PERESTROYKA (continuation)
disintegration
of the Soviet Empire was merely an inevitable effect of Gorbachev’s policies
aimed to strengthen and revive the collapsing Soviet economy.
As an antidote
to the stagnant and stale economic and social structures Gorbachev initiated
policies of glasnost, perestroika, democratizatsiya, and uskoreniye; terms that
refer to openness, restructuring, democratization and acceleration of economic
development, respectively. These reforms came about because Gorbachev and “thousands
of intelligent people”[1] of
his generation recognized the need for the Soviet system to loosen up and to rehabilitate
the dormant population by allowing “more freedom [which candidly] had to
connect work to rewards and prices to values.”[2]
Policies introduced
as a part of perestroika infused the elements of democracy into the socialist
regime. New laws were passed to give enterprises more freedom in the private
sector. The Law on Cooperatives enacted in 1988 extended these liberties to
include private ownership in manufacturing, service, and trade sectors. In
addition, perestroika resumed efforts on De-Stalinization by rehabilitating
many of Stalin’s opponents and releasing countless political prisoners. Hand in
hand with perestroika went the policy of glasnost or “openness,” which for the
first time since the reign of Stalinism gave Soviet people the freedom of
speech. These attempts to spark new life into the Soviet population and
therefore to revive the driving force behind USSR’s economy allowed Gorbachev
to shine in the eyes of the many Soviet citizens.
In addition to
these domestic policies, Gorbachev was keen to pursue a new approach towards
Soviet foreign policy. Recognizing that the acceleration of the arms race,
especially with Reagan’s Strategic Arms Initiative introduced in 1983, was a
commitment that in a long run USSR’s economy could not sustain, Gorbachev
pursued initiatives aimed towards disarmament. Intermediate-range nuclear
weapons reduction initiative discussed with Reagan in Reykjavik in 1986, which
culminated in signing Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987,
is just one of the examples of Gorbachev’s efforts to relieve the Soviet
economy of this stifling strain, which resulted in the thawed relations between
East and West.
Perhaps the most
significant policy, which in due course resulted in the crumbling of both the
Soviet bloc and the USSR, was the abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1988.
By forsaking the Brezhnev Doctrine, Gorbachev effectively opened the gates for
Eastern bloc nations to take matters pertaining to their internal affairs into
their own hands. Consequently, in 1989 the world watched in awe as a string of
revolutions across the Soviet bloc resulted in the liberation of many nations
and at fall of the Berlin Wall, which became a landmark symbolizing the end of
the Cold War. The Scorpions hit “Wind of Change” seamlessly captured the prevailing
mood within the global community. This wind of change did in deed blow “straight
into the face of time” and rang the bell of freedom in the Soviet republics, awakening
formerly suppressed sense of nationalism and reinforcing the desire for
independence.
It was in the face of the uprisings that threatened
the existence of the Soviet Union itself, when the people of the Soviet
republics came to think that Gorbachev was “something less than noble,
something more recognizably Soviet and Communist and political.”[3] That is to say that in the light of the
reforms that took place in the Eastern blo
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