Topic 5: The Cold War. Title and Author of Packet:

Transcription

1 Topic 5: The Cold War Title and Author of Packet: Major Theme: Origins of the Cold War Ideological Differences Mutual Suspicion and Fear From War me Allies to Post-War Enemies Major Theme: Nature of the Cold War Ideological Opposi on Superpowers and Spheres of Influence Alliances and Diplomacy in the Cold War Major Theme: Development and Impact of the Cold War Global Spread of the Cold War from its European Origins Ronald Regan s occupa on of Grenada in October 1983 Cold War Policies of Containment, Brinkmanship, Peaceful Coexistence, Détente Role of the United Na ons and the Non-Aligned Movement Role and Significance of Leaders Gorbachev peasant family, a ended Moscow State University - Rapid promo on, general secretary in 1985 Arms Race, Prolifera on and Limita on October 1986: failed summit mee ng, proposal to destroy all nuclear weapons within 10 years, aides stopped Regan - Gorbachev gained acclaim in the West for his refomrs Social, Cultural, and Economic Impact Major Theme: End of the Cold War Break-Up of Soviet Union: Internal Problems and External Pressures 1986: Gorbachev concluded that his early economic measures weren t working - Not enough to replace Brezhnev s personnel with younger officials

2 - A tudes and prac ces needed changing - Most party officials refused to recognize the problems: self interest and ignorance Glasnost: Gorbachev ini ated series of public debates - Broadly conno ng openness a voicing and a making public - Does not mean freedom of informa on - Gorbachev had no inten on of relinquishing capacity to decide the limits - Assumed that examina on of problems with a framework would lead to renaissance of Leninist ideals - Glavit, which censored all printed materials, instructed from June 1986 to relax its rules - USSR Union of writers welcomed the relaxa on of rules - Glasnost sharpened mainly by newspapers and magazines - Moscow News, Ogonek ( Li le Spark ), and Arguments and Facts: only became radical when in 1986 aquired new editors Yegor Yakovlev, Vitali Koro ch, and Vladislav Starkov - priority to subject Soviet history to public reconsidera on - permission given to Repentence: sa rized Stalin years and Onward! Onward! Onward!: parlousness of Lenin in the face of Stalin - Gorbachev needed comprehension of the past in order to change the present - Invited Andrei Sakharov to return from exile on December 16, Wrote Perestroika and speech on seven eth anniversary, published in November 1987: denounced regime s command-administra ve system, hymed the people more than the party, treated October and February revolu ons as truly popular movements, admira on for mixed economy and cultural effervescence of NEP, praised Lenin, professed benefits of collec viza on - S ll saw virtue in achievements of 1 st 5 year plan and victory in WW2 - S ll had not clarified details of objec ves - Regarded objec ves as a ainable without the disbandment of the one-party system - Media of public communica on filed with accounts of the terror of the Stalin error and injurious consequences of Brezhnev Economic A empts to Change - Law on State Enterprise: restrict authority of the central planning authori es - Delibera ons to introduce the link system to agriculture - Commission set up to dra a law on Co-opera ves - Gorbachev put greatest effort into ideological and poli cal measures - June 1987: succeeded with dra Law on State Enterprise: right of each factory labour force to elect own director, gave right to factories and mines to decide what to produce a er sa sfying basic requirements, enterprises permi ed to set their own wholesale prices, central controls over wage levels relaxed

3 - Law on State Enterprise set to come into effect in January Establishment of 5 state owned banks: operate without day to day interven on by Central State Bank - Similar to Lenin s NEP allowance for a private sector in services and small scale industry, reintroduc on of mixed industry - S ll predominance of stat ownership and regula on - Implementa on problema c communist intellectuals a racted to Gorbachev, party func onaries were not - Gorbachev was not a leader who thought he merely had to learn from capitalist countries: new model of poli cal democracy, economic efficiency, and social jus ce, considered country in a pre-crisis condi on - If USSR wanted to remain military power had to abandon over-centralized methods - Declined to reject tradi onal class-based analysis - Gorbachev s comprehension of economic principles rudimentary - Perestroika restructure - Law against Unearned income - Campaign against alcoholism - GNP was lower than during Brezhnev Resis ng change - Ligachev: played off of Yeltsin, a acked him in force: made it impossible to withdraw October 1987 resigna on - Published le er from Nina Andreeva who demanded the rehabilita on of Stalin s reputa on Ideological/Poli cal Measures - Progress on economic front impeded un l opposi on broken in the party - Cajoled Politburo into holding a Central Commi ee plenum: began 27 January 1987 went on offensive: called for blank spots in the central party textbooks to be filled, denounced Stalin and his policies, dismissed Brezhnev as a period of stagna on declared the leaving of cadres in posts had been taken to the extremes of absurdity - Gained assent to the elec on rather than appointment of party commi ee secretaries, assigna on of non-party members to high public office - Had hoped to avoided backlash by pu ng younger people in the Polituburo - New incumbents made li le effort to alter local prac ces - Gorbachev con nued to make local appointments because very few democra c processes occurred - January 1987 Central Commi ee met - Gorbachev supported party rank and file revolt - Met with Regan many mes - Oppened 19 th Party Conference with confidence: called for disbanding of

