Question by Samantha: What were the problems within the USSR that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union?
Considering the period 1953-1991, analyze the problems within the USSR that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
I know this is a big question, but were there social, political and economic causes? I tried looking it up and I can’t find anything useful. It’s an essay question and I can’t find proper information to base off of.
Answers and Views:
Answer by curmudgeon55
Basic concept of communism without religion to help humanitarian work for others concept- the successful ‘communist’ societies were religious based and dictatorship of proletariat discipline doesn’t handle greed as well as ‘steal from community and you’ll go to hell’. The corrupted administration had greed as a crime and covered it in CYA figures on economy that lead to many mistakes by upper level administration- who in many cases were also skimming for personal gain.Stalin’s discipline died with him- the greed continued. Socialist government collapsed from within due to individual incentives from ‘criminal’ activities – like bribes and theft of ‘government property’ greater than incentives from ‘greater social good’ activities-honest government administration. Note that Israel has many socialist concepts regarding property and government duties similar to old Soviet model- but has religion and a ‘do this so we can survive Arabs’ attitudes regarding corruption so has a more honest, effective government as well as actual dual or triple government political parties structure- another weakness of ‘single party democracy’ were dissidents can’t vote for/with another party but have only ‘criminal’ parties to associate with- and if you’re going to be considered a ‘criminal’, may as well steal some ‘government/peoples’ goods to sell for personal profit and cook the books.
Read all the answers in the comments.
Give your own answer to this question!
Spellbound says
The problems were economic, social and political.
Economic:
The economy had been stagnating throughout the 1970s, as Western economies moved into new technologies, the Soviets economy was based on Karl Marx’s analysis of the British economy in the mid 19th Century. The Soviets focused on heavy industry – coal, iron and steel production, to the detriment of consumer goods. Soviet made consumer goods were rare, expensive and very poorly made. Soviet agriculture was always inefficient, and these inefficiencies meant that the Soviets had to import grain from the US & Canada several times in the 1970s – hitting their export / import balance sheet.
Social:
The Soviet Union faced two huge problems in the 1970s & 1980s.
1) The rise of Samizdat literature and dissident activity. Many writers began to “self-publish”, using new, cheap, office photocopiers and mimeographs. On their own this was not to much of a problem, but as these works were circulated, so the idea that there were alternatives to the Soviet way began to make ground across the USSR.
2) Jewish refuseniks. Jews were, and are, allowed to move to Israel. The USSR refused exit visa to thousands of Jews who wanted to leave – this led to embarrassingly long queues at Israeli missions – these were shown on Soviet TV. The problem was “why would anyone want to leave the “workers’ paradise”?”. Once people began to question why the Jews wanted to leave, then they too began to question what alternatives to the Soviet way there might be. This led to a rise in nationalist sentiment in many of the Soviet Republics.
There were no major riots, rebellions or uprisings, despite what others claim.
Political:
Brezhnev, and his co-ruler Kosygin, thought that all Khrushchev achieved was chaos, they wanted to stabilise the country and to reverse nearly all the reforms of Khrushchev. Probably the worst thing, for the Soviet Union, that they did was the policy of “stability of cadres”. This policy was a response to Khrushchev’s policy of moving bureaucrats around and promoting and demoting people. It had the effect of creating an ageing political class, who sought only to maintain their position. By the late 1970s the country was a gerontocracy – a country ruled by the elderly.
This exasperated the conservative communist government’s hostility towards the youth, which, in turn, meant that when the regime was tottering they could not rely on the idealism of the young.
See:
Khrushchev Remembers – NS Khrushchev
The Soviet Union 1917 – 1991 – Martin McCauley
The Revolution from Above by David M Kotz and Fred Weir
http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1985perestroika&Year=1985
http://www.historyorb.com/russia/intro.php
Bitter Murphy says
Their problems were political, social, and military……political infighting was mainly there political problem, Gorbachev was arguing with some guy can’t remember his name now, social problems were that people simply didn’t want to be a part of the USSR they saw it as a tyranical regime it was, there was a lot of rebellion especially in Poland and the baltic countries who wanted independance which they eventually got in the early 90’s, plus their military and economy had taking a beating from fighting a 10 year long war in Afghanistan, that war is often referred to as Russia’s vietnam, overall their problems were broad and all fronts really.
John says
It was many factors…
1) Most of the USSRs economy was based on Heavy Industry which left it technologically backwards
2) The USSR invested a lot in military as they had been at war in Afghanistan since 1979, had been attempting to compete against the cold war by the Americans as well as found Communist groups across the world to maintain their regime. When President Reagan announced the Strategic Defence Initiative program (which was a bluff) the Soviets were out of their league.
3) Civil Discontent was also a problem. Usually uprisings like the ones in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (satellite states of USSR) were crushed by Soviet force, by following the liberal agenda of Gorbachev, he left the Polish Communist Government to deal with its uprising on its own. This made locals feel more powerful and following Gorbachevs handing of self-determination to East Germany, the Eastern Bloc collapsed and 1 year later the USSR.
4) The Sino-Soviet Split also meant that the Soviets had to compete with the Chinese now, and with the Americans pursuing rapprochement in 1972, it meant that the world Communist powers divided it meant that the Soviet Union could not depend on others as most communist countries depended on it.
There’s plenty more factors…