforms during the period of 1985-1991. This purpose of these reforms is still a trenchant question as the countries of the old Soviet Union, particular Russia, are being pressured to further liberalize their economies.

The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government

Under the pressures of the Soviet regime's plans for economic development, the Russian people were worn down. Subsequently, the willingness of these people to do further work for the Soviet cause was wavering. The transfer of power within the Communist Party also provided a source of instability within the USSR. Infighting over potential leadership changes provided a very real force of upheaval within Russia. These weaknesses showed that the USSR may bring about its own downfall.

The many long-term internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union centralized around weaknesses in their economy. They had an inflexible central planning system, the inability to modernize, and the inefficiency in their agriculture production. Sometime around the 1970's the computer and automation revolution had emerged. This revolution took over the West, but practically missed the Soviet Union, except in the military sector (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev's goal in economic restructuring was to create a separation between the economic and the political. The major changes began with the legalization of private farming and business co-operatives, and the allowing of foreign company ownership over Soviet enterprises (Baylis &Smith, 2001) All of Gorbachev's ideas on economic restructuring backfired on him since the price levels were inconsistent, and a sense of social confusion about the future of their state was created.

The Soviet Union hope to attain the “New Soviet Man”, but in their attempts only made their state situation much more dreadful by causing severe fragmentation within several ethnic groups, politics, as well as the army. This cast upon the Soviets a very bad image, which when the Soviet Union applied more tension, made their situation only worse. The Soviet Union became such a fragmented Union that Gorbachev could no longer control the power of the population and was forced to resign, and hence the fall of the Soviet Union. Political and Ethnic fragmentation contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union by causing division in leadership, “This division within the Soviet leadership weakened its ability to respond to centrifugal forces and contributed to the central authorities erratic response to them”(Hunter et.al, 212), as well as prove that the “New Soviet Man” was socially untenable, “The notion that nationalities would willingly give up their cultural identities for the common good, and that a unique soviet man would emerge- was socially untenable.”(Xenakis,

When the 1917 revolution occurred, the world was stunned by the arrival of a new socialist system, which was guided by Marxist principles as interpreted by Lenin’s Bolshevik party. This was hailed as the start of an entirely new system that would serve as an alternative to Capitalism. However, according Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolution a revolution must include “the sense of a new beginning, where violence is used to constitute an altogether new body politic,” (Arendt pg. 25). The above evidence suggests that the Soviet Union was not at all a new body politic in regards to its government. The same system the Bolshevik party sought to overthrow in Russia, had survived the 1917 revolution, and emerged again with a red, and far bloodier veneer; the same structures and functions of the tsarist government remained.

Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed taking by surprise therewith not only the international community, but also its own leaders. What brought the superpower down? Its authoritarian and corrupt political system, failure of the planned economy and stagnation, or consistent celebration of national diversity throughout the whole history of the Soviet Union? If the question is why the USSR disintegrated into 15 independent states, then the answer lies in the republican lines which were drawn around ethnicity. In this essay, I argue the primacy of the ethnofederal system and Soviet nation-building policy to the fall of “the last European empire”. First, I will address the main tenets of and motifs behind the Soviet approach to the “nationality question” and how it backfired on the Communist Party and Russian democrats, who strived to preserve the union, seven decades later; then I will discuss political and economic structural flaws of the Soviet system and give reasons for why they could not solely account for the actual break up when examined from a broader perspective; lastly I will analyze mechanisms, predetermined by ethnofederal system and Soviet ethno-cultural policies, that facilitated an avalanche of secessions from the USSR, and sum up my arguments.

One of the most revolutionary historical events in the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. The dissolution of the USSR was at the time, not immediately foreseen nor expected. There was neither a civil war nor people’s revolution in a military coup that stormed the King’s castle. The only very evident factor, however, was that the economy of the Soviet Union preceding its dissolution was in free fall to be eventually coined the Era of Stagnation. But an economy in trouble could not be the cause that would lead to the collapse of seventy year-old seemingly powerful nation. It would not be the first first-world nation in economic trouble. It would take the Soviet Union’s last leader’s misguided attempts at reforms within his own party that intermixed with loosening the nation’s century old political ideology to open the floodgates for a chain of events and repercussions that would lead to the USSR’s collapse. If not for Gorbechav’s liberal sentiments at reforming a communist nation under democratic ideologies that had only previously survived under totalitarian oppression, the USSR might exist today given no other major historical events succeed and alter its continuing Communist pathway.

The Collapse of Soviet Union was inevitable in the Cold War which was probably the most serious change in the world politics after the two World Wars. An author named Fukuyama called the end of the Cold War as "The end of History". We can admit that the Collapse of Soviet Union was the "end" between two ideologies and super powers therefore, Communist eastern ideology had lost the war against the Western capitalist World. As a result, in 1991 the soviet union collapsed as a nation state. After a full retrospect of the war the results were because of years of economic stagnation, political corruption and the collapse of soviet communist regime which took place in the World.

One of the first casualties of the cold war’s aftermath was the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. After years of defense spending that in some years approached 25% of its economy and a shortage of civil-ian goods the strain proved to be too much. Moreover, the protracted conflict in Afghanistan was too costly both in terms of money and loss of people, some experts called Afghanistan the Soviet version of Vietnam. Additionally, right before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were political reforms that tried to open Soviet society both inward and outward. Due to these reforms deep simmering ethnic divisions that have been occurring for decades rose to the top starting with Latvia one of the Balkan states (Cold War Museum)

When historians and scholars research and try to understand what led to the downfall of the USSR, the commonly overlook the war in Afghanistan in playing a pivotal role. Explanations to the collapse include domestic and structural problems that had to do with the Cold War, and how inefficient the Soviet economy was working compared to the West. In addition, the roles of political leaders was greatly emphasized in contributing to the breakdown of the Soviet Union. While these factors were major contributors to the downfall, a terrible 9 year war that ended four years before the collapse cannot be ignored as it greatly represents what the Soviets did wrong in all aspects of the war. The Soviet war in Afghanistan contributed to the downfall of the USSR, because it portrayed how the Soviets failed militarily, politically diplomatically in dealing with foreign affairs.

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

The fall of the USSR began in 1991 when a military coup was orchestrated against Mikhail Gorbachev after he attempted to reduce the size of the state and open international dialog. This is attuned to the mantra ‘you give an inch and they will take a mile’ and fueled individual nationalism among the various parts of the nation. One of the charismatic leaders from the fracturing of the country, Boris Yeltsin, took advantage of the coup attempt by using it to undermine the power of Gorbachev. Yeltsin waited until Gorbachev was in custody before exerting his character dominance over the military to put a pseudo halt to the coup (O’Neil).

In a nutshell, it can be said that the world witnessed the final round of thrust against the imperialist government from 1989 to 1991 as the once powerful Soviet empire collapsed with speed only made possible solely by the reason that the imposed government lacked intimacy and authority. However, the breakaway of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland can easily, though mistakenly, be understood simply as a result of repressed nationalism. Further studies show that the main factor in the collapse of the Eastern European government is due to the unresponsiveness of the ‘local’ government that ultimately led to the collapse of the Communist regimes in