Mikhail Gorbachev was the most gifted and dynamic leader of the Soviet Union, after the end of World War II. He. led the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 and gained worldwide fame for his domestic and foreign policies. In 1990, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to world peace.
Born in 1931, Gorbachev’s parents were peasant farmers. He graduated in Law from the Moscow state university in 1955. During his student days, he joined the communist party and rose through the ranks of the party. In 1980, he became a member of the Politburo, the Chief policymaking body of Russia. Andropov, a friend of Gorbachev, became the communist party head in 1982. He was the most powerful leader at that time. Andropov promoted Gorbachev and put him in charge of the country’s economic policy. Finally, in 1985 Gorbachev was chosen as the Head of the Communist party and in 1988 as the President of the USSR.
He introduced two novel measures – Glasnost and Perestroika to restructure Soviet society and economy and shed the ‘Iron Curtain’ image.
1. Glasnost: Glasnost in the Russian language means openness. It refers to the liberalizing of the various aspects of Soviet life. The glasnost introduced greater freedom of expression and information.
- Gorbachev took several steps to make the Soviet society more open. Bans on books, plays, and films were lifted.
- Political dissidents were released.
- Freedom of religious worship was granted.
- Soviet history came to be rewritten more objectively.
- Investigative journalism was encouraged to uncover political corruption.
- Under the legislation introduced in 1990, censorship of mass media was abolished.
2. Perestroika: Perestroika in the Russian language means restructuring. It refers to the wide-ranging economic and political reforms introduced in the Soviet Union.
3. Market Socialism: n order to restructure the economy, Gorbachev allowed the ‘Market forces’ i.e. the forces of demand and supply to operate in his country’s socialist economy. This is known as market socialism. The new economic policy offered more and more market incentives. Small – scale private enterprises were allowed. One motive behind this economic reform was to provide competition which is characteristic of a market economy and the other motive was to provide alternative employment.
- Gorbachev began to free the farmers and factory Managers from bureaucratic interference.
- He invited foreign investments into the Soviet Union.
- Besides, he began to restructure CPSV and State bureaucracies.
4. Foreign Policy: Gorbachev made skilful use of the-foreign media to put the case against space weapons and nuclear testing. He concluded a treaty in 1988 with the Western Powers to eliminate medium-range Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) from the European soil. He withdrew the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989. He reduced the size of the Soviet conventional forces. In 1991 he ended the cold war with the West. In the same year, Gorbachev and U.S. President Bush signed a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). This treaty was designed to reduce U.S. and Soviet long-range missiles by about a third.
5. Breakup of the Soviet Union: On 19th August 1991, a group of hardliners overthrew the Soviet Government and deposed Gorbachev when he was on a holiday. The coup was a failure and it collapsed on 21st August. Gorbachev was reinstated. The failure of the coup strengthened the separatist tendencies among the Republics of the U SSR. Within a very short period, eleven Soviet republics out of 15 declared their decision to come out of the Soviet Union.
As a result, confusion, anarchy, and violence followed. Finally, the break-up of the Soviet Union was complete. However, the eleven republics agreed to form themselves into a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Gorbachev confirmed the belief that a communist cannot become democratic. When democracy triumphs, communism has to depart. Economic failure was the key reason for the collapse of the USSR.
