Perestroika, glasnost, democratization

“…when four great transformations - even … revolutions - were begun under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev: attempts to transform the authoritarian political system into some kind of democracy, the state command economy into a market-based one, the Moscow dominated “union” into an authentic federation, and the country’s forty-year Cold War with the West into a ‘strategic partnership’.” (Stephen F. Cohen)

Eduard Shevardnadze becomes Foreign Minister, proclaims the “Sinatra doctrine”

1985 December Gorbachev brings Eltsin to Moscow to head the party apparatus for the city

1987 Eltsin criticizes Gorbachev openly in Committee, divested of power

"Struggle against alcoholism” May 1985-1990

Clumsy program of destroying vineyards, increasing cost of vodka, closing beer halls

Government propaganda created resentment

Loss of 10 billion Rubles of state income

Huge growth in production of samogon

February – March First mention of perestroika at Party Congress

April: Chernobyl disaster

December: Sakharov brought back from exile in Gorky

February 1986 27th Party Congress Objective: “acceleration” of the economy, overcome

stagnation Restructuring of the economy, injecting reality into targets

and prices, allowing enterprises to make their own decisions, keep the profits from new enterprises and production

Central planning and control remained: half-way solution

January at Plenum of Politburo economic and political reforms announced

Rehabilitation of victims of Stalin announced

Eltsin attacks Gorbachev, resigns from Politburo

The year of glasnost

March: Nina Andreyeva’s letter in Sovetskaya Rossiya

May: Law on cooperatives, allowing private business

June: Gorbachev proposes a new Congress of People’s deputies

December Armenian Earthquake, 45,000 killed.

Inspired by the NEP (Lenin’s New Economic Policy) of the 1920s

May 1988 Law on cooperatives - essentially private businesses - approved

Private banks began to be allowed

Russian businesses permitted to deal with foreign partners directly

No rules to govern private economy: laws, contract enforcement

Criminals quickly learned to exploit system: take-overs of businesses, protection rackets

Prices not decontrolled; budget had huge deficit, money printed to cover deficit led to huge increase in real price inflation

Profits syphoned into offshores Shortages continued: perestroika discredited

Theory: Open discussion of problems as a means to achieve real efficiencies

By 1988 censorship lifted from literature, film, the arts. Now Soviet citizens can read anything…

Led to questions about “blind spots” of history: Katyn execution of Polish officers, the hidden protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, the Gulags and Stalin’s show trials, esp. Nikolai Bukharin

Approved by 19th Party Conference in July 1988

Objective: Transfer of control of state from Party to semi-elected Congress of People’s Deputies and Supreme Soviet elected by it

750 members from districts, 750 from territories, 750 from “public organizations” including 100 from Communist Party: First meeting 1989.

15 March 1990 Congress elected President of the USSR.

January – February withdrawal from Afghanistan March-April Elections to Congress June Tianan Men Square incident in China: dissidence suppressed 9 November Berlin Wall comes down November – December Communists ousted throughout Soviet bloc: GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania. December 14: Sakharov dies

Open discussion of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

As central power was loosened, republics begin to demand their languages be given prime status over Russian: Ukrainian, Georgian, etc.

Baltic Republics Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and also Moldova (formerly Bessarabia) demand and start to declare their independence

Germany is being reunited  Other Soviet bloc members “do it their wa

y ” Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Prize for

Peace Gorbachev chosen president of the

Supreme Soviet of the USSR BUT crisis looms in Soviet leadership:

Yakovlev, Shevardnadze forced out in December. Is another Tiananmen looming?

September 9 Alexander Men murdered

September: Battle over 500 Days reform program for economy

Ended Cold War

Brought the USSR out of Afghanistan

Moved USSR towards elected democracy and free economy

Nearly succeeded in saving a reformed USSR

Was he a “dissident” or a “Menshevik”?

Many reforms resembled those proposed by Sakharov

Remained wedded to Communist Party

Economic difficulties created by gradual reforms made him deeply unpopular.