Figure 1.--. |
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Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev played a central role in ending the Cold War. Thus is a role that often does not get the attention it deserves. Americans tend to focus on President Reagan. The Russians would lik to forget Gorbechov because he was largely respionsible for the implosion of the Soviet Inion. Unlike Reagan, he is not a popular figure in his own country. The relaxation of the police state role and the openness that he sought in effect destroyed the Soviet Union and its Eastern European Empire. Gorbachev was unwilling to use the instruments of state security to suppress the people of Eastern Europe and the nationalities within the Soviet Union. This seems to have been essentially a matter of morality. It is unclear to what extent he realized the consequences of his actions. Like many in the Soviet Union, he believed in Communism. This is understandable, because Soviet schools and universities, permitted no real discussion of the fundamental tennants of Communism. Gorbechov and his advisers thought it just needed to be reformed and given a humane force. As far as we can detrmine, he did not understand thefindamental flaws in Communism or the fact that Communist rule could only be sustained by brute force and a secret police. In the end the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991. This was not Gorbachev's intention, but he inadvertently launched a new undivided and much freer Europe. [Hitchcock] He has survived the tumultuous events and lives quitely in Moscow. He has not, however, explained his decesions or subsequent imapct of those decesions.
Mikhail's parents were peasants. Family origins or more precisely class background was important in the Soviet Union. A peasant background was an assett.
Mikhail Gorbachev was born in the Caucasus region where a famine was raging. The year 1931 was when Stalin launched his collectivization campaign and set out to destroy the Ukranian peasantry with an enginered famine. Part of the collectivization campaign was to destroy the Kulaks-- essentially the country's best farmers. Soviet agriculture never recovered. And it would be one of the many problems he was faced with when he became General Secretary.
Gorbachev was aaccepted to study at Moscow State University (1950). This was the Soviet Ynuin's premier univrsity. This was a much-sought opportunity. He studied law and as expected by the staff, joined the Communist Party. He soon became a full member (1952).
Gorbachev did not become important until the early 1980s. It was at this time that premier Yuri Andropov began to see him as his protégé. Andropov had been the director of the dreaded secret police--the KGB. As such he was the ultimate Cold War warrior. It is one of the ironies of history that it was the KGB in essence that hand picked Gorbachev--the man who eventually was responsible for the destruction of the KGB, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union. Andropov was an elderly man in poor health. His death was soon followed by that of his replacement, Konstantin Chernenko. Perhaps because of Stalin and even Khrechev, the Soviets had chosen elderly, often faceless men as leaders. The result was perhaps what they wanted--stability. They also got leaders who were unwilling to adjust Soviet society. As a results, problems festered and were covered over--especially the economy. Following Cherneko's death, the relatively Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party (1985). The series of eldely faceless beaureacrats as leaders, especially the deaths of so many in such a short time had proven unsettling. Also was the growing realization that the Soviet economy was in crsis and that bold laedership was needed to address the problems.
Gorbachev was elected Secretary General at a difficult time in domestic and world affairs (1985). The Soviet economy was failing in contrast to the robust economies of the West. Thiswas not suposed to happen. After World War II, the Communists expected the superority of Communism to out pace Western capitalism. Just the opposite was happening. In world affairs the Soviet hardliners had ditched Détente and not only launched an effort to achieve nuclear superiority in Europe with the deployment of advanced IRBMs (1976), but also invaded Afghanistan (1979). This was a factor in President Reagan's election (1980). And Reagan launched a massve arms program at a time The failure of the Hardliners was a facyor in Girbechev's rise to power. He wanted to reform the Sovuet system, but his was in possible if he had to match the American arms effort.
The Soviet Union at the time was a feared superpower. The Soviets had, however, serious domestic problems. The most serious was the stagnant economy. Soviet workers were among the most poorly paid in the industrial world. They were also extremely inefficent. This was primarily due to thre archaic plants, mills, and mines. The Soviet Union could and did export raw materials, but Soviet industrial products were almost unsaleable outside the Soviet Union and satellite states. One exception was military arms, which were generally high quality, but these were either given away to allies or sold on credit. (The Russians are still trying to collect payment, with little success.) A Soviet joke at the time, highlights the problems in the reputed woirker paradise, "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."