4 economic departments in the Cedntral Commi ee Secretariat, reduce party apparatus in Moscow, create a Congress of Peoples Depu es of 2,250 with 2/3rds through universal sufferage and 1/3 from the party - Assaulted party s preroga ves: local first secretaries should submit for reelec on - Ligachev received applause, Gorbachev only when he made more conserva ve statements - Gorbachev revealed schedule for implemen ng the cons tu onal amendments, w/o which the central and local party would have engaged in endless procras na on - Wanted amendments to be in place by autumn 1988 and general elec on to be in spring Got approval by delegates Gorbachev had to discover like minded radicals to help him refashion public opinion - Yeltsin: Moscow Party City Commi ee First Secretary travelled to office by bus rather than chauffeur, sacked hundreds of corrupt or idle func onaries - Urged faster pace of reform and broader dimension for glasnost - Sackings le few in a responsible job, Gorbachev tried to protect him - Stressed desire to remove privileges of Mikhail and Gorbachev - Lacked tac cal finesse, troubled, angry, impulsive, no coherent program - Exhausted pa ence of the General Secretary - October 1987 Gorbachev accepted Yeltsin s resigna on: in hospital, pumped full of chemicals, called into Moscow City Party Organiza on: forced to confess, denounced and sacked as party secretary, Gorbachev appointed him as Deputy Chairman of State Construc on Commi ee out of pity - A empted to regain party standing in 19 th Party Congress: Ligachev tore him apart and Yeltsin was refused - Alexander Yakovlev: department chief in the Secretariat in 1985, became Central Commi ee Secretary in Supervised publica on of material of abuses under Brezhnev and Stalin - Depicted Bukharin as the one who deserved to succeed Lenin - Such figures were rari es - Most officials only wanted minimal reforms - Gorbachev turned for help to the intelligentsia, placed wager on their loyalty and skills in communica on - Preference for those who believed that Marxism-Leninism had been distorted - Since 1960 s several scholars, writers, and administrators that had lived a life of dispiri ng frustra on under Brezhnev - By the mid 1980 s this was a late middle-aged genera on: although admirers of Khrushchev, by no means uncri cal of him: felt he had failed because his reforms had been too mid - w/o the zeal of supporters Gorbachev would have already failed - most supporters had traveled outside of the USSR, read Western literature, and

5 Breakdown of Soviet Control Over Central and Eastern Europe listened to radio sta ons - saw Gorbachev as their savior when he reveled himself as a Child of the Twen eth Congress - Gorbachev was a disorganized thinker: sociological understandings more impressive because his wife had wri en a disserta on on contemporary rural rela onships Gorbachev announced inten on to make swi withdrawal from Afghanistan - April Feelers put out to China - Need for global piece - Promised recall of 6 divisions from Eastern Europe - Cut military spending by 1/10 - Con nued to ba er down the system to try and build it back up Imperial Considera ons - Did not take recogni on of the role of the Soviet Union as an imperial power - Most conceded was that mistakes had been made in Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in Called for fresh agenda for Eastern Europe - Asserted that foreign policy should be based on common human values - Con nued to treat Soviet society as a single organism and made li le allowanced for the different interests - Excluded favorable men on of the Russians in the 1986 Party Program and affirmed the full unity of na ons - Gave assurance that there would be no Russifica on campaign - No other prac cal changes followed - Gorbachev not a pure Russian, half Ukrainian - When visited Ukraine in 1986 spoke about Russia and the USSR as if they were coextensive, na onal sensi ves were outraged - Non-Russians had been prevented from expressing grievances - Party slow to perceive risks with Glasnost - Resentment rose over appointment of Russian func onaries over local, more scandals exposed in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan than Russia - Kazakhstan first secretary Dinmukhammed Kunaev compelled to re re in December 1986, Geider Aliev from Azerbaijan dropped from Politburo - Politburo mainly Slavic, Eduard Shevardnadze sole remaining non-slav - Intelligentsia condemned horrors perpetuated upon the Kazakh people in the name of communism - Na onalist resurgence quieter but more defiant in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - Stalin s incorpora on of the Bal c states had never obtained official recogni on in the West - Demonstra ons in Latvia in June 1986: joined by Lithuania and Estonia - Degree of autonomy demanded was rising

6 - August 1987: demonstra ons held to mark anniversary of 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty - USSR contained many inter-ethnic rivalries: between Armenians and Azeris in Sumgait, dozens of Armenians killed - June 1988: Lithuanian na onalists formed Sajudis other popular fronts formed in Latvia and Estonia - Tranquility in Russia and Ukraine gave grounds for official op mism: contained 7/10s of popula on, most ci zens not revol ng, as well as 25 million outside of RSFSR - No analogous front in Russia: Pamyat had no commitment to democracy - Gorbachev judged situa on containable - Underes mated ability of Ligachev to play off it - Soviet Union remained one party state but had lost much of its power - Gorbachev spoke fervently in favor of reforms in Eastern Europe - Studiously avoided instruc ng Warsaw Pact Countries - Just le them to do what they wanted - Focused on rela ons with the U.S. Gorbachev described country s condi on as socialism in the process of selfdevelopment sugges ng that socialism had not yet been built in the USSR. Clashed with Leninist tradi on: Lenin contented that everything poli cal had roots in class struggle, Leninists tradi onally unembarrassed about advoca ng dictatorship, lawlessness, and war - Gorbachev misconceived his idol, he was not alone - Poli cs were being transformed based on faulty historiography. Image of Bukharin as harmless dreamer was at variance with historical reality. Gorbachev needed posi ve stories about Soviet communism. According to an American tourist we will bury you. Service Gorbachev was not a poli cal liberal. If only the first decade of the USSR s history was officially deemed to have been beneficial, how could the Politburo jus fy its con nuing rule? Gorbachev did not order mass execu ons but his reac on to the decline of the USSR was. The CPSU considers that such abuses of democra za on run fundamentally counter to the task of restructuring and are contrary to the interests of the people. -Gorbachev