What have they done?

 

In Russia terms “perestroika”, reforming, and “glasnost’”, freedom of speech, have emerged in 1984. They were accompanying the reforms that took place in the country. Most of the reforms occurred in the period from 1985 to 1991 (Aganbegyan). It is impossible to tell which reforms were the successful ones because at the end they all were nullified by the break up of the Soviet Union. The factors that influenced the escalating destructive tendencies had been the causes of the coup. They are the economical failure to support democratic changes that have taken place on the political level (Mau). The coup occurred in 1991 and lead to the separation of the republics of the Soviet Union. The study of the causes of such destructive action as the break-up of the Soviet Union may leave us with some knowledge not only of what has went wrong, but also what should have been done, and what can be done to avoid such a disruptive situation as break-up of the entire country (Gorbachev). Economic failure in the reforms that took place in the country has created a trend of unhappiness in Russia and lead to the loss of centralized control of the power by the government, which was the cause for the coup and break up to occur. All the reforms had caused unstable economic situation due to perestroika. There were many riots and strikes due to glasnost’. The government lost control of the economy, and, eventually, of the power for the people in the government used those unstable times to their own advantage to profit. The loss of power by the central system has lead to the break up.

For one, market has slipped from the centralized control of the government. There were attempts to privatize the government properties. In the government there was strong resistance to this trend. For instance, most of the attempts at profit in business in private sector were called speculation, and militia has prosecuted the “speculants”, people in private business. However, there were greater deals with property ownership, than the small business, such deals have caused the loss of control over the economic governing of the country.

Another factor is that inflation has caused the ruble, Russian currency, to change value uncontrollably. As in any process of privatization there were fluctuations in the value of the main currency. This had contributed to the unhappiness of the people with the government, as well as a more serious factor, the instability of the market. The prices were fluctuating as well without the appropriate increase of the salaries. There started separation of the classes in society, which was unheard of until that period, when the financial capabilities of the majority of population were falling behind the expected capabilities of the consumers of the products appearing in the market. This factor had caused the appearance of the so-called ‘New Russians,’ people with connections and with financial support coming from corruption in the property ownership and in the governmental or political control.

However, people had gained the power to speak up. There was virtually no control of government by the public from Stalin times until the times of Gorbachev. The voice of people has not been openly heard. Literature, music, art were all controlled by the government. Glasnost’ was the first breakthrough in freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech has its limitations, such as having open expression of unsatisfaction by public of government decisions, which in turn leads to riots and strikes, as was proven by the history of Soviet Union. There was too much freedom, at least sufficient to cause unprecedented riots, strikes, not speaking of criminal activity and violence that has occurred as the result of glasnost’. I welcome freedom but only as much as people can handle without corruption and loss of moral consciousness.

And most of the government decisions were communicated with the public, which created populism, and which caused government to make senseless decisions to please the public. Too many decisions were based on public opinion without weighing out the really important factors influencing the outcome of implementation of such decisions (Tsipko). Also politicians wanted to gain popularity, and so instead of knowingly implementing the correct decision they would knowingly implement the incorrect one just to gain popularity and thus power. Public with all its opinions is not sufficiently involved in and is kept relatively blind to internal affairs of the government, and thus majority of it usually is not capable of choosing the most appropriate course of action for the government.

Now, people tended to gain power in the small sectors and to decentralize the control, profiting by that and gaining financially. There was corruption at all levels of the government. The directors of government facilities started to accumulate the profit from the facilities into their own pockets in open, which had been interpreted as decentralization of the unified control of government. This had caused insubordination of such directors to the government, which in turn lead to the loss of control of the leaders of the republics by the Soviet government. Examples of such insubordination were the Baltic republics. Later on, it resulted in creation of a separate legislative system for the Russian Federation and the creation of position of Russian president, which later had become the successor to the overthrown president of Soviet Union.

Eventually government had lost control over economy, and, as the result, of the ownership unity as well. Economically, government could not control neither the market or the inflation, nor the profit flow from its own facilities, companies, factories, banks (Impact). This resulted in directors of such facilities gaining the control over them, separating into their own business outside of governmental scope. As the consequence, government had lost its national wealth to the internal conflicts among people struggling for power. As national wealth had been redistributed there was nothing really to control, people lost sense of stability, because there wasn’t one anymore, for there were no rules anymore governing those newly created local governors of the facilities, companies, factories, banks. They could do anything they wanted with the employees, for instance, not pay their salaries, and yet profit from their work. This had caused escalating dissatisfaction and conflict between the government and the people. Such conflict had leak to the opportunity for the right people at the right time to get the control over the country and to break it apart (Galeotti).

Further division, such as political and land division, have been the natural outcomes of the destructive tendencies of the new reforms, which were not supported by the necessary economical growth. The reforms were too abrupt and untimely, and government did little to incorporate the reforms into the economic of the Soviet Union. As the result the economy was destroyed. Devalvation of ruble had caused great instability in the market at national level, as well as international. The result was unsatisfaction of the people with the government, leading to escalating conflict among people and the government. Politicians were trying to please the public, rather than working on how to bring the economy out of crisis caused by the untimely reforms. Directors of companies, banks, government facilities had gained control over their parts of the national wealth, resulting in decentralized system of ownership control. There were opportunities to gain power in the government as well, which resulted in overthrowing president of Soviet Union, the coup, and the break up of Soviet Union.

Works Cited

Aganbegyan, Abel. Inside Perestroika: The Future of the Soviet Economy. Harper &

Row, Publishers. New York: 1989.

Galeotti, Mark. “Perestroika, Perestrelka, Pereborka: Policing Russia in a Time of

Change.” Europe-Asia Studies. 1993, Vol. 45 Issue 5, 769-787.

Gorbachev, Mikhail. The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons. Harper Collins

Publishers. New York: 1991.

Impact of IMF/World Bank Policies Toward Russia and the Russian Economy. February

8, 1994. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington: 1994.

Mau, Vladimir. “Perestroika: Theoretical and Political Problems of Economic Reforms in

the USSR”. Europe-Asia Studies. May 1995, Vol. 47 Issue 3, 387-412.

Tsipko, Alexander. “Russia’s Difficult Path Toward Democracy: Moral and Ideological

Preconditions For Overcoming the Legacies of the Communist System in Russia”. International Review of Sociology. June 1997, Vol. 7 Issue 2, 267-319.

 

 

 

Copyright ©     Anastasia June 2002