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Gorbachev’s Six Years : 1985-1991

Gorbachev’s Six Years : 1985-1991. Perestroika, glasnost, democratization. “… the fateful Soviet years from 1985 to 1991”.

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Gorbachev’s Six Years : 1985-1991

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  1. Gorbachev’s Six Years:1985-1991 Perestroika, glasnost, democratization

  2. “… the fateful Soviet years from 1985 to 1991” “…when four great transformations - even … revolutions - were begun under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev: attempts to transform the authoritarian political system into some kind of democracy, the state command economy into a market-based one, the Moscow dominated “union” into an authentic federation, and the country’s forty-year Cold War with the West into a ‘strategic partnership’.” (Stephen F. Cohen)

  3. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1985 • Eduard Shevardnadze becomes Foreign Minister, proclaims the “Sinatra doctrine”

  4. Gorbachev’s Nemesis:Boris Eltsin (1931-2007) • 1985 December Gorbachev brings Eltsin to Moscow to head the party apparatus for the city • 1987 Eltsin criticizes Gorbachev openly in Committee, divested of power

  5. Gorbachev’s First Policy • "Struggle against alcoholism” May 1985-1990 • Clumsy program of destroying vineyards, increasing cost of vodka, closing beer halls • Government propaganda created resentment • Loss of 10 billion Rubles of state income • Huge growth in production of samogon

  6. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1986 • February – March First mention of perestroika at Party Congress • April: Chernobyl disaster • December: Sakharov brought back from exile in Gorky

  7. Perestroika • February 1986 27th Party Congress • Objective: “acceleration” of the economy, overcome stagnation • Restructuring of the economy, injecting reality into targets and prices, allowing enterprises to make their own decisions, keep the profits from new enterprises and production • Central planning and control remained: half-way solution

  8. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1987 • January at Plenum of Politburo economic and political reforms announced • Rehabilitation of victims of Stalin announced • Eltsin attacks Gorbachev, resigns from Politburo

  9. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1988 • The year of glasnost • March: Nina Andreyeva’s letter in Sovetskaya Rossiya • May: Law on cooperatives, allowing private business • June: Gorbachev proposes a new Congress of People’s deputies • December Armenian Earthquake, 45,000 killed.

  10. The move to a free economy Inspired by the NEP (Lenin’s New Economic Policy) of the 1920s May 1988 Law on cooperatives - essentially private businesses - approved Private banks began to be allowed Russian businesses permitted to deal with foreign partners directly

  11. Problems with perestroika No rules to govern private economy: laws, contract enforcement Criminals quickly learned to exploit system: take-overs of businesses, protection rackets Prices not decontrolled; budget had huge deficit, money printed to cover deficit led to huge increase in real price inflation Profits syphoned into offshores Shortages continued: perestroika discredited

  12. Glasnost Theory: Open discussion of problems as a means to achieve real efficiencies By 1988 censorship lifted from literature, film, the arts. Now Soviet citizens can read anything… Led to questions about “blind spots” of history: Katyn execution of Polish officers, the hidden protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, the Gulags and Stalin’s show trials, esp. Nikolai Bukharin

  13. Molotov-Ribbentrop PactAgreed division 1939 (left) Actual division 1940 (right)

  14. “Democratization” Approved by 19th Party Conference in July 1988 Objective: Transfer of control of state from Party to semi-elected Congress of People’s Deputies and Supreme Soviet elected by it 750 members from districts, 750 from territories, 750 from “public organizations” including 100 from Communist Party: First meeting 1989. 15 March 1990 Congress elected President of the USSR.

  15. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1989 • January – February withdrawal from Afghanistan • March-April Elections to Congress • June Tianan Men Square incident in China: dissidence suppressed • 9 November Berlin Wall comes down • November – December Communists ousted throughout Soviet bloc: GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania. • December 14: Sakharov dies

  16. Nationalism… Open discussion of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact As central power was loosened, republics begin to demand their languages be given prime status over Russian: Ukrainian, Georgian, etc. Baltic Republics Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and also Moldova (formerly Bessarabia) demand and start to declare their independence

  17. 1990: A fateful year Germany is being reunited Other Soviet bloc members “do it their way” Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace Gorbachev chosen president of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR BUT crisis looms in Soviet leadership: Yakovlev, Shevardnadze forced out in December. Is another Tiananmen looming?

  18. Gorbachev’s Six years: 1990 • September 9 Alexander Men murdered • September: Battle over 500 Days reform program for economy

  19. Gorbachev’s legacy Ended Cold War Brought the USSR out of Afghanistan Moved USSR towards elected democracy and free economy Nearly succeeded in saving a reformed USSR

  20. Gorbachev and ideology Was he a “dissident” or a “Menshevik”? Many reforms resembled those proposed by Sakharov Remained wedded to Communist Party Economic difficulties created by gradual reforms made him deeply unpopular.

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