No. 7: Soviet Union collapses
Causes economic turmoil in Europe
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Editor's note: This story is part of a series titled "Top 10 News Events of Our Lives," published in December 2008. The stories were chosen and written by Daily staff writers. Our editors have shared some of their anecdotes on each event. We encourage you to leave your own memories in the Discussion section of each story.
In the early 1960s, in the heat of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a sign hung in the State Department Briefing Room that read as follows: “In a Nuclear Age, nations must make war like porcupines make love — carefully.”
The Cold War was a time of fear: Fear of global atomic war, fear of rival ideologies and fear that one side of the conflict would gain the upper hand. So when the news broke that one side had collapsed, it came as a surprise to the people who had been walking on pins and needles for more than 40 years.
“It was absolute shock,” said Richard Mansbach, professor of political science. “Retrospectively, it’s easy to say, ‘What did we miss?’ But it really was a complete shock.”
The Soviet Union fell apart in December of 1991, and most of today’s college students don’t remember it happening. However, in 1991 most of our parents and professors couldn’t remember a world without a Soviet presence and a Cold War.
Mansbach, who has done extensive study in international politics and will be teaching a mini-course on the Cold War next semester, still has an original sheet of instructions he was given as a child, titled “Six Survival Secrets for Atomic Attacks.”
“I do remember, as a kid, I had the sneaking suspicion that if I got underneath my school desk, that it wasn’t going to be sufficient to protect me from an atom bomb,” Mansbach said.
Many years later, when the news broke about the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Mansbach said he felt like he needed to pinch himself.
“I kept sitting there thinking, ‘Am I really seeing what I think I’m seeing?’ It took a while for it to sink in,” Mansbach said.
However, one ISU historian, who was living in Russia at the time and watched the Soviet Union disintegrate firsthand, said he wasn’t all that astonished by the news.
James Andrews, associate professor of history – modern Russian studies, has done extensive research and traveling in Russia in the last 26 years, and he was there during the months leading up to the Soviet Union’s downfall. He said since historians keep a close eye on certain aspects of society, they saw some warning signs that political analysts may not have caught on to.
“The historians saw that the society had changed dramatically,” Andrews said. “I witnessed a society that was much more educated, more able to filter propaganda, really ready for change.”
The focus of Andrews’ research in the Russian archives has been the study of the social and cultural history of Soviet science and technology. He has published several works on the subject, including a book called “Science for the Masses: The Bolshevik State, Public Science and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia.”
Technology weakens the Union
Science and technology were major players in the outcome of the Cold War, Andrews said, because in the later stages of the conflict, these were areas where the Soviet Union began to fall behind the United States.
“I think in terms of scientific and technical education, the Soviets were very competent. This was theoretical, particularly. But where they were lagging was in applied technology,” Andrews said.
In the United States, computer technology was coming into the public market, but there was a concern among the Soviets that if the Internet grew, the Communist party may be unable to control the flow of information.
As Russia fell further behind the United States technologically and militarily, Mansbach said its problems began to snowball.
“Literally, the Soviet system had failed. You were getting stories about everything they’d made, airplanes that would crash, television sets that would blow up,” Mansbach said.
Things continued like this until 1986, when Mikhael Gorbachev entered the scene.
“Gorbachev was a very unusual leader. Gorbachev recognized that the Soviet Union had to bring an end to the conflict if it were ever going to be able to acquire technology and the sort of tools that would allow it to modernize,” Mansbach said.
Gorbachev’s response, Mansbach said, was to introduce two new domestic policies called “perestroika” and “glasnost,” which called for the Soviet government to be more open and transparent. Gorbachev also allowed the reunification of Germany under the West and ordered troops in Eastern Europe back to Russia, which seemed very suspicious to most Americans, Mansbach said.
“He was doing things that actually unilaterally weakened the Soviet Union militarily to prove to the West that he meant business,” Mansbach said.
The people speak out
Meanwhile, Andrews said that these years were among the most interesting times he spent in Russia.
“You could see the Soviet Union unraveling to some extent in front of you,” Andrews said. “I witnessed these unbelievable open rallies that I had not seen for 10 years prior to that time, living and traveling in Russia.”
In October of 1990, Andrews said he attended one of these political protests. He brought his camera along, and in one of his photos, Boris Yeltsin and the then-mayor of Moscow are clearly recognizable. This photo is now framed and sitting on a shelf in Andrews’ office.
