The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991

David R. Marples

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317869986
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

Why did the Soviet Union collapse in 1991?

The collapse of the Soviet Union has widely been seen as the result of the arms race and Cold War, and the failure of the Soviet side to keep pace with new technology. This book argues that the disintegration was mainly a result of two interrelated factors: the rise of the Soviet national republics, and the manipulation of the new Russian presidency by Boris Yeltsin in what became a direct power struggle between Yeltsin and the Soviet leader, Gorbachev.

Written in a clear and accessible manner, the book provides:

• an explanation of how the national question came to dominate Soviet politics by 1990-1
• analysis of the economic crisis that occurred in the late 1980s
• a chapter devoted to the year 1991, from the referendum to reform the Soviet Union to the unforeseen dissolution of the country by December
• a discussion of the personalities of and political confrontation between the two key statesman: Gorbachev and Yeltsin

Also containing a Chronology, Glossary and Who's Who of key figures, The Collapse of the Soviet Union is essential reading for students of twentieth century European history.

Part One Background

Chapter One
Gorbachev Comes to Power

Political Overview

The Gorbachev era began on 11 March 1985, following the deaths in rapid succession of the three previous General Secretaries of the CC CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev (November 1982), Yury Andropov (March 1984), and Konstantin Chernenko (March 1985). Though Andropov, a former KGB chief, had begun his period in office with a campaign against corruption and absenteeism in the workplace, his tenure had been too short to herald any major changes. Chernenko's time at the top provided the farce toward the end of a long drama: a virtual clerk of Brezhnev with few ideas and lacking in intellect, taking over the reins of the country. Like Andropov, he was too ill to rule for long. The new secretary, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, aged 54, was evidently the unanimous choice of the ruling Politburo's members following his nomination by the veteran foreign affairs minister, Andrey Gromyko. A possible contest for the leadership with Moscow party boss Viktor Grishin failed to materialize. A robust, balding, stocky man with a prominent birthmark, Gorbachev was endowed with remarkable energy. He had risen through the Soviet system, but was now in a position to determine its direction.

Gorbachev's background was not untypical for the late Brezhnev period. He was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye, Krasnogvardeisk district of the Stavropol oblast in the Caucasus. His parents were peasants and his maternal grandfather had been one of the early collective farmers during the initial phase of collectivization. His paternal grandfather, on the other hand, had declined to join a kolkhoz and was arrested in 1934. In 1937, his maternal grandfather had also been arrested during the purges and accused of being a member of a 'Trotskyite' association. Though both grandfathers were able to recover their careers and lives, Gorbachev was well aware of the restraints placed upon farmers during the Stalin period. In 1949, on the other hand, his father received the Order of Lenin when the annual harvest plan in Privolnoye was overfulfilled. The Stavropol area was under German occupation for about five months during the Wehrmacht's summer offensive of 1942, but the Red Army had removed the invaders by January 1943. One can thus describe Gorbachev's early life as eventful. In 1950, three years before Stalin's death, he had entered the prestigious law faculty at Moscow State University and become a candidate member of the Communist Party. Two years later, he was accepted as a full-time member of the party.

His subsequent career as an adult was a combination of graft, patience, and good fortune. In September 1953, he married Raisa Titorenko, an expert on Marxism-Leninism who was to become his close partner throughout his life. In 1955, he graduated from Moscow State University and began to pursue a party career in his home region of Stavropol, rising through the Komsomol and district organizations until he was appointed the First Secretary of Stavropol city committee of the party in September 1966. He also added to his qualifications by taking agronomy courses at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute. By April 1970 he was head of the Stavropol regional party committee, an important local boss and on good terms with KGB leader, Yury Andropov, who came to the area for periods of relaxation. At the 24th Party Congress in 1971, Gorbachev became a full member of the Central Committee of the party. Seven years later, as he recounts in his memoirs, he met Brezhnev and Chernenko at the spa of Mineralnye Vody. By this time Gorbachev had a reputation as a hard-working regional leader with a promising party career. Because of his reputation as an agricultural expert he could expect to be singled out for future work in Brezhnev's ambitious Food Program, elaborated in the late 1970s and scheduled to last from 1980 to 1990. Though ill fated, the Food Program continued to be trumpeted in the official media as a device to end the USSR's increasing reliance on grain imports, first begun in the later years of Khrushchev's administration. In October 1980 Brezhnev appointed Gorbachev a full member of the ruling Politburo.