Military spending was spiraling out of control because of the escalating Cold War. President Reagan in America had ordered a massive military buildup and proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Reagan was convinced that SDI provided the only real security from nuclear attack. Gorbachev realized that to meet the American challenge would mean an expanded arms race that the Soviet economy would have greatly difficulty financing. Worse still, SDI would mean a race in space involving electronics and computers--areas in which the Soviets were far behind the Americans. Also Gorbachev saw how the attempt to achieve nuclear superiority in Europe with the SS-20 intermediate range ballistic missles had failed. The IRBM confrontation had been a costly and in the end counter-productive effort. (Although the of wide-spread protest in Western Europe during the early 1980s, the deployment in response of American Pershing IIs played a major role in convincing the Soviet leadership that continued escalation of the arms race was both wasteful and counter productive. Gorbachev was one of the Soviet leaders reaching this conclusion.) At the same time, it had convinced many Americans that he Soviet Union was out fir world domination and a massive new arms program was necessary.
Gorbachev was only 54 years when elected General Sectretary (1985). He was young and healthy and an largely unknown face in both the Soviet Union and the West. He was unlike any of the seven Soviet leaders who preceeded him. He was also committed to reform, including reforms of the Communist Party. He was a true believer in Communism. He believed that reforms could solve Soviet problems. Gorbachev persued profound changes in domestic affairs but short of market reforms and attempted to reach and understanding with America to avoid a new arms race.
Gorbachev was no closet capitalist. He was a child of the Revolution. Educated im Stalinist schools. He had not traveled and was unfamiliar with the West. He thoroughly believed in Communism. He believed that all that was necessary to rescue the Soviet Union was reforms. He did not question the basic Communist system. He did question the police state aparatus and lack of openess. Gorbachev as Secretary General implemented a series of reforms that he believed would both improve Soviet living standards and worker productivity. Gorbachev sought to introduce a measure of democracy to Soviet society. His reforms were built around Glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructure). Ironically only a few years earlier, Communist leaders in China had launched market reforms, meaning capitalism but retaine police state controls. Gorbechev tried the opposite, he did not initiate radical market reforms, but did loosen police state controls. Unlike the Chinese, he still belived in Communism.
One imponderable in any discussiin of Gorbechev is what was going through his mind. We know some of it. He clearly saw that economic stagnation was adversely affecting the country and launched major reforms. Less clear are his thoughts on defense. The Soviet Union was a military super power. It was invulnerable to military attack and had an awesome offensive capability. This was achieve at huge cost which was one reason the economy was stagnating. And because of the Soviet penchant for secrecy, scientific advances achieved by the scientific-military complex were not allowed to be passed on to the civilian economy. Thus at the same time Gorbechev was faced with the need to cut back on military spending to assist the economy, President Reagan began talking about Star Wars, a missle defense system. Gorbechev concluded that competing with the americans in this new arena woulf be hugely expensive. Not only could he not reduce mikirary sopending, but he would have to dramatically increase military spending--something the moribund economy could not support. Now we know tioday that Regan's vision of a balistic missle shoeld was a dream. The technology just was not there. Reagan was, however, serious and Gorbechev seems to have consudered in an immedfiate threat. We are not entirely sure why. Perhaps Girbechev and the KGB took Regan seriously. But we also belive that Hollywood and popular culture played a role. Hollywood through the Korean War was a fervent backer of America and anti-Communist. This changec with the Vietnam War. Hollywood and the media began to question America and Cold War opposition to Communism. Note that the Evil Empire depicted in 'Star Wars' was clearly a Fascist not a Communist state. But the popularization of Star Wars may well have played a role in making President Reagan's proposed balistic missle shield believeable to Gorbechev and the Soviet leadership. The Soviets had lost the space race, there was no reason to think that they would not lose the Star Wars race with much more serious consequences.
