During 1989-1991, the world witnessed a unique phenomenon rolling through the countries of the Middle and South-eastern Europe, where revolutionary transformations caused a whole empire to collapse. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent transition to capitalist economies marked a new epoch and a new placement of powers in the world.
The Soviet Union, being the first in successfully setting a communist-controlled government, requires a thorough analysis of the stages of communism development, the influence on its satellite states, and accordingly its subsequent collapse. In that regard, this paper traces such development, including subsequent transition to capitalist economy, stating that gradual reforms might have led the Soviet Union to such transition more smoothly.
The Soviet Union
In order to understand the processes which occurred in the Soviet Union and led to its disintegration and collapse, it is necessary to consider the development of the state, form of government, the state regime, the form of the administrative-territorial device, along with some other problems of the Soviet statehood. The constitution of 1918 has fixed and has strengthened the Soviet state as the type of the state which openly proclaimed inequality of social layers, and the use of violence for the realization of its goals, one of which was the world revolution.
According to the form of the government, the Soviet state was proclaimed republic. However it was rather an exotic kind of republic, where its division of the authorities was denied and, on the contrary, the unity of all branches of the power in the Soviets was proclaimed, where deputy corpus of the Soviets passes laws, executes them, and supervises their execution.
The political mode was totalitarian, where the Soviet state interfered with all spheres of life activities of the society, penetrated into all the details, and established government control over almost all public organizations, but at the same time created practice and ideology of a social dependence. According to this ideology many members of the society, by agreeing to the control from the state, depend on the direct help, and the state’s concern in the education sphere, public health services, science, social insurance, personal sphere, labor activity (formal absence of unemployment, employment provision), and in other areas of life of a society.
The Development of Communism
The path of communism in the Soviet Union might be related to two main aspects occurring at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first one is Lenin’s role as a follower of Marxist teachings, where his writings on socialist society and the role of proletariat helped him seize the power right before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The second aspect can be seen through the Bolshevik revolution itself, which combined with the conditions of the First World War and the revolt against the czar in 1905, helped setting the ground for the start of a communist government.
Seizing power after the revolution, Lenin during the period of his reign form 1917-1924, using force and terror against his opponents managed to take over the agriculture and the industries and restore the economy from its near collapse conditions by introducing the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921.
NEP was a policy that allowed the cooperation with social layers which were considered mostly as capitalists in post November revolution Russia allowing leasing and the use of their own productive assets. This period could be considered as prosperous in many ways as it can be considered as small-scale capitalism, and it can be argued that the development of the Soviet Union might have gone in different direction if NEP was established for a long-term period.
The Soviet Union was established in 1922, and after the death of Lenin in 1924, the one-party state took the shape of a dictatorship under the rule of Stalin.
Stalin “Socialism in One Country” emphasized heavy industrialization and collectivization in agriculture that brought about significant results in iron, steel, coal, and oil production, and the bringing of electricity to much of the country. The massive command economy created by Stalin was headed by Gosplan, the state planning commission that set quotas for all items produced by Soviet workers (Watson).
Small-scale capitalism was stopped with abolishing NEP during Stalin’s rule, but nevertheless another form of capitalism could be witnessed, where state capitalism was established as the only class structure of industrial enterprises up until 1940 (Resnick and Wolff). It cannot be said the during Stalin’s reign the state form was absolutely negative. It was during Stalin’s years that the country was literally restored from ruins, achieved a huge industrial progress, and based on the scale of national education, science, culture and sport the country reached topped positions in the world.
Nevertheless, ruling with an iron hand the growth in the economy came at great costs of millions of human lives and personal freedom. During the rule of Stalin any opposition t the regime was eliminated, were Stalin even oppressed his previous communist companions. The rule of oppression might have been weakened during World War II, but it was returned after the end of the war. Additionally, it was during Stalin’s era that the first spread of communism outside of the Soviet Union was made thorough the expansion of the Soviet Empire after dividing post war Europe into two camps;
Stalin also presided over the creation of an external Soviet empire in eastern Europe when the Red Army occupied Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania (the countries of the future Warsaw Pact after World War II). These states, which became client regimes dependent on Moscow, were economically drained by the USSR from 1945 to 1950 to help bolster the war-ravaged Soviet economy. In time, however, they were guaranteed certain economic and military subsidies from the USSR – such as guaranteed purchases of their products at artificially high prices, and cheap weapons systems (Watson).