It was perhaps not the most suitable time to be rising to the top of the hierarchy. Less than a year earlier, Soviet troops had crossed the border into Afghanistan and installed a puppet ruler – Babrak Karmal – in Kabul. Several harvest failures in a row directly threatened Gorbachev's career. The Politburo comprised mainly elderly figures that resented anything that would affect their comfortable lifestyles and privileges. Brezhnev himself was barely coherent in his speeches, relying on cue cards and prompting, and had been in poor health since a heart attack in the mid-1970s. His vanity had risen to the point at which he lived for praise and the presentation of new medals glorifying his contributions to all walks of life. Since the Khrushchev period, the Soviet system had been notable for security of high party and government positions. Politburo and Central Committee members were no longer replaced with regularity and generally ended their days in office. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a succession of funerals. Several local leaders who had attempted reforms, or who had spoken out against the corruption and nepotism endemic in Moscow had been removed or had died in staged 'accidents.' However, when Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, following his appearance at the Revolution Day parade three days earlier in bitterly cold weather, his successor was Andropov, a man who could be expected to promote Gorbachev's career, while embarking on reforms against corruption and lack of discipline in the workplace. The 'opposition' in the Politburo gathered around Konstantin Chernenko, Brezhnev's faithful clerk who wished for no more than a continuation of the system unchanging.

Ill health prevented Andropov from accomplishing much. Moreover, when he was succeeded by Chernenko, Gorbachev's ambitions potentially may have been limited. Yet by this time (February 1984) he had made himself indispensable, principally in the area of agriculture but also in other fields such as foreign affairs. In September 1984, he went to Bulgaria for the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Sofia from German occupation. He also visited Canada and Britain in 1984-85, and made a notable impression on the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Because of Chernenko's ill-health, Gorbachev took on the role of 2nd Secretary and frequently ran Politburo meetings in the leader's absence. Perhaps there were some rivals for the succession, but again the main threat to Gorbachev's rise continued to be harvest failures. Agriculture was the stumbling block of the Soviet economy, and Gorbachev, as others before him, failed to come up with any viable solutions. There is no evidence that Gorbachev was ever outspoken or disloyal to the members of the Brezhnev clique. That same clique had no reason to suspect that his elevation would herald any major changes. On paper at least, the country had remained a superpower and under Brezhnev it had come close to numerical military parity with the United States. Gorbachev was a typical product of the Brezhnev system, while aware of its faults and failings.

Thus there was little initial indication that a new era had begun or that Gorbachev was likely to implement fundamental changes. He had been a protégé of Andropov. Effectively, Gorbachev had been running the country during the administration of the gravely ill Chernenko, who suffered from emphysema, among other ailments. Gorbachev had responsibility for agriculture, an area that was unlikely to win him any public acclaim. He was given to ritualistic long-winded speeches, a characteristic that did not alter when he came to power. At meetings he exerted almost complete control, often allowing those in attendance only perfunctory remarks. On paper, his authority was substantial, and he did not shy away from making personnel changes. Though from a modest peasant background, Gorbachev as noted was well educated, and had taken up acting as one of his hobbies. In general, he had few close friends and liked to take responsibility himself for decisions and initiatives.

In the political sphere, personality changes were at once introduced. Over the first year of the Gorbachev leadership, 70 per cent of the ministers were changed, along with 50 per cent of the leadership cadres in the Soviet republics. By the end of 1986, after nine months in office, 40 per cent of all first secretaries had lost their positions, and the Central Committee membership suffered an even more drastic replacement of 60 per cent of its members. Within the Politburo itself, two obvious rivals for the leadership had been the Leningrad party chief, Grigory Romanov, as well as his Moscow counterpart, Grishin, noted above. Neither was to remain in the highest office for long. On 1 July 1985, Romanov was removed. Grishin survived for a further six months before being relieved of his duties and sent into retirement. In the same month, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Vitaly Fedorchuk also lost his post.

Several other leaders might have been considered candidates for early dismissal, taking into account their role as long-time and faithful followers of Brezhnev. However, they retained their posts for some time. Most notable was the Ukrainian party leader, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, often referred to as a 'hard-line' leader (a term used to denote strict adherence to the official line and a lack of tolerance for dissidence), who remained in office until he was retired with full honours in the fall of 1989. Perhaps Shcherbytsky was retained because he had proved capable of keeping things quiet in Ukraine, a potential trouble spot for a period in the 1960s and early 1970s when it had seen a strong dissident movement and an undercurrent of nationalist sentiment under previous party leader Petro Shelest.

More significant as an indicator or the sort of leadership that Gorbachev would offer were the replacements brought into the ruling circle. On 23 April, at a Plenum of the party's central committee, Viktor Chebrikov became the chairman of the KGB, and two key figures originally advanced by Andropov also came to prominence. Yegor Ligachev was appointed a Central Committee secretary for ideology and cadre policies (perhaps at the time the key position after that of General Secretary) and Nikolay Ryzhkov was given similar responsibility over the economy. Both these men were to remain in the leadership for the next few years. On 27 September, Ryzhkov replaced Nikolay Tikhonov as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister).