Andrews said for the most part the rallies were peaceful, and in some respects the Gorbachev years in Russia seemed more democratic than today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin.
“Gorbachev believed, and he may have been right, that you couldn’t have economic, technological growth without political liberalization,” Mansbach said. “You didn’t expect that that would then be followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.”
The aftermath
This side of the story has lasting implications on the world today, Mansbach said, as China, though it has opened up economically, still retains tight-fisted political control of its people.
“To this day, one of the interesting issues is can they get away with that? We don’t know,” Mansbach said.
He said the political effect of the Soviet Union’s demise was that it went from being a bipolar world to a unipolar world, in which the United States is the sole major military power.
“At least from a military perspective, you’ve got to go a pretty long distance down before you come to a competitor,” Mansbach said.
But Andrews said the implications of the Soviet Union’s collapse go well beyond politics.
“Never mind the foreign policy implications of the Cold War, but think about it domestically. Approximately one-sixth of the earth’s land mass is now going to try to transform itself,” Andrews said. “They’re still dealing with the aftermath of this.”
Seventeen years later, Mansbach looks back on the Cold War and hypothesizes about what the world would be like had the Soviet Union never collapsed.
“In some ways it would have been more orderly because both superpowers towed the line. Today, without that overarching concern, countries are more apt to go their own way,” Mansbach said.
However, Mansbach said, the fall of the Soviet Union has made for a higher level of globalization in the world today.
Even though most students don’t remember this momentous occasion, it’s hard to ignore the impact it has had on our lives. And though the world today is still not without fear, we no longer have to worry about the annihilation of the world at the press of a button.
Staff comments:
"The government lied to us, thinking that we, the uninformed public, would let them get away with it. The uncovering of the information regarding the motives of our officials has forced me to be more wary of governments’ power."
— Ryan Frederick, opinion editor
In the early 1960s, in the heat of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a sign hung in the State Department Briefing Room that read as follows: “In a Nuclear Age, nations must make war like porcupines make love — carefully.”
The Cold War was a time of fear: Fear of global atomic war, fear of rival ideologies and fear that one side of the conflict would gain the upper hand. So when the news broke that one side had collapsed, it came as a surprise to the people who had been walking on pins and needles for more than 40 years.
“It was absolute shock,” said Richard Mansbach, professor of political science. “Retrospectively, it’s easy to say, ‘What did we miss?’ But it really was a complete shock.”
The Soviet Union fell apart in December of 1991, and most of today’s college students don’t remember it happening. However, in 1991 most of our parents and professors couldn’t remember a world without a Soviet presence and a Cold War.
Mansbach, who has done extensive study in international politics and will be teaching a mini-course on the Cold War next semester, still has an original sheet of instructions he was given as a child, titled “Six Survival Secrets for Atomic Attacks.”
“I do remember, as a kid, I had the sneaking suspicion that if I got underneath my school desk, that it wasn’t going to be sufficient to protect me from an atom bomb,” Mansbach said.
Many years later, when the news broke about the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Mansbach said he felt like he needed to pinch himself.
“I kept sitting there thinking, ‘Am I really seeing what I think I’m seeing?’ It took a while for it to sink in,” Mansbach said.
However, one ISU historian, who was living in Russia at the time and watched the Soviet Union disintegrate firsthand, said he wasn’t all that astonished by the news.
James Andrews, associate professor of history – modern Russian studies, has done extensive research and traveling in Russia in the last 26 years, and he was there during the months leading up to the Soviet Union’s downfall. He said since historians keep a close eye on certain aspects of society, they saw some warning signs that political analysts may not have caught on to.
“The historians saw that the society had changed dramatically,” Andrews said. “I witnessed a society that was much more educated, more able to filter propaganda, really ready for change.”
The focus of Andrews’ research in the Russian archives has been the study of the social and cultural history of Soviet science and technology. He has published several works on the subject, including a book called “Science for the Masses: The Bolshevik State, Public Science and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia.”
Technology weakens the Union
Science and technology were major players in the outcome of the Cold War, Andrews said, because in the later stages of the conflict, these were areas where the Soviet Union began to fall behind the United States.
“I think in terms of scientific and technical education, the Soviets were very competent. This was theoretical, particularly. But where they were lagging was in applied technology,” Andrews said.
