HIST 236 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, Glasnost
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
The Aging Party Leadership
After Brezhnev's death in 1982, the Soviet Union went
through two leaders in rapid succession, both whom died on
the job
Yuri Andrioiv
○
Konstantin Chernenko
○
-
They mostly continued Brezhnev's politics of stability
-
The Communist Party was increasingly seen as geriatric and
out of touch
-
Mikhail Gorbachev
Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985
in the hopes that he would reinvigorate it due to his youth
and enthusiasm
Gorbachev was not a Stalinist cadre
○
He came from a peasant background but went to
university and graduated around the same time of
Khrushchev's thaw
○
-
He openly admitted the economy was in crisis and argued
that a major reform program was urgently needed
People knew that things were going wrong but this was
the first time that this was openly admitted
○
-
Has a degree in law and agroeconomics (agricultural
economics)
-
Perestroika (Reconstruction)
He sought to inspire greater efficiency, initiate and
productivity in workers through wage reform
-
He restricted the production of alcohol and increase its prices
in an effort to prevent drinking on the job
Increase production of underground vodka and
removing a massive source of revenue for the
government (because they are removing the
commodity tax)
○
-
The 1988 Law on Cooperatives reintroduced private trade
Soviet citizens could open small businesses again, which
they had not been able to do since the NEP
○
-
The Soviet Union opened up to international investors
-
Get wage increases and living standards be tied to increased
productivity
-
Glasnost (openness)
Politics and decision making were to be more transparent
-
Gorbachev created a new institution, the Congress of People's
Deputies, and was elected the President of the Soviet Union,
in an effort to reduce the power of the Party
-
The press was given more freedom and ordinary people were
encouraged to exercise freedom of speech
-
Stalin's crimes were more openly discussed
Bolsheviks were repressed during the Terror, such as
Nikolai Bukharin, were rehabilitated
○
Trotsky was never reinstated and rehabilitated into the
Communist Party
○
-
Meetings were televised
-
Press was given more freedom in the late 1980s
Publishing uncensored letters to the editor
○
-
Soviet historians start to publish about the Stalin era and start
to call him a criminal
-
Resistance to Reforms
Gorbachev was widely praised in the West (which won him
suspicion at home)
-
Many entrenched party elites chafed at his disruptive
reforms, viewing them as undermining Soviet achievements
-
In 1988, Nina Andreyeva, a chemistry teacher in Leningrad,
punished an open letter entitled "I Cannot Forsake My
Principles" questioning Gorbachev's communism and the
newfound obsession with criticizing Stalin and the
"trailblazers of socialism"
Many believed Yegor Ligachev, Gorbachev's opponent,
was behind it
○
-
They built up industry and collectivized in order to build up
Socialism
Collective farms get paid more if they produce more
○
-
People who are earning Soviet socialist wages and there are
entrepreneurs making money off the fact that there are still
many shortages
-
Economic Crisis
As Gorbachev's economic reforms failed, it lost him the
support of the ordinary people
-
Whit the reintroduction of private trade, prices skyrocketed,
shortages worsened, and real wages dropped
-
Miners went on strike, protesting their declining living
standards
-
With glasnost, people could now more openly complain but
the government lacked the resources to address the
grievances
-
Miners went on strike and were most affected by the changes
in the economy because the best paid workers in Soviet
industry were miners, metallurgy, etc. and their cost of living
is going sky high and wages are going down bc tied to
enterprise's profitability
Can go on strike and form independent trade unions
○
-
Nationalism and Independence
Against the backdrop of revolutions across Central and
Eastern Europe in 1989, nationalist movement emerged in
many of the Soviet republics pushing for independence
-
National tensions in border areas flared up (Ex: the Narorno-
Karahakh conflict)
-
Gorbachev proposed a new treaty that would turn the Soviet
Union into a looser confederation, rather than a centralized
federation
-
The August Coup and the Collapse
Communist Party hardliners declared a state of emergency
and attempted to depose Gorbachev while he was on holiday
in August 1991
The coup failed and was declared a counterrevolution
○
-
One republic after another declared independence
-
On December 8, 1991, the Belevezha accords were signed
declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist "as a
subject of international law and geopolitical reality"
-
The USSR was formally dissolved on December 25, 1991
-
Boris Yeltzin becomes the President of the Russian Federation
-
Lecture 26 -Perestroika, Glasnost and the Disintegration of the USSR
Monday, April 9, 2018
11:29 AM
Document Summary
Lecture 26 - perestroika, glasnost and the disintegration of the ussr. After brezhnev"s death in 1982, the soviet union went through two leaders in rapid succession, both whom died on the job. The communist party was increasingly seen as geriatric and out of touch. Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the cpsu in 1985 in the hopes that he would reinvigorate it due to his youth and enthusiasm. He came from a peasant background but went to university and graduated around the same time of. He openly admitted the economy was in crisis and argued that a major reform program was urgently needed. People knew that things were going wrong but this was the first time that this was openly admitted. Has a degree in law and agroeconomics (agricultural economics) He sought to inspire greater efficiency, initiate and productivity in workers through wage reform.
