Question by Diplomacy & Tact Matters: Why did Gorbachev develop Perestroika and Glasnost?
Why did Gorbachev develop these policies when Russia was already practically strong? What pressure and problems were they going through that lead Gorbachev to decide on reforms?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Sarah Palin
I was watching Gorbachev develop these policies……….
I saw all this happening from Alaska.
and that, makes me qualified to be commander in chief.
Read all the answers in the comments.
Give your own answer to this question!
Jimmbbo says
Economically, the USSR was going broke keeping up with the US due to Reagan's defense buildup.
Politically, he saw that the world was changing, and the old Soviet style repression was not viable in an age where communications and commerce was world wide.
x x says
Communism is a failed system that can not by it's nature sustain itself.
It denies basic human nature and thus destroys the spirit of men.
Gorbachev developed nothing, Regan stood up to him "Tear down this wall". As long as Democrats followed the idiotic police of "Containment" the communist could fake it.
Once a real American who understood the nature of the danger of communism stood up to them, then USSR was found to be a paper tiger.
The funnest think I saw about Raisa Gorbachyova was when she was in Paris using her American Express card to buy jewelry.
Still thinking we did not give communism a chance to work, eh?
CONSERVATIVE TSUNAMI says
MR GORBACHEV…TEAR DOWN THESE WALLS!!!…RONALD
REAGAN!!!
Scitech101 says
Two possibilities.
1. The soviet union was collasping. Stalinism was proving ineffective in an era of digital communication. Gorbachev felt that if the Soviet Union was to have any chance of surviving, it would need to have some liberal reforms.
2. Gorbachev really wanted to do the right thing. Perhaps, just perhaps, he did it solely out of moral principles. Perhaps he saw the wrongs of the old system, and wanted to end the tyranny.
Either way, although the Union collapsed, Gorbachev is now a hero in the international community. Perhaps for that very reason.
tony_s1944 says
If the USSR "was already practically strong" there was no need to attempt a major restructuring of the whole system.
He wasn't an idiot.
He saw the USA as much much stronger(except in nuclear capabilities) and he wanted his country to move in our direction.
He failed because the whole USSR system could not be tweaked into something better.
It was rotten to the core and it collapsed. (with the help of R. Reagan)
RayHere says
Mr Reagan Gorbachev even said it himself
Last week over there they were patting themselves saying hey look what we did We brought this wall down In a pigs eye
When Mr Reagan walked away from Gorbachev in Iceland and said no deal I did not see any Brits or euros there I did however hear them call Mr Reagan a war monger and tell us We are between you and them you can't defeat them You must co-exist with them
They called Mr Reagan's missile defence ''star wars'' to insult him and told us you can't shoot down a missile with a missile But of course you can cancel it as Mr Obama did in Poland
You responders wonder why we are so contemptuous of you
laslo.kovacs says
I think it was real politik. Gorbachev saw the writing on the wall, that economic power was shifting in the world, away from Russia and even away from the USA.
Most Americans don't yet understand this, but Obama does, and China certainly does.
So I think he was attempting to accomodate the New World and transition Russia into a new "fit".
And for the most part, this was done successfully.
The USA will also have to do this. By 2025 China's economy will equal ours, and by 2050 it will be double ours.
csunharleyrider@yaho says
Because Russia, while having a large military, was corrupt and communism, especially imposed on the satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact, was an epic failure. For a humorous look, try the Robin Williams movie "Moscow on the Hudson." The scenes about coffee and standing in line sum it up.
I , a happy Bolshevi says
Because they were afraid of an uprising of Russian Working Class.
From the war of imperialist intervention after the October Revolution to the Nazi Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union to the Cold War, world capitalism had always the clear aim and expectation to overcome its decline by re-conquering the vast spaces, where capital was expropriated after 1917 and the Second World War.
Thirty years after the turn to pro-market policies by China under Deng and, above all, nearly twenty years after the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe, the implosion of the Soviet Union and the turn to capitalist restoration, it is more than obvious that world capitalism not only did not find a new youth but it faces, particularly now, its worst crisis.
Despite a flood of foreign credit to the East- and a devastating NATO war that destroyed former Yugoslavia-capitalist restoration in Central Europe and the Balkans shows now its fragility, depending principally from the inflow of foreign capital than in locally deeply rooted capitalist structures.
We are very happy! This deepening world crisis is unstoppable!