In the United States, computer technology was coming into the public market, but there was a concern among the Soviets that if the Internet grew, the Communist party may be unable to control the flow of information.
As Russia fell further behind the United States technologically and militarily, Mansbach said its problems began to snowball.
“Literally, the Soviet system had failed. You were getting stories about everything they’d made, airplanes that would crash, television sets that would blow up,” Mansbach said.
Things continued like this until 1986, when Mikhael Gorbachev entered the scene.
“Gorbachev was a very unusual leader. Gorbachev recognized that the Soviet Union had to bring an end to the conflict if it were ever going to be able to acquire technology and the sort of tools that would allow it to modernize,” Mansbach said.
Gorbachev’s response, Mansbach said, was to introduce two new domestic policies called “perestroika” and “glasnost,” which called for the Soviet government to be more open and transparent. Gorbachev also allowed the reunification of Germany under the West and ordered troops in Eastern Europe back to Russia, which seemed very suspicious to most Americans, Mansbach said.
“He was doing things that actually unilaterally weakened the Soviet Union militarily to prove to the West that he meant business,” Mansbach said.
The people speak out
Meanwhile, Andrews said that these years were among the most interesting times he spent in Russia.
“You could see the Soviet Union unraveling to some extent in front of you,” Andrews said. “I witnessed these unbelievable open rallies that I had not seen for 10 years prior to that time, living and traveling in Russia.”
In October of 1990, Andrews said he attended one of these political protests. He brought his camera along, and in one of his photos, Boris Yeltsin and the then-mayor of Moscow are clearly recognizable. This photo is now framed and sitting on a shelf in Andrews’ office.
Andrews said for the most part the rallies were peaceful, and in some respects the Gorbachev years in Russia seemed more democratic than today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin.
“Gorbachev believed, and he may have been right, that you couldn’t have economic, technological growth without political liberalization,” Mansbach said. “You didn’t expect that that would then be followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.”
The aftermath
This side of the story has lasting implications on the world today, Mansbach said, as China, though it has opened up economically, still retains tight-fisted political control of its people.
“To this day, one of the interesting issues is can they get away with that? We don’t know,” Mansbach said.
He said the political effect of the Soviet Union’s demise was that it went from being a bipolar world to a unipolar world, in which the United States is the sole major military power.
“At least from a military perspective, you’ve got to go a pretty long distance down before you come to a competitor,” Mansbach said.
But Andrews said the implications of the Soviet Union’s collapse go well beyond politics.
“Never mind the foreign policy implications of the Cold War, but think about it domestically. Approximately one-sixth of the earth’s land mass is now going to try to transform itself,” Andrews said. “They’re still dealing with the aftermath of this.”
Seventeen years later, Mansbach looks back on the Cold War and hypothesizes about what the world would be like had the Soviet Union never collapsed.
“In some ways it would have been more orderly because both superpowers towed the line. Today, without that overarching concern, countries are more apt to go their own way,” Mansbach said.
However, Mansbach said, the fall of the Soviet Union has made for a higher level of globalization in the world today.
Even though most students don’t remember this momentous occasion, it’s hard to ignore the impact it has had on our lives. And though the world today is still not without fear, we no longer have to worry about the annihilation of the world at the press of a button.
Staff comments:
"The government lied to us, thinking that we, the uninformed public, would let them get away with it. The uncovering of the information regarding the motives of our officials has forced me to be more wary of governments’ power."
— Ryan Frederick, opinion editor
Comments
What a triumph of propaganda this article is to go on about the fall of the Soviet Union without mentioning Reagan once. It's also a very impressive rewriting of history to place the glory of the Soviet decline on the beneficient acts of Gorbachev, whom you absurdly claim trimmed back the Soviet Union for the common good. It's incredible to see the Iowa State Daily peddle Soviet propaganda nearly two decades after it died.
It was Reagan who precipitated the collapse of the evil Soviet empire by increasing the military pressure, among other things. The Soviets were feeding the military machine at the expense of their people. Their system, which abhored independent thought, could not compete with capitalism and all the wonderful inventions it created. They couldn't reverse engineer our computers fast enough to stay even with us. Their system destroyed wealth nearly as fast as it created it, eventually bankrupting them.
When we introduced the Stealth fighter and the new generation of Stealth aircraft, it made junk of the entire Soviet air defense system, a system they could not afford to replace nor did they have any ideas of what to replace it with. They were just beat and gave up the game.