More startling was the elevation of the former party leader of the republic of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 2 July 1985 following his promotion to full member of the Politburo a day earlier. He replaced Gromyko, who took on the role of ceremonial president of the USSR, the position of chairman of the then relatively powerless Supreme Soviet. Shevardnadze was not only a relative unknown in Moscow, but also his command of Russian was less than fluent. Nevertheless, the choice proved to be an inspired one, and Shevardnadze was to remain one of the more determined supporters of detente with the United States, a key element in Gorbachev's strategy. Of equal importance was the virtual removal from a position of influence of Gromyko, whose impact on foreign relations for the previous four decades could charitably be regarded as negative. Moreover, under previous Soviet leaders^ Gromyko had been given a virtual free hand in formulating Soviet initiatives and responses to the Americans and their allies. Remarkably, Gromyko seems to have supported Gorbachev unequivocally, though his views (as espoused in his memoirs) remained unchanging and bitterly opposed to any rapprochement with the United States.

Also in July, Aleksandr Yakovlev, a former member of the nomenklatura who had been sent into relative exile under Brezhnev as Soviet ambassador to Canada for a lengthy ten-year term, received the position of head of the propaganda section of the Central Committee. Yakovlev has been termed 'the father of Glasnost,' though such an epithet seems exaggerated. Yakovlev was not really a leader figure, but worked well within the more tolerant environs created by the new period of Perestroika. He was nonetheless a close associate of Gorbachev who is identified with the policy of more frank reporting and accountability of the leadership to the Soviet public. Lastly, the July Plenum elected as Central Committee secretaries L.N. Zaikov and Boris N. Yeltsin. The latter, a native of Ekaterynoslav in Siberia and the same age as Gorbachev, enjoyed a spectacular rise when in December 1985, he replaced Grishin as the party leader in the city of Moscow. He was elevated at the same time to a Candidate Member of the ruling Politburo.

Was it evident from the first that the new Soviet leader was replacing former Brezhnev 'cronies' with figures more dedicated to reforming Soviet society and reducing the corruption so endemic during the Brezhnev years? One can say that such a statement is partially true. The change from the previous era may have been superficial, but was clear from certain events. For one thing, the new leader was less distant than his predecessors. He seemed to scorn the typically obsequious adulation that had customarily followed holders of the office. His photograph was not constantly in Pravda or Izvestiya, and he appeared to be a populist leader who was happy to talk to the public, especially to workers, about the problems that they faced. In March 1986, for example, Gorbachev travelled to Kuibyshev (Samara) to visit a Volga car factory where he criticized local bosses for their unwillingness to allow their workers to talk openly about their situation. That these events were carefully staged was not initially evident.

Gorbachev was outspoken about the problems facing Soviet society, believing firmly that the country could not continue under recent political and economic policies. It was necessary for a break with the past, for the acceleration of the economy, and an end to parochialism, nepotism, corruption, and a ruling elite that appeared to be distanced from the general population other than on national holidays and ceremonies during which they decorated themselves with medals to assuage their vanity. Brezhnev was perhaps the supreme example of this phenomenon, and though it was Brezhnev who had elevated Gorbachev to the Politburo, his protégé from Stavropol in southern Russia quickly tried to erase the memory of his benefactor once he achieved the highest post.

It was not uncommon for Soviet leaders to dissociate themselves from those who had preceded them. A General Secretary wielded enormous power and had scope to introduce direction within the general confines of 'Marxism-Leninism,' itself a nebulous concept. Gorbachev was no exception, though there is little evidence of any far-sighted strategy and where he wished to take the country. The first real opportunity to make a break with the immediate past came at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party (CPSU), which was held from 25 February to 6 March 1986. At this Congress, Gorbachev gave a speech that was the length of a small book and around four hours in delivery. He dismissed the entire Brezhnev era as 'the Epoch of Stagnation,' and demanded fundamental changes in the economy along with the 'democratization' of Soviet society. The comments were sensible. They allowed Gorbachev essentially to begin anew, but without a radical departure from current policies, other than the appearance and vitality of the new leader. Indeed, the contrast in personalities was the most marked change of Gorbachev's first year in office.

One observer of the Congress was the French political scientist and journalist Michel Tatu. He noted that the election at the end of the Congress saw the return of a surprising number of typical Brezhnev personnel, despite the avowed reforms (Tatu). These included Nikolay Tikhonov, the retired prime minister and Nikolay Baibakov, the chairman of the State Planning Commission (Gosplan), a man that even Khrushchev had attempted to remove. The implication here was that the Congress was hardly a forward-looking body and that the changes were cosmetic. One could argue also that even the new faces contained many people who were far from committed reformers.

