Fall of the Empire: an Internal Collapse of Soviet Union

To determine a singular explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequently the end of the Cold War remains a contentious matter. While the popular culprit, economic stagnation, was in deed a major factor in the eventual ruin of the veritable superpower state, it was ultimately General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s ill-calculated ‘reformation’ and the general decay of central institutions in the early 1990’s that made collapse inevitable. In this paper I have chosen to focus specifically on the internal collapse of the USSR, marking the fall of the state in 1991 as the ‘end’ of the Cold War, rather than assessing external factors such as ongoing protects and conflicts in satellite states.

The notion of stagnation is most commonly associated with Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, the fifth leader of the Soviet Union, under whom the state of the economy fell into heavy decline, ultimately inspiring the reform that would result in the state’s disintegration. As the nuclear arms race began to drain Soviet resources in the early 1970s, the public was left disenchanted and disillusioned by the regime and the “impossible utopia” of communism that the federal state had guaranteed. By prioritising military and weapons spending, Brezhnev could boast strategic parity with US, however the government failed to spend in a way that would allow for the production of goods required for a legitimate and economically viable state in the long-term. The Soviet Union’s economic stagnation generated a heightened sense of mistrust and dissatisfaction amongst the public, also triggering a declining belief in socialist ideology. Where economic stagnation plays a crucial role in the demise of the State is in the undermining of socialist ideology, resulting in the scepticism of both Socialist elite and the general population.

Economic stagnation alone as a case for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 proves to be insufficient, especially considering that the state experienced similar financial downturn in the late 1970s. As argued by Bobo Lo in his piece Labour Ideology and the Collapse of the Soviet State, the state’s poor economic performance was not the foremost factor in the subsequent collapse, rather placing blame of the governement’s increasingly “chaotic and uncertain” policy responses to public discontent, as it emphasised the susceptibility the ruling elite, while also inviting challengers to galvanise their own political movements against the communist party. The very nature of reformation suggests fault with the current system, welcoming criticism and revolt by the public. Growing unrest triggered then president Gorbachev to retaliate with promises of democratisation, an ideology fundamentally opposed to, and outright incompatible with the Communist doctrine that the Soviet Empire had been built upon. With the introduction of policies such as ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’, individuals were given a platform to discredit and delegitimise the fundamental principles of the system and government, depriving the state of one of their most vital instruments, coercion. As so eloquently stated by B Kiernan, “Gorbachev’s experiment with soviet government awakened civil society while giving republican political elites a legitimate institutional forum to press for sovereignty.” Without coercion, protest amongst citizens as well as satellite states was left to fester without intervention, leading to the rise in popularity of nationalist groups. “Faced by a Soviet leadership bereft of self- confidence and lacking the wherewithal or the will to re-establish its authority, new political forces emerged to fill the vacuum – Yeltsin in Moscow, and the republican power elites at the periphery'. Some literature goes so far as to suggest that USSR leaders “lost their nerve”, attempting a sort of “catch up revolution” with the Western World rather than sticking to the communist ideals that had been so central to the ‘success’ of the USSR as a superpower state. The reform, directed by Gorbachev, involved two key alterations, both designed to restimulate the Soviet economy and restore public faith in the Soviet government; Perestroika or “restructuring” meant the introduction of market mechanisms while also encouraging private enterprise to revitalise the economy. Moreover, the government allowed for joint ventures with foreign firms – yet price and government control meant that the reform was only a ‘half measure’ and no real change was achieved. Secondly, Glasnost or “transparency” vowed measures would be taken against corruption in the communist party. This also led to the termination of the Brezhnev doctrine –military intervention in satellite states allowing for independent movements in satellite states. What resulted in the year 1991 could be labelled chaotic and a radical departure from the enforced stability of the early Soviet years. Weakening control over satellite states saw strikes amongst the workforce becoming increasingly common, demonstrations in most major cities and the popularisation of independence movements. Domestically, Gorbachev’s reform resulted in the formation of independent political parties, and liberation of the press, splitting public loyalty and further reducing faith in the Communist Party. While these reformations aimed to put the communist party back in favour with the public, multiple candidate elections, secret ballots and independent parties further ensured the collapse of the USSR as local elections saw the appointment of (Inter-regional group of Deputies, the first official and legal opposition party) and the rapid relinquishment of Communist power and influence. Critics suggest that the introduction of open elections served as an admittance to members of the public that the party was unable to uphold its promise of prosperity, and had lost control, ensuring collapse.

Interestingly, some argue that the Brezhnev era was unfairly labelled as one of stagnation, instead pointing to a general atmosphere of “rampant cynicism” as an obscurant of the continued popularity of socialist ideology in the Soviet Union, referred to as “Developed Socialism”. Some maintain that this appellation was given by Gorbachev himself as a justification for his looming reforms. In the year following his appointment as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Gorbachev condemned the Brezhnev era as “the epoch of stagnation” at the 27th congress meeting. This could be seen as a blatant a ploy to separate the “hopeless past from the exciting present”. As a result, many Soviet achievements have been overlooked by critics such as rising standards of living and impressive residential construction projects and a period of “unprecedented creativity”.

Accused of being a politically charged narrative designed to portray the “Gorbachevian era” as one of extraordinary improvement and transformation. Yeltsin would later ‘take a leaf’ from Gorbachev’s political playbook by asserting that Gorbachev was in fact attempting to return the USSR to an era of stagnation. Perhaps then this retrospective perception of the Brezhnev period as being one of stagnancy is too limited and should be reconsidered without the lens of political motive clouding judgement.

And lastly, some surveys conducted throughout the 1990s even saw 51% of Russians claiming that the Brezhnev era was “the best time in which to live” heralding it as the golden era rather than an epoch of stagnation. However, such surveys must be evaluated taking into consideration the probability that perception following the collapse of the state was heavily clouded by nostalgia for the stable and controlled economy of the early Soviet era.