Introduction and The Fall of the Soviet Union
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 16, Lesson 1
A discussion of the factors that led to the decline of the Soviet Union, including the building and subsequent destruction of the Berlin Wall, the transition of power following Stalin's death, and the Soviet-Afghan War.
Created in 1961 by the East German government to prevent local citizens from fleeing to the West, the Berlin Wall represented a collection of bunkers, guard towers and barbed wire fences that spanned 96 miles through downtown Berlin. In three decades, over 140 people were killed trying to cross the barrier. As the Cold War intensified, the Berlin Wall became a symbol of communist oppression. Following the announcement of Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalizing glasnost and perestroika policies of the mid-1980s, the pro-Kremlin East German government faced public pressure to reform. Bowing to such pressures, GDR Politburo Member Gunter Schabowski announced in a November 9, 1989 press conference that the East German government would allow freedom of travel between the two Germanys. When a reporter asked when this policy would take effect, the startled officials responded, “As far as I know—immediately, without delay.” Within minutes of Schabowski’s statement, East German crowds took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall, a hated symbol of Soviet repression. When border guards refused to fire on the Mauerspechte (wall peckers), East Germans began climbing over the wall to be greeted with flowers and champagne from elated West Berliners. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and a crucial moment in the emergence of a post-Cold War world. This chapter discusses the political, economic and social factors that led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a “new world order.”
Spotlight On | THE BRANDENBERG GATE
Completed in 1791 as a monument to King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia, the Brandenburg Gate represented one of the most famous landmarks in Berlin. Located near the Berlin Wall on the West German side, the gate served as a symbol of hope and unity during the Cold War. Most famously, it served as the site for U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s June 26, 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. The gate was also a popular rallying point for demonstrators during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The Fall of the Soviet Union
The death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 created a power vacuum in the Kremlin. Georgy Malenkov (1901- 1988), a loyal Stalinist, initially emerged as the new premier. However, less than two years later, the popular political reformer Nikita Khrushchev replaced the dour Malenkov as the key powerbroker in Moscow. In a secret speech delivered to the 20th Party Congress on February 14, 1956, Khrushchev condemned Stalin for “his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power” against “not only against actual enemies but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.” Over the next two years, Khrushchev shuttered “GULAG” labor camps, freed thousands of political prisoners, eased travel restrictions to and from the USSR, and announced a “peaceful cooperation” policy with the West. To be certain, Khruschev did not hesitate to brutally crush an uprising in Hungary in 1956. Nevertheless, his tenure as premier marked a definite thaw in the Cold War.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy successfully prevented the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Soviet leaders blamed Khruschev for caving to Western pressure and two years later backed Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) to become the new premier. A communist hardliner, Brezhnev rolled back many of the Khruschev-era reforms. For instance, in what became known as the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” the Soviet leader argued that any attempt to overthrow a socialist government in the Eastern Bloc threatened all socialist nations throughout the region and justified invasion by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. Brezhnev used this rationale to justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to suppress the reform movement known as the “Prague Spring.” Brezhnev restored many state controls over the Soviet economy, emphasizing slow and steady industrial and agricultural growth. Although this approach allowed the Soviet economy to avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of Western nations it also came at the expense of chronic shortages of consumer goods and stagnated living standards throughout the USSR.
In terms of foreign policy, Brezhnev sought to prevent another Cuban Missile Crisis by working with the Nixon (1913-1994), Ford (1913-2006) and Carter (b. 1924) administrations to create the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and SALT II), which limited the stockpiles of nuclear arms each nation could possess and the circumstances under which such weapons could be used. However, any hopes for a breakthrough in the nuclear arms race ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since the end of the Second World War, both Soviet and Western diplomats had treated Afghanistan as a buffer state. Yet in 1973, the Soviet-backed leader of the Afghanistan socialist party Mohammed Daoud Khan (1909-1978) seized control of Kabul and announced the creation of the left-leaning Republic of Afghanistan. Offended by Khan’s Marxist government and its support from the Soviets, many Muslim chieftains who controlled the surrounding countryside worked to undermine both Khan and his Soviet allies. From 1979-1989, Mujahedeen (those who struggle) forces used guerrilla tactics—ambushes, assassinations, bombings and hit- and-run attacks—to wear down Soviet forces. In a striking parallel to the United States’ defeat in Vietnam, the Soviet-Afghan War sapped the USSR of manpower, morale and resources. The conflict also economically and diplomatically isolated the Soviet Union in the eyes of the world community.