It should be noted that although relying mainly on the ideology of communism, each leader in each epoch had a unique style which was reflected through the changes made in that era. In that regard, it can be state that the period of Khrushchev, who became the head of the Communist party after the death of Stalin, and subsequently the head of the Soviet Union, was the most exemplary of the personal style being reflected through ideology.
Nikita Khrushchev was crude, energetic, impatient, optimistic, bold, innovative, reckless, thoroughly pragmatic, and, yet, imbued with a simple-minded belief in articles of Communist faith and equally capable of benevolence and ruthlessness. Those qualities were reflected in the ideological innovations stimulated by Khrushchev (Evans, p. 57).
The style of governance during Khrushchev reign introduced several reforms which resulted in some gains, and while a part of his policy was criticizing Stalin’s regime, this period did not grant freedom as I was expected by people in the Soviet Union. Additionally, Khrushchev’s period was distinguished by the race for competitive strategic advantage against USA, where his global interest was reflected through internal crises which led to his forced retirement in 1964.
Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev after the latter’s retirement, where even more resources were spent on the foreign policy. Referring to the ideology as a developed and mature communism (Evans), Brezhnev years also “a time of a pronounced growth in the Soviet government bureaucracy” (Watson).
Brezhnev’s death in 1982, was followed by two leader Andropov and Chernenko, who were not notable for any deep changes, rather than being transitional figures until they both died after ruling two and one year respectively. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the head of the country were his program of reforms (perestroika) was believed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet system (Watson). His period demonstrated improved relations with the United States, increased freedom of expression (glasnost) and the rise of the private business sector after removing the ban on business.
After unsuccessful coup Gorbachev resigned as the party’s leader, but was still the head of the government. “Full-fledged independence movements got under way in all three Baltic republics in the fall of 1988, and in the Caucasian republic of Georgia in early 1989” (Watson), by 1991 most of the republic declared their independence announcing the end of Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Addressing the causes that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism, the absence of democracy and the practice of oppression can be seen as the main cause for the ideology to fail. In that regard, the transition to capitalist economy can be seen as difficult at the first stages after the collapse, specifically considering the fact that in many cases the previous system was still influencing the governance in terms of its centralization. In the case of Russia, this facto were combined with “national minority unrest, relations with neighboring states in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that contain Russian minority populations, and a struggling capitalist economy that is troubled by corruption.” (Watson 47) In that regard, the transition to market economy, occurred without any preparation, and thus made the transition to cause a default. In contrary, the situation in China, where the communist regime was similar to that of the USSR was different in a way that the reforms took gradual turn in making a transition to the market economy.
In conclusion, it should be stated that different ideologies, i.e. capitalism and communism both have their own flaws, but nevertheless, the importance of democracy and freedom can be seen as the distinguishing factor for both seemingly powerful directions. In that regard, the freedom of expression announced by Gorbachev let the steam go out and speed up what would have naturally occurred much earlier. In that regard, the examples of transition in countries such as, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, were more successful because the control over them by the Soviet Union was lost earlier allowing for reforms to take place with the disintegration from communist leadership.
Works Cited
- “A History of Communism in the Ussr”. 2008. Socyberty.
- Evans, Alfred B. Soviet Marxism-Leninism : The Decline of an Ideology. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993.
- Resnick, Stephen A., and Richard D. Wolff. Class Theory and History : Capitalism and Communism in the Ussr. New York ;: London : Routledge, 2002.
- Watson, William E. The Collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union. Greenwood Press Guides to Historic Events of the Twentieth Century,. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.