Gorbachev engaged Western leaders. He sought to work on the common interests of both Soviets and Europeans to begin to seriously discuss missile reductions. Prime-minister Thatcher in Britain met him and declared he was a man she could "do business with". The key Western leader that Gorbachev would havecto do business with was American President Ronlad Reagan.
President Regan had embarked on a massive round of military spending and who had made his political reputation as a Cold Warrior. Regan in 1983 called the Soviet Union "the Evil Empire"--hardly a place that swould be changed bu a few superficial reforms. Reagan and other americans were unsure what to make of the new Sovier Sectretary General. They met, at the first arms summit in Geneva (1985). Gorbachev put a human face on the hitherto faceless enemy. for the President. Afterwards, Reagan remarked, "There was warmth in his face and his style, not the coldness bordering on hatred I'd seen in most senior Soviet officials I'd met until then." He sensed as he described "the moral dimension in Gorbachev." Gorbachev, in turn, called Reagan a great
American and a great leader. These were his public pronouncements. We do not have any frank statements from Gorbachev as to how he viewed Reagan at the time. In the remaining 3 years of the Reagan presidency, the two men participated in four submits that played a major role in important arms reduction treaties and in ending the Cold War.
Gorbachev was widely heralded in the West. He was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize for his role in ending the Cold War (1990). Journalists chose him "Time" Magazine Man of the Year and Man of the Decade (1990). No less an observer than former President Richard Nixon, an old Cold War warrior, thought that Gorbachev should have been named Man of the Century. Nixon wrote, for "risk[ing] his power… to save his reforms."
Despite the adulation in the West, Gorbachev became a very unpopular person in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's policies had meant the end of the Soviet Empire in Easter Europe. This made him unpopular with ultra-nationalists, but more important was the economy. The reforms that Gorbachev proved unable to control reaked economic disaster on the Soviet Union. This was especially true for the elderly. They survived on small state pensions. As a result of inflation these pensions soon became worthless while at the same time state subsidies for food, housing health care, and education were reduced or ended entirely.
Gorbachev was elected president in the Soviet Union's first democratic multi-candidate elections (March 1989). He was, however, becoming increasingly unpopular in the Soviet Union. The Nobel Prize meant little when Soviet citizens were suffering from declinning earmings and living standards. The final blow came when hard-line Communists kidnapped Gorbachev in an attempted coup involving the KGB and part of the military (1991). The brave stand of the people of Moscow led by Boris Yeltsin proved to be the undoing of the coup, but Gorbachev's leadership imagre was devestated. He returned to Moscow a visibly shaken man with Yeltsin clearly in charge. President Gorbachev on December 25, 1991, dissolved the Soviet Union and resigned as its last president.
Gorbachev after falling from power has been active in a range of areas. He founded Green Cross International (1993). Gorbachev established GCI to help convert military bases all over the Soviet Union to civilian use. He has been especially concerned with remedying the effects of nuclear contamination (particularly on children), and destroying chemical weapons stockpiles without endangering the environment. The Soviet Union had a huge chemical and biological weapons program which will take years to dismantle at enormous cost. Gorbachev ran for reelection in the 1996 Russian election, but received an embarasingly small 1 percent of the vote. The disparity as to how Gorbachev continues to be seen in Russia and the West is a fascinating epilogue on the Cold War. There are many reasons for this disparity, but surely the principal reason is the collapse of the Soviet econonomy.
A Canadian reader writes, "In 1988 I was back in University as a mature student. In an International Political Science course I wrote a short 3 page essay on what was going to happen because of Gorbachev's new systems and I wrote that the SU was going to self destruct either some what peacefully or go down in flames and attack the West like a wounded bear. While I got an A on this and the Prof encouraged me to submit it to the Montreal Gazette. I did and they refused to publish it."
Hitchcock, William I. The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent (Doubleday), 513p. This is a thought provoking, well researched book. He has gained access to never before used Soviet archives. We do not agree with all of his conclusions. The author in many instances, for example, tends to explain Soviet actions as response to American policies rather than the inherent nature of a brutal regime.
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