Why Did Soviet Union Fall Apart
It was on 26th December, 1991 when Soviet Union collapsed
and 15 separate countries emerged from the disintegration.
The eighth and final leader of Soviet Union, Mikhali Gorbachev resigned on the
previous day and he handed over his power to the Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
This disintegration of the USSR gave birth to the
Commonwealth of Independent States, also called as the CIS.
This breakdown is considered as a victory of freedom, the win of capitalism
over socialism, also a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism.
But this led to a complete reformation in the entire world in every area
starting from political, economical, social and military alliances.
The question is how Soviet Union fell apart that was emerged in
1921 and eventually became really powerful by the end of 1980s?
Well, the answer is not really simple and it requires digging
into the history to have a better idea of the reason.
Emerge of Soviet Union
Soviet Union emerged on 1921 from a civil war that went for quite long.
Before that it was Romanov Monarchy to rule the country.
Before falling apart, Soviet Union was really a very powerful and one of the largest
nation in the globe that was occupying almost one sixth of the earth’s land.
The Russian revolution started during 1917 while the Radical Leftist threw
out the Romanov monarchy and Soviet Union was born in the Russian Empire.
It gave birth to a bloody and long civil war.
The civil war was held between the Red army and white army.
While the red army was backed by Bolshevik government (Supporter of USSR), the red
army was backed by the monarchist, capitalists and the other forms of socialists.
The war kept going on and finally the white
army won the battle by defeating the red army.
It resulted into the formation of Soviet Union that was an
agreement between Russia, Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Belarus.
A new communist party was established that took the entire control of
Government and it was led by the Marxist revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin.
Soviet Union started growing with time and it became highly
powerful to contain almost 15 Soviet socialist republics.
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to
power and he ruled the nation by his strict rules.
His policies were so brutal that left a large part of the citizens dead.
Before he came to the power Soviet Union was an Agrarian
society and Stalin transformed it into a military superpower.
Now when it come to the part that how Soviet Union fell
apart, there is not any single reason rather several reasons
contribute to the disintegration of Soviet Union
and most of the possible reasons are stated here.
Reasons of disintegration of Soviet Union
Mikhali Gorbachev’s policy - Perestroika and Glasnost
Gorbachev was selected as the General Secretary by Politburo on March
11, 1985 and he was the eighth and final leader of Soviet Union.
He was selected after the death of Konstantin Chernenko who expired at 73.
The goal of the last leader Mikhali Gorbachev’s was completely different.
He wanted to revitalize the entire economic situation of Soviet Union and
it required to change the complete economical and political structure.
This was not an easy task at all and Mikhali planned
of introducing two policies in this context.
Those two policies are known as Perestroika and Glasnost.
Perestroika refers to the rebuilding of economic situation
while Glasnost refers to the freedom of speech.
Even though Mikhali’s intention was really different, but it cost him a lot.
Under the plan Perestroika, Soviet started to move towards a hybrid
Communist-Capitalist system following the developed country China.
This made the government to allow market forces to
state some development and production decision.
It also required the complete rearranging of the party.
As a result the younger voices came to the forefront and with time
Gorbachev imagined of building a democratically chosen Communist Party.
The second policy that he introduced is the Glasnost that is freedom of speech.
As per this new rule, people are allowed to raise their voice and
they can freely express what they actually think and their views.
Citizens remained quiet for almost decades and Mikhali Gorbachev though that if
people are empowered to express their views, things will become much easier.
But unfortunately, Gorbachev’s policies failed completely and when citizens were
powered to put forward their views, it resulted into the loose of control over them.
Citizens started criticising the government rather than doing something good
with their power and government became really weak to the Soviet Union people.
They used their power for nothing good but to end up the complete Soviet Union rule.
So, even though Mikhali Gorbachev was really a very powerful
and an honest leader with a good aim of reformation,
but it actually failed to work out and this is why he is strongly
considered as one of the main reason of Soviet Union’s disintegration.
However, other reasons too are there and those are explained below.
Flaws in Politburo
When Soviet Union was emerged from the Russian revolutionary, the first
general secretary was Vladimir Lenin, the lead of the Politburo team.
His intention was extremely powerful and they
tried to do all good as much as possible.
After his death the next leader was Joseph Stalin to rule the nation.
Things kept going on and Politburo was ruling the nation by its power.
The member of the team was quite good but they had their flaws also.
They were inspired by an ideological purity that is linked with the Marxism and
it is true that this was ever been able to maintain by the young generation.
Nikita Khrushchev was the last leader who worked with the revolutionary team directly
and after his removal in 1963, the picture of Politburo was completely different.
The Politburo started to drift during the 1960’s and
1970’s and there was huge change in the team entirely.
They did manage to enhance their power and wealth but most of the
money were being spending to maintain their luxurious lifestyle.
They started spending money on luxurious foods, cars, clothing while the
Soviet Union people remain ignored and so many people expired in starvation.
This created backlash among the citizens and
they refused to accept the party ideology.
Their anger started growing and with time when the power came to their hand during
1980, they were really not interested to save a nation which did not care for them.
As a result, the Soviet Union broke down eventually in 1991.
United States’s clear aggression against Soviet People
It was 1960 when the cold war between United
States and Soviet Union started to grow.
By 1979, Jimmy Carter in US inspired the war while by 1981 things got a worse form.
Ronald Reagan took the power of United States in
1981 and he was the real enemy of Soviet Union.
He used to address the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire
and his intention was too prominent against USSR.
He ensured to make the military power stronger while the
weapons and other necessary stuff for war were improvised.
With these, Ronald Reagan attacked the Soviet People and destroyed their economy.
They were made separated from rest of the world and it affected the oil prices badly.
The oil price became too low to generate revenue and
it caused the Soviet Union to fall down eventually.
Economic shortages and too heavy focuses on the capital goods
The economy of every nation is limited and it is true that they need
to make a balance between the capital goods and consumer goods.
While capital goods such as guns are important to make the nation powerful, consumer
goods such as butter is really important for the basic living of the people.
But When Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union, he focused
highly on capital goods production and ignored the consumer goods.
The members of Politburo never paid any attention in enhancing the consumer
goods and this resulted into starvation among the citizens of Soviet Union.
They were deprived from the basic foods, clothing and shelter
which eventually made them to look for a revolution.
While the aforementioned reasons are the main
reasons of the disintegration of Soviet Union,
the structure of the Nation too is responsible more or less for
the quick demise of the once a very powerful nation Soviet Union.
This nation consisted 15 different nations and
all of them were different in many areas.
For example, their religion, culture, language, ethnicity was
completely different and they were not compatible with each other also.
This created an odd situation actually and this can be said
as one of the strong reason of fall of the Soviet Union.
All these reasons were weakening the power of Soviet Union and finally this
nation broke down completely by 1991 which generated 15 different countries.
Mikhali Gorbachev, the last leader of Politburo
finally resigned on 25th December, 1991
and it was just the next day when Soviet Union fell apart to create a
newly formed entity called as CIS, Commonwealth of Independent States.