The 1970s saw an easing of Cold War tensions as evinced in the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) I and II agreements of 1972 and 1979 respectively, in which the USA and USSR set limits on their antiballistic missiles and on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. This was followed by a period of renewed Cold War tensions in the early 1980s as the two superpowers continued their massive arms build-up and competed for influence in the Third World. But the Cold War began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S, Gorbachev (see below and Chapter 4),
The Gorbachev Era, 1985-91
When Brezhnev died in 1982, most elite groups understood that the Soviet economy was in trouble. Owing to senility, Brezhnev had not been in effective control of the country during his last few years, and Kosygin had died in 1980. The Politburo was dominated by old men, and they were overwhelmingly Russian. Non-Russian representation at the top of the party and the government had declined over time. Yury V. Andropov and then Konstantin Chernenko led the country from 1982 until 1985, but their administrations failed to address critical problems. Andropov believed that the economic stagnation could he remedied by greater worker discipline and by cracking down on corruption. He did not consider the structure of the Soviet economic system itself to be a cause of the country's growing economic problems.
When Gorbachev became head of the Communist Party in March 1985 he was clear about his policy preferences. In a speech on December 10, 1984, he spoke of the need to effect "deep transformations in the economy and the whole system of social relations", to carry through the policies of perestroika ("restructuring" of economic management), the "democratization of social and economic life", and glasnost ("openness"). His goal was to set in motion a revolution controlled from above. He did not wish to undermine the Soviet system, only to make it more efficient. The leading role of the party and the
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV (b. 1931)
Soviet official, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (7985—9/and president of the Soviet Union (1990-1)
After earning a law degree from Moscow State University (1955), Gorbachev rose through the ranks to become a full Politburo member (1980) and general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985-91). His extraordinary reform policies of g/osnost and perestroifca were resisted by party bureaucrats; to reduce their power, Gorbachev changed the Soviet constitution in 1988 to allow multi-candidate elections, and removed the monopoly power of the party in 1990. He cultivated warmer relations with the United States, and in 1989-90 he supported the democratically elected governments that replaced the communist regimes of eastern Europe. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Russia's economic and political problems led to a 199! coup attempt by hardliners. !n alliance with Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, Gorbachev quit the Communist Party, disbanded its Central Committee, and shifted political powers to the Soviet Union's constituent republics. Events outpaced him, and the various republics formed the Commonwealth of Independent States under Yeltsin's leadership. On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned the presidency of the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist that same day.
PERESTROIKA ("RESTRUCTURING")
Programme instituted in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid- /980s to restructure Soviet political and economic policy
Gorbachev proposed reducing the direct involvement of the Communist Party leadership in the country's governance and increasing the local governments' authority. Seeking to bring the Soviet Union up to economic par with capitalist countries such as Germany, Japan, and the United States, he decentralized economic controls and encouraged enterprises to become self- financing. The economic bureaucracy, fearing loss of its power and privileges, obstructed much of his programme,
central direction of the economy were to stay. l ie thus pursued an economic policy that aimed to increase economic growth while increasing capital investment, which was to improve the technological basis of the Soviet economy as weil as promote certain structural economic changes. His goal was simple: to bring the Soviet Union up to par economically with the West. This had been the aim of Russian leaders since the first great wave of modernization and westernization was unleashed in the early eighteenth century.
Thus perestroika concentrated initially on economic reform. Enterprises were encouraged to become self-financing, cooperatives were set up by groups of people as businesses, and land could be leased to allow family farming. Machine building was given preference as light and consumer goods took second place. There was to be more technical innovation and worker discipline. Yet all this produced few positive results,
GLASNOST ("OPENNESS")
Soviet policy of open discussion of political and social issues
Glasnost was instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s and began the democratization of the Soviet Union. G/osnost also permitted criticism of government officials and allowed the media freer dissemination of news and information,
and in fact led to a fall in the consumer goods available, and agriculture did not blossom. Not only was the public hostile to Gorbachev's policies, but the cooperatives resented the heavy taxation and, perhaps most significant, the bureaucrats who ran the economy feared that these new activities would undermine their privileges and power.
Faced with a worsening economic situation, Gorbachev now concluded that deeper structural changes were necessary. He admitted that his first two years of reform had been wasted since he had been unaware of the depth of the crisis when he took over. He now received much advice on how to solve the Soviet Union's economic crisis. There were two basic solutions: the socialist solution and the market solution. Supporters of Nikolay Ryzhkov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, favoured central planning, more efficient administration, and greater decision-making powers for enterprises and farms. State ownership of the means of production would continue. They called it a "regulated market economy". The radicals advocated a move toward a free-market economy. This involved private ownership of enterprises, land, services, and so on. It also meant the freeing of prices. Gorbachev could not make up his mind and always tried to persuade the two groups to pool their resources and arrive at a compromise. The radicals thought they had convinced Gorbachev in the autumn of 1990 to introduce a 500-day programme that would have implemented a market economy, but he changed his mind and sided with the conservatives. This was a fatal mistake. It left him without a viable economic policy, and the right felt that if they applied enough pressure he would always abandon radical solutions.
One of the reasons Gorbachev shied away from the market was price liberalization. He would not risk sharp price rises because of the fear of social unrest. Despite the abundant evidence of the seriousness of the situation in 1988, the critical year, Gorbachev and other leading communists refused to draw the necessary lessons or to adopt austerity measures. The popular mood was one of spend, spend, spend, and Gorbachev paid only cursory attention to the economy until late 1989. He was never able to construct a viable economic policy or to put in place a mechanism for the implementation of economic policy.