THE BREAKUP OF THE SOVIET UNION, 1991 term paper

The end of the Soviet Union was also the end of the Russian revolutionary experiment. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, first tried perestroika (restructuring), glasnost’ (openness), and novoye mysl’ (new thinking), then a series of political maneuvers that called into question the monopoly of power by the Communist Party and the integrity of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev’s most successful policy was new thinking in foreign affairs. He succeeded in convincing President Ronald Reagan of the value of détente and began the process of disarmament. In the Soviet bloc his policies contributed to the East European Revolutions of 1989. Glasnost’ was also successful. Soviet citizens enjoyed greater freedom of discussion. The new openness, however, revealed more problems than solutions. And much of the criticism was directed against the Communist Party.

Perestroika, especially in the economic sphere, was unsuccessful. The Soviet economy, skewed toward heavy industry and with only a few sectors competitive with capitalist economies, could not keep pace with technological change. To the end, the bureaucracy resisted the necessary restructuring.

By 1989 Gorbachev had reached an impasse, which he tried to overcome through a fourth policy, demokratizatsia (democratization). In March 1989 Soviet voters elected the Congress of People’s Deputies in an election featuring secret ballots and multiple candidates.

Democratization was of limited value as long as the Communist Party retained a monopoly of power. In 1990 and 1991, as Gorbachev tried to use democracy to undermine the strength of the party and the governmental bureaucracy, he also contended with the efforts of the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to leave the Soviet Union. In April 1991, however, agreement was reached on a new treaty on the federal structure of the Soviet Union, and signing was set for August.

Before the signing could take place, some party and government officials attempted a coup. Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected president of the Russian Republic,defied the leaders of the coup and rallied the military behind him. When Gorbachev returned to Moscow, he found political conditions changed. He hesitated to take strong action against the Communist Party and the KGB, the secret police. Instead, Yeltsin took the initiative. He and other leaders set up a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union. The revolutionary experiment would not likely have survived much longer in any case. It was ironic that Gorbachev, a true believer in the communist system, was the prime mover in its dissolution.

The breakup of the Soviet Union not only marked the end of a revolutionary experiment dating back to 1917 but also the end to the Cold War that had done so much to shape world history since the end of World War II. The Russian Republic, the main successor state to the Soviet Union, remained a great power but one in transition both politically and economically.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Why was Gorbachev so successful in foreign policy matters as leader of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991?
2. In 1987 Boris Yeltsin was fired as Moscow party chief and also lost his place in the Politburo. Investigate his career between 1987 and 1991 and determine how he was able to make a political comeback and how one might explain his heroic role in the resistance to the 1991 coup.
3. Review Gorbachev’s attempt to make perestroika a reality in the Soviet economy. What factors account for his failure here?
4. What role did the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, play in the unraveling of the Soviet Union? (Pay particularly close attention to the period 1989–1991.)
5. Do a research report on the media’s role in the defeat of the coup in 1991. Examine, for example, the coverage by CNN and the use of the fax machine.
6. Examine the history of the Russian Republic from the dissolution of the Soviet Union to the cease-fire in the war with Chechnya (1991–1996) and evaluate the successes and failures of Yeltsin’s presidency.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ at the Twentieth Party Congress, 1956” (#51), “SALT I Agreement, 1972” (#74), and “Chernobyl, 1986” (#86). Search under Edvard Shevardnadze, Egor Ligachev, Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan), Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or “Star Wars”), and Afghanistan.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Gorbachev, Mikhail. The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Gorbachev’s version of events.

———. Memoirs. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Gorbachev’s story, covering all of the important events. Yeltsin, Boris. Against the Grain: An Autobiography. New York: Summit Books, 1990. Yeltsin’s story of his life to 1990.

———. The Struggle for Russia. New York: Random House, 1994. The saga continues.

Secondary Sources

Dallin, Alexander, and Gail Lapidus, eds. The Soviet System from Crisis to Collapse. Rev. ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995. An important collection of articles.

Denber, Rachel, ed. The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992. A useful collection of studies of an important topic.

Dunlop, John B. The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. An excellent study of these interrelated topics.

Fish, Stephen M. Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. An interim report; insightful and solid.

Hoskings, Geoffrey A. The Awakening of the Soviet Union. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. A useful survey of the Gorbachev era.

Lieven, Anatole. The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. A dependable discussion of this vital topic.

Matlock, J. F., Jr. Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Random House, 1995. A massive, well-informed account.

Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire.New York: Random House, 1993. An insightful and highly readable account.

Urban, Michael, with Vyacheslav Igrunov and Sergei Mitrokhin. The Rebirth of Politics in Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Up-to-date and well-informed.

Watson, William E. The Collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. A good overview for students, with accompanying biographical profiles and primary documents.

White, Stephen. Gorbachev and After. 4th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. An excellent summary of the Gorbachev era.