Question by CyclicalBash: To what extent were Gorbachev’s policies a continuation of Khrushchev’s domestic reforms?
To what extent were Gorbachev’s policies a continuation of Khrushchev’s domestic reforms and how did that lead to the collapse of communism in eatern europe.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Mike D
Well, I’m not really sure where you came up with this question. Khrushchev’s regime as Soviet leader wasn’t very glamorous. I’m guessing your trying to make the comparison’s between Khrushchev began is campaign to “open up” Soviet society which of course Gorbachev continued with “Glasnost” – which literally means “Openness”.
Each Soviet leader did want to relax the oppressiveness that the Soviet Government had on the press and anyone commenting on Soviet life. Khrushchev’s main goal was to “De-Stalinize” the Soviet Union. From 1923 to 1953, Joseph Stalin ran the USSR with an iron hand. If Adolf Hitler didn’t exist, Joseph Stalin would of gone down in history as the “Butcher of the 20th Century”. I think it’s save to say Stalin killed more people in his lifetime then Hitler did – hard to believe but Stalin was brutal.
Stalin had run the Soviet Union as “cult of personality”. To the Soviet people Stalin was the “father figuer”, “the protector”, “the great leader”, “the man who saved the Motherland” – the list goes on. Since Stalin had total control of all media outlets, the people had no idea what was really going on – they didn’t know about about the Soviet economy collasping, or the great jumps in technology in the West. The people of the Soviet Bloc literaly lived in a protected bubble.
This created a real issue for Khrushchev. It’s hard to replace someone who the people thought was the “everything”. One of things Khrushchev did was let the media report on the horrors of Stalin. He allowed the media to talk about the Gulag’s and he allowed books to be written by dissidents who spent time in these Gulags – if you think about that. Take time and read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – it really is amazing that the Khruschev let this book be published but like I said – he was deseperate to paint Stalin as the butcher he was (Stalin really was evil – to some extent, I think he was worse then Hitler) . Look, it was no secret that Stalin’s hands weren’t clean but to the average Soviet, they didn’t know the extentof the horrors. Let me give you one example of how messed up Stalin was – he didn’t release German Prisoner’s of War until 1953 in other words – he didn’t release them, Krushchev did.
By opening up the media and other sources of communication, Krushchev was able to run a very good De-Stalination program. By 1960, Stalin was no longer the man they had thought he was. Plus, people were being released soon after Stalin’s death and spoke about the horror’s of Stalin’s Gulags – that too was part of Khrushchev’s plan. We do have to be clear about one thing here, it wasn’t like Khrushchev allowed for complete freedom of the press and free speech. He was able to relax some of the draconian measures Stalin had in place but the media was still closely monitored and the state run media was still only producing news the government wanted the people to here.
Gorbachev had a different set of problems the Krushchev had – much different. First, technology was changing – the way news, books and communications was being distributed, the old Soviet clamp down on the media was no longer viable. Also, Gorbachev had another issue that other Soviet leaders didn’t have to worry about. By the mid 1980’s the Soviet Bloc began to show serious cracks. Poland has essentially left the Soviet Bloc in the early 80’s, Hungry was demanding changes and even East Germany was having some issues.
In 1985, the Soviet economy was just about to implode on itself. It had no money, could no longer keep up it’s military machine going because it had no money. Soviet Union would of been a very scary place had it had a complete collaspe – what I mean, think about the Nuclear Weapons with no soldiers or any security watching over them – it’s bad today but it could of been worse.
However, lets be clear about one thing – Gorbarchev’s decesion to change the way the Soviet Union was going to do business had absolutely nothing to do with Khrushchev. Both men did what they did for different reasons. Whereas Khrushchev was doing it to get the Soviet Union out of Stalin’s shadow, Gorbachev was doing it in an effort of make the Soviet Union a modern country and to try to show the world it was changing. Gorbachev wanted to show the world that Soviet Union was no longer the aggressive power but a country that wanted to start to talk to the world and begin economic relationship with the countries of the world.
As to your second part of the question, the collaspe of the Communism in Eastern Europe was just a matter of time. In the late 1970’s/early 80’s when unions were able to establish themselves in Poland, that marked the beginning of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. That was the first crack. Second important factor – and this may sound sort of silly – the old guard was dying off. The communist leaders who were Soviet taught right after WW2 were dying off. Younge
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