Gorbacheve did not oppose the dissolution of East Germany, as you absurdly claim, out of good will but out of weakness. They simply could not win the war in Europe they had prepared so long for. Reagan won it without firing a shot.
It was Reagan who freed a hundred million Eastern Europeans to live as they please, think as they please, work where they please, and travel where they please. Ask a Pole who freed Poland. The answer won't be Gorbachev. The average East European would be struck speechless to discover that any American is dumb enough to believe that Gorbachev freed them from Soviet rule.
Reagan had little to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union--he wasn't even president with the Soviet Union disbanded. That credit goes to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the Pope. Without Gorbachev's policies, the Soviet Union would be around today.
"That credit goes to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the Pope."--harry
2 icons and an evil church guy, right harry? What about George H.W. Bush, he was US president at the time? Show us your bias harry.
Okay, then tell us what George H.W. Bush did to dismantle the Soviet Union.
"Okay, then tell us what George H.W. Bush did to dismantle the Soviet Union."--harry.
He was president at the time.
"He was president at the time."
So?
Harry, that some pretty impressive lefty propaganda to say, with a straight face, that the Soviet Union defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Now do you think you'll find anyone dumb enough to believe it, anyone who's not a radical lefty numbskull, that is.
Harry, Craig is mocking your assertion that whatever president is in office at the time is responsible for everything that happenned. That absurd contention would lead you to believe that Bush was responsible for the downfall of the Soviet Union, not Reagan; that FDR was responsible for the Great Depression, that Andrew Johnson freed the slaves.
As fun as it is to torment you with your own logic, it seems cruel to taunt you when you don't understand.
"Harry, that some pretty impressive lefty propaganda to say, with a straight face, that the Soviet Union defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War."--Steve
er . . . I never said that. I said the Soviet Union collapsed because of Gorbachev and others. I never made the connection between the collapse and the cold war. You did.
Steve, if you want a serious discussion about this, okay.
The Soviet Union collapsed due to many factors over time, but the primary causes are due to Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika. These policies, while intended to bolster economic growth (which had been in decline since the 1950s), opened the doors for significant social change that shifted the power from the central government to the republics. After the failed August 1991 coup, Yeltsin's power increased and the central government was all but dead. Granted, these consequences were not intended by Gorbachev.
There were many who predicted that the USSR would fail years before it did--and years before Reagan was ever president. For example, Daniel Moynihan in 1975 argued that the Soviet Union was neither economically nor politically viable for the long term. Even the Reverend Sun Myung Moon identified the inherent problems in the 1970s. Reagan was, just like others, a predictor of the fall of Communism (although Communism has yet to end) and was, just like all other presidents during the cold-war, responsible for American policy towards the Soviets. Ultimately, however, the people of the Soviet Union dismantled their union because they preferred something else and Gorbachev's policies opened the doors for them.
Here is a pretty good article by an Oxford professor who is an expert in Soviet history: BBC - History - Reform, Coup and Collapse: The End of the So...
You said earlier: "It was Reagan who freed a hundred million Eastern Europeans to live as they please, think as they please, work where they please, and travel where they please. Ask a Pole who freed Poland. The answer won't be Gorbachev."
It was the Poles themselves, under the leadership of Leck Walesa, who began leading the Gdansk strikes in the summer of 1980 (well before Reagan was elected). Supported by the pope, his party, Solidarity, came to power in 1989, after Reagan was gone. Walesa became president of Poland in 1990.
So the propaganda is the legend that Reagan won the cold war and was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. This story was invented and propagated in order to bolster the myth of Reagan that conservatives have been creating since he left office.
Some interesting reading:
www.nytimes.com/...
Reagan: Media Myth and Reality
www.nytimes.com/...
William Blum: Reagan Didn't End the Cold War
Harry, if I wanted a serious discussion about the Soviet Union, I wouldn't banter with you. You're pure entertainment.
Hmmm. Who was Lech Walesa striking against, who, who, who? How about the Soviets who ran the puppet government in Poland? You know, the same Soviets you think defeated the Soviets and are really the good guys! Unfortunately for your fun-house mirror history, Lech Walesa, oddly enough, gives Reagan the credit for Polish freedom:
"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty."
www.tommyduggan.com/...
