Chapter Twenty-One Flashcards
What problems were there in the Brezhnev era?
Needed to deal with the failed agricultural policies that had plagued the Soviet Union. In 1972 the USSR suffered a series of crop failures, leading to food shortages, and the USSR was also spending lot of money on its military programme- after the CMC it was determined the Soviet navy needed to be upgraded and the space programme was using substantial resources.
Approx 25% of Soviet GNP from 1964-1982 was spent on Soviet military supplies.
What reforms did Brezhnev originally try to introduce?
Ones that would promote the use of market forces to determine production, but ehse were blocked by hardliners who feared that the USSR would shift to capitalism. But was successful in reversing some of the effects of collectivisation and instead allowed farmers to return on working on state-owned plots, giving them an incentive of keeping or selling surplus product for reaching their goals.
What was the Ninth and Tenth Five Year Plans (1971-1975 and 1976-1980 respectively)?
Brezhnev’s attempt to increase production of consumer goods to mollify the public, but the availability of consumer goods remained limited except on the black market, which flourished.
USSR suffered another poor grain harvest 1975, which exacerbated the economic distress that the country faced.
Whilst the rest of the world faced petroleum shortages in the 1970s…
the USSR struggled to increase production to take advantage of the demand for oil and the resultant high prices.
What did Brezhnev have to increase to keep the citizens of the USSR and EE fed>
Had to increase agricultural imports. This emphasis was at the expense of the promised production of consumer goods, which led to criticism of the government.
Brezhnev’s era was characterised by renewed repression, but how were people able to express their opinions?
Technology such as hand-held copying machines enabled the Soviet people to express their opinions.
High profile exiles e.g Andrei Sakharov but most criticism came from general public, who realised there would not be a return to the scale of Stalinist terror and disregarded their own safety to speak their minds.
What happened when Brezhnev died?
Died November 1982, leaving behind an aged, stagnent political leadership.
Succeeded by Yuri Andropov, then Konstantin Chernenko, neither of whom were able to efect change. Then Mikhail Gorbachev. 1985.
What action did Mikhail Gorbachev take upon becoming Soviet leader in 1985?
Linked economic growth to political, ideological and foreign policy problems.
Believed if economy would expand then these probk,ems would be reduced- if Gorbachev’s economic aims were not fulfilled then foreign policy problems would deepen.
Economic growth strengthen the status as superpower, and strengthen the communist ystem, which would be further enhanced by erusing national security through an end to the Cold War.
What factors served to undermine Soviet economic growth?
Alcoholism (common feature of Soviet life, leading to losses in productivity through worker absenteeism and frequent workplace injuries), lack of foreign investment (stifled growth and business innovation, state held an absolute monpoly), state controlled businesses (centralised control and centralised planning and there was little recognition of consumer demand) and inflation and worker discontent (workers’ wages rarely stayed in line with inflation, leading to unrest and strikes, undermining productivity).
Soviet economy faced systemic weaknesses, which were largely the product of the inflexible ideological stance maintained by successive regimes.
What was Gorbachev’s policy of ‘New Thinking’?
Gorbachev’s desire to reform the Soviet Union’s economy and therefore foreign policy. Included Perestroika (restructuring. Referred to major social, political and economic reforms) and Glasnost (Soviet policy meaning ‘Openness’ allowing citizens more freedom to discuss political problems, which Gorbachev recognised as necessary to carry out his reforms.
What was the first reform Gorbachev carried out?
Targeted alcohol. He was trying to target individual productivity and absenteeism, and the social problem of alcoholism.
Therefore, he raised prices on wine, beer and vodka, and the places and times for selling alcohol were restricted. There were arrests for public drunkenness and for being intoxicated at work.
Impact- not desired effect, cost state almost 100 billion rubles in taxes lost, due to drop in official consumption. Contributed to economic distress as official vineyards and distilleries were forced to close. Alcohol remained readily available through black market.
What was Perestroika?
The key to Gorbachev’s economic reforms- designed to improve economic performance.
His approach was to amend the existing economic and production systems, rather than dismantling them completely. Planning decentralised, some degree of self-management permitted- without the loss of state ownership of factories and other business enterprises.
Allow managers to implement econ changes not having to wait for Soviet planning agency, OGSPLAN to make decisions at local level.
Also ended state price controls, which would lead to increase in prices and lower standard of living at first.
What did the new approach, under Perestroika, allow?
Enabled Gorbachev to attempt to address the Soviet economy, but it also changed foreign policy- it reinforced Gorbachev’s New Thinking, and enabled him to open the Soviet Union up to foreign investment.
How was Perestroika an example of restructuring, rather than dismantling the econ system?
Businesses would be forced to function as profit-making oganisations selling within wholesale markets, but the enterprises would remain state-owned and there was no suggestion of privatisation being introduced.
What was Glasnost?
In 1986, the Chernobyl disaster and the release of the dissident Andrei Sakharov made Glasnost necessary.
Two events led to criticisms of government actions and how it was officially portrayed within the USSR.
Gkasnost announced 1988, policy translated as ‘openness’ led to re-examination of Soviet history and an open debate on past government actions e.g Party purges.
Government free to do this as most of the participants- and supporters- of Stalinist policies were now dead, and the criticisms would not cause serious divisions within the Communist party leadership.
