👤 Mikhail Gorbachev

1921-1991 🇷🇺 Communist Russia, 1980-1991 End of the Cold War

Summary

• General Secretary of CPSU
• relatively youthful, intelligent, flexible, dynamic
• Leninist; sought to reform the system for it to survive
• aimed to modernise USSR
• realized that Soviet survival depended on ending CW & reforming Soviet economy
• “We can’t go on living like this”

Context: Issues facing Russia (mid-1980s)

Important

Gorby inherited a broken USSR; he was very incentivised to end the Cold War to ensure USSR survival & focus on domestic issues.

Economic

• 📉 economic growths declining since late 1950s → increasing gross national product gap between USSRS and US
  • GNP: total value of all finished goods and services produced by a country’s citizens + output generated by country's businesses, domestically and abroad
• 📈 40% of state budget going towards armed forces
• Soviet society lagging behind in development of new technology (esp. computing)
  • ❌ “All my friends are falling in love, and I’m falling behind”
    ✅ “All my friends are developing tech, and I’m falling behind”
• 📉 Oil revenues decreasing – reverse oil shock, $35 to $16 per barrel

Social

• 📉 ↑ infant mortality, ↓ birth rate
• 📉 ↓ male life expectancy
  • 1960s: 66 years → 1986: 60 years

Political

• tense situation in Poland; challenge from Solidarity
• China still challenging USSR as leader of the socialists
  • [[1949-1976 Communist China’s Foreign Policy and Affairs#1970-1989-triangular-diplomacyyitianxian-一条线-one-united-front|1970-1989 Triangular Diplomacy/yitianxian (一条线), one united front]]
• Soviet commuism denounced by 'Euro-Communists' in Western Europe

Military

• 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a 'bleeding wound' + discredited USSR in Middle East & Third World
• Brezhnev’s Developing World ambitions faced setbacks (Egypt, Iran, Africa) + $40b cost of supporting Cuba, VIetnam, Ethiopia, Aghanistan
  • Gorby inherited these problems
• Reagan’s 'systematic challenge' of the 'evil empire' & SDI worried leaders in Kremlin

Improvements (Impact)

Political: New Political Thinking

New Political Thinking

1921-1991 🇷🇺 Communist Russia, 1980-1991 End of the Cold War

Summary

Soviet policy implemented by 👤 Mikhail Gorbachev, emphasising:

• independence
• mutual security
• unity of mankind
• irrationality of nuclear war

It de-escalated the Cold War, at least from an ideological perspective.

	Traditional Soviet thinking	New Political Thinking
Diplomacy	Emphasis on ideology & class struggle	No more ideology or class struggle
Confrontation	Triumph of communism over capitalist West	Seen as counterproductive
		RESULT: Emphasis on cooperation instead
Arms race	Sought to match or surpass the West’s technological & military advances	Strongly repudiated nuclear war; arms race was pointless
		RESULT: Arms reduction & 'reasonable sufficiency'
Military	Military power first!	Political accommodation → solve problems & achieve real security

Link to original

Economic: Perestroika

Perestroika

Quote

“The goal of perestroika is to make the Soviet Union richer, stronger, better; raise it to a qualitatively new level.”
–Mikhail Gorbachev, 📘 Perestroika (1987)

Historiography: Jonathan Haslam

Gorbachev fundamentally "sought to improve the Soviet Union, not destroy it.”
–Jonathan Haslam

• Perestroika: ‘restructuring’ the economy instead of dismantling it
  • planning was decentralized → certain degree of self-planning allowed in businesses
    • managers were allowed to implement changes without waiting for state approval or permission from GOSPLAN
    • basically ‘shock therapy’ á la ga ge kai fang for China; the Soviet economy didn’t know how to cope
      • managers didn’t know how to make businesses profitable or adapt to market needs without GOSPLAN breathing down their necks
  • state price controls ended → standards of living ↓ but foreign investment was now possible
  • resulted in uncertainty over employment and economy
• alcoholism was a Big Problem… banning alcohol → loss of state revenue
  • people absent because of drinking, people showing up to work drunk, etc.
• nothing on shelves to buy – sugar, wheat, bread (basics) are in short supply → people were still queuing for state handouts
• high inflation due to all these changes
  • any economic gains caused by Perestroika were cancelled out by the rise of cost of living

Link to original

Political/Military: Developing World

Summary

• Gorbachev Doctrine – disengaging from involvement in the developing world in order to avoid confrontation with the USA
• U.S. sponsored peaceful settlement of conflicts in DW → security via cooperation → improved relations
• tying up loose ends in terms of proxy wars fought

• Apr 1986: Pakistan & Afghanistan sign agreements sponsored by USSR & U.S.
• Cambodia
  • Gorbachev ready to collaborate with U.S. and China to solve the Cambodian problem
  • 1989: Gorby pressured Vietnam to remove troops before Beijing visit
  • peace wasn’t immediate
  • 1991: Ceasefire negotiated by UN Security Council, with active American & Soviet assistance
• Nicaragua
  • 1981: Sandinista leaders succeed in persuading Soviets to send military equipment to Nicaragua
  • 1988: Both superpowers support Central American plan to end foreign assistance to all fighting groups + call for free elections to remove civil war
• Angola & Namibia
  • superpowers pressured Cuba, Angola, S. Africa to agree to ceasefire & withdrawal of Cuban troops
  • 1988 Dec: S. Africa agreed to implement UN. Res 435 → Namibia independence
• Ethiopia – IRRELEVANT FOR END OF CW, Soviets neglected it in final years
  • Gorbachev sent financial aid to Mengistu’s regime until 1989

Political: China

• 1978: Deng Xiaoping takes over
• 1989 May: Beijing summit meeting between Deng & Gorbachev → relations fully restored
  • Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan + Vietnamese troops from Cambodia
  • Reduction of Soviet troops along Sino-Soviet border (120000 troops along border reduced PRC's fear of attacks)

Political: Eastern Europe (ending expansionism)

• most regimes in the Soviet bloc were more or less stable
• Soviet security in Eastern Europe to safeguard through political cooperation & negotiation rather than force
• 1985 Mar: Abandonment of Brezhnev Doctrine (mandated military intervention by Warsaw Pact/USSR to prop up communist regimes where socialism was under threat)
  • Soviet troops would not be sent into any E. European state
  • 1985 Apr: reiterated this at Warsaw Pact meeting

• Transclude of 1980-1991-End-of-the-Cold-War#^816907

• encouraged Perestroika, Glasnost & Demokratizasiya in satellite states
  • similar to ideas developed by Hungarian & Czech reform communists in 1950s-1970s
• E. Europe saw mass movements calling for economic reforms + demanded greater democracy & various versions of 1968 Prague Spring
  • Prague Spring 1968: period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
• Gorby declared ideology should play a smaller part in foreign affairs → New Political Thinking

​Military: Arms Control

• determined to negotiate major reductions in nuclear weapons
• put his money where his mouth is to signify goodwill to West
  • 1985 Apr: Froze further deployments of SS-20s in Eastern Europe
  • 1985 Aug: Declared temporary halt to Soviet underground nuclear testing
  • 1985 Sept: Proposed that superpowers ==reduce all strategic nuclear weapon stocks by 50%==
  • 1985 Oct: Announced plans for reduction of Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe
• by 1988: 4 US-Soviet summits on arms control
• Take note of summits

​​​​Dump

• copy from handout 12 slides

• McDonalds → represented import of capitalism and consumerism to the USSR

Social: Glasnost

• the USSR thrived on control of information → loosening of censorship → a lot of things were dug up and reported
• finish