Fall Of U.S.S.R Part i

What was USSR?

USSR (The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) also known as Soviet Union. It was a Union of many small countries that together formed a Union which all were governed by Soviet which means a law making body or a council, since they were socialists and Republics so it was a union of many countries. It was established after the Russian Revolution of 1917 but the formal establishment was done in 1922.

There were a total of 15 Sub national Soviets(Different Countries), they all had centralized economy and planning which was rule by single Communist Party.

Causes of Disintegration

·         Space Race: Billions of Rubles were spent to compete with the USA to reach the outer space. Thus USSR has its Firsts in Satellite, Animal in space, Cosmonaut, Woman in space.

·         Arms Race: USSR had huge nuclear arsenal which was largest in the world even bigger than the Americas. Billions were spent on the army also known as Red Army. It has signed Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D) which means if USA launches nuclear weapon on USSR then USSR can also launch nuclear weapons on USA.

·         Cold War: Cold war is not a war which is fought on the ground with soldiers facing each other but it is fought in many other aspects through proxy countries like Vietnam, North and South Korea. So USSR supported the counties like Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, China and many other communist nations so this led to spending lot of money in material and technology which was draining the USSR economy.

·         Afghan War:  The Afghan war was fought between 1979-1989. USSR was involved in deadly war with the afghan mujaheddin in which 15000 USSR soldiers were killed and more than 50,000 were wounded which led to huge loss to USSR prestige and loss of Red Army.

These reasons led to the downfall of the USSR’s economy and the major reason for the downfall was Tight state control over industries which was draining the USSR’s economic strength. The USSR had become a totalitarian state under Stalin.

Events

Mikhail Gorbachev: He was appointed as the General Secretary of the communist party in 1985. To make socialism more efficient and bring economy out of stagnation he launched two policies:

Glasnost and perestroika

Glasnost:  Glasnost means openness/ clarity as in glass. Mikhail Gorbachev introduced “Freedom of Speech” earlier which was hardly available in USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev gave this freedom to media, to intellectuals of USSR that they can write whatever they wanted to say. Slowly this censorship lead to people speaking against the state itself, they started speaking against Mikhail Gorbachev, against the policies of USSR. Also the records from World War II were declassified under the policy of Glasnost.

Perestroika: Perestroika means restructuring and reformation of Political and Economic structures. In political structures it was decided that the elections would be held and more than one person can fight the election with a condition of belonging to the Communist Party. Foreign investment and privately owned businesses were allowed to run but with many restrictions which earlier were not allowed.

As these policies were introduced in the 1985 itself, these policies lead to demand of sovereignty in 15 sub national soviets and in eastern Europe which were under De facto rule of USSR the countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungry these all had communist government and they all had Warsaw Act, even though they all were separate countries but there government were under direct influence of USSR.

Other Reasons will be discussed in the next part, till then HAPPY READING.