Insofar as Gorbachev had a vision of the future, it was of a country that had returned to the principles put forward by Lenin in the spring of 1921, a society that ran more efficiently, and an economy in which labor productivity re-attained the sort of growth levels reached in the 1970s. These reforms were to be encapsulated under the general name of 'Perestroika,' a term that included not only economic, but also social and political restructuring. But like other leaders before him, the essential task initially was to consolidate his authority in the ruling structures. The possibility of radical change within the system manifested itself at an early stage. By late January 1987, for example, Gorbachev was advocating that elections to local Soviets should take place through a secret ballot and that there should be more than one, officially sanctioned candidate. The CPSU Plenum at which he made these remarks also tinkered with the idea of holding an all-Union party conference. However, in the elections to local Soviets that followed in June 1987, some 96 per cent of districts had only one name on the ballot paper.

Nevertheless, the new leadership slowly undermined the former Brezhnev structure, in which it had been a rare event to make personnel changes at the top. Gorbachev received an opportunity to make changes to the sensitive military leadership, when a young German, Matthias Rust, managed to land a small plane in Moscow's Red Square, to the acute embarrassment of the Soviet authorities. Though Rust was given a light sentence (four years, of which he served a little more than one), Marshal S. Sokolov was dismissed as Minister of Defence, as was Marshal A. Koldunov, commander of the Soviet armed forces. Sokolov's successor was D. Yazov, who proved to be a controversial choice, and turned against Gorbachev during the serious political crisis of August 1991.

The summer 1987 Plenum of the Central Committee saw the advancement of several committed supporters of Perestroika to the ruling Politburo. They included the new Belarusian party leader, Nikolay Slyunkov, and A. Yakovlev. Yazov was appointed a Candidate Member of the body. A few months later, Gorbachev declared his intention to remove all those who did not support his new policy line. However, in November of this year, Boris Yeltsin, who had begun a thorough program of rooting out corruption in the city of Moscow, was removed from his position suddenly, and replaced by Lev Zaikov. According to the former US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock (Matlock, p. 119), this decision was Gorbachev's first major political mistake, and the reason behind it was envy of a man who was attracting more attention than Gorbachev himself. The attack on Yeltsin by the Politburo members was brutal and unrestrained, and it left lasting scars. Perhaps most galling to Yeltsin was the fact that he had been removed from a hospital bed (following a stroke) at Gorbachev's demand, to face a haranguing from the members of the Central Committee. Two months later, Yeltsin lost his candidate membership of the Politburo, his political career apparently over.

remaps the key event during these early years of the new administration was the 19th Party Conference in Moscow, ostensibly an occasion for debate rather than the implementation of radical changes. Some 5,000 delegates took part, in a raucous atmosphere during which it became a struggle to attain the podium in order to make speeches. On several occasions, delegates disagreed sharply with the Soviet leader on various policies, and it was also evident that there were wide divisions within the CPSU. The focus was the reform of the existing system and the continuing struggle with the Soviet bureaucracy, changes to the legal structure, and the twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika.

The major innovation was the concept of a new law on the election of people's deputies. The Gorbachev leadership decided to elect a new Congress of People's Deputies, effectively a lower house of parliament, made up of 2,250 delegates. The Congress, in turn, was to elect a Supreme Soviet from its ranks, led by a chairman. The elections were to be multi-candidate, allowing for a substantial minority of non-party people to take part. These changes received the approval of the Supreme Soviet on 1 December 1988. The intention of this change, which required amendments to the Soviet Constitution (1977), was to empower the Soviet while reducing that of the party structure. On paper, it did not yet indicate the elimination of the authority of the Communist Party, but it did signify that the Supreme Soviet was to be more than the 'rubber stamp' authority of the past. Above all, it seemed to outsiders that Gorbachev was seeking an instrument through which to introduce his disputed reforms.

Of the initial Gorbachev team, Ligachev was the most outspoken critic of the sort of changes envisaged by the Soviet leader. He became the target of those who wished to make more rapid reforms. Political analysts applied the term 'conservative' or 'rightist' to those political figures that were opposed to change, ambiguous adjectives when used to refer to committed Communists. More accurate might be the phrase: supporters of the status quo. At the September Plenum of the Central Committee, Ligachev was moved from ideology to agriculture. His replacement was Vadim Medvedev. Several other members of the Brez...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction to the Series
• Acknowledgements
• Map
• Chronology
• Preface
• Acronyms
• Introduction
• Part One Background
• Part Two The Years of Perestroika
• Part Three Assessment
• Part Four Documents
• Glossary
• Who's Who
• References
• Index