The Soviet Union did not collapse because of perestroika nor because the Soviets chose for it to collapse but rather because Communism is a failure. Economically and politically, communism simply does not work. Any country which adopts it is doomed to go bankrupt, as the Soviet Union did.
Perestroika was a desperate attempt to save the Soviet Union, not break it up. The Soviets often resorted to capitalism when in dire straits. When the collective farms didn't work, Stalin unveiled the New Economic Plan that allowed the farmers to tend private plots, plots that succeeded in feeding Russia where the collectives did not. They allowed a little capitalism to save communism. Gorbachev was hoping a little free speech would save Soviet communism. No such luck.
Perestroika was a pathetic attempt to revive communism, to revive the Soviet Union, so that it could continue. However, changing over from repressive communism to democratic capitalism just a little bit is like changing from driving on the left side of the road to the right side, an inch at a time. It's an all or nothing event.
The Soviet Union could have stumbled on for decades, even centuries, the sick man of Europe just like the Ottoman Empire did. It was Reagan who put the military and economic stress on it which forced it to collapse. And good riddance to it. If only its apologists and propagandists would follow it into the dustbin of history.
LOL. You take a piece that was intended as a tribut to Ronald Reagan and pass it off as an objective analysis. Well, you forgot to include this line: "Now, from the perspective of our time, it is obvious that like the pieces of a global chain of events, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and even Mikhail Gorbachev helped bring about this new age in Europe."
The fact remains that Solidarity began its revolt before Reagan was president.
You are correct in the claim that the Soviet Union failed because its system was unsustainable. Perestroika and glasnost were, indeed, attempts to save it. But, as I already pointed out, the unintended effects were to speed up the country's collapse.
Reagan did not bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is a myth and a lie to propagate such revisionist history. The Soviet Union's collapse had been in process for a long time. Reagan put no more stress on it than any other president or Western economic power. And China also contributed to the military stress against the Soviet Union.
There are two books you should take a look at if you are interested in learning some history.
DECONSTRUCTING REAGAN is an objective look at the myths Reagan's admirers have attached to his presidency by four historians. They analyze his economic, domestic, and foreign policies. And back everything up with facts giving credit where credit is due and critically examining the mistakes, faults, and failures.
REAGAN AND GORBACHEV: HOW THE COLD WAR ENDED is written by Jack Matlock, a special assistant to Reagan dealing with the Soviet Union. He argues that the cold war ended in 1988 when Gorbachev and Reagan essentially ended cold war policies. Together. He makes the case that Reagan did not have the end of the Soviet Union in mind and attempted to help Gorbachev strengthen the Soviet state because Reagan could work with him.
Again, there were many reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed and no one person is responsible for it. The policies of Gorbachev, in conjunction with his work with the West, ended the cold war and created other conditions that brought about the collapse. Those are the facts, not just the wishful revision of history.
Harry, you fail the laugh test when you offer a book titled "Deconstructing Reagan" as objective.
Everything the Soviets did had the unintended effect of breaking up the Soviet Union, not just glasnost and perestroika, because their idea of government was dysfunctional and immoral. Gorbachev was just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic with glasnost and perestroika.
The idea that Reagan wanted to prop up the evil empire of the Soviets is just nuts. This is the Reagan who told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, not shore it up. This is the Reagan who joked in the microphone that we start bombing the Soviet Union in ten minutes. This is the Reagan who said his strategy for dealing with the Soviets was "We win, they lose." And so it did.
The Cold War ended not because Gorbachev was so kind and cuddly, but because the failed Soviet Union was too exhausted and bankrupt to carry it on. And Reagan gave it the shove it needed to push it over the edge.
"Harry, you fail the laugh test when you offer a book titled "Deconstructing Reagan" as objective."
Then read it, as I have, and provide some examples to back your assertions.
"The idea that Reagan wanted to prop up the evil empire of the Soviets is just nuts."
So you are calling his negotiator/advisor a liar.
"This is the Reagan who told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, not shore it up."
The Berlin wall was not the Soviet Union.
"This is the Reagan who joked in the microphone that we start bombing the Soviet Union in ten minutes."
This joke was uttered before Gorbachev was in power.
You conflate the end of the cold war with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Two different events. While Reagan was, in conjunction with others, instrumental in ending cold war policies, he had nothing to do with the collapse of the nation. At least according to history.