Gorbachev Flashcards
(28 cards)
How many govt ministers did Gorby sack 1985-86?
39/101
What did Gorby do about alcoholism?
May 1985 Halved alcohol production in state factories
Assigned 55,000 Party members to stop illegal production
Did these anti-alcohol policies work and continue?
No
1987 alcohol production still double that of 1960
Policy dropped in 1988
When was the last five year plan?
12th 5YP
1986-90
What did the last five year plan focus on and aim for?
Uskorenie- acceleration
Gorby predicted 20% industrial increase in next 15 yrs
What was the effect of the declining global oil prices on the USSR?
Soviet oil revenues dropped by 2/3
What were the three main economic reforms for partial marketisation under perestroika?
Nov 1986 Law on Individual Economic Activity
(Private profit from small scale business)
1987 Law on State Enterprise
(Tried moving planning of targets from Gosplan to factory managers)
1988 Law on Cooperatives
(Allowed large scale private companies)
What effect did economic reforms have on industrial production by 1987?
Fell by 6%
How many large scale companies were created 1988-90?
Almost 200,000
When was Gosplan abolished? Was it replaced?
1990
No
How much grain was produced on Soviet farms in 1990? Was it distributed?
218 million tonnes
No, there were still shortages
By how much did Gorby’s approval rating drop 1989->90? Why?
Fell by 31%
He stopped subsidies, causing dissatisfaction and strikes
What was the impact of the 1989 coal miners’ strike?
Loss of 7.3 million working days
What and when was the 500 Day Programme?
Aug 1990
Govt commission by economists
Proposed 2yr full scale marketisation and privatisation of economy
Gorby was persuaded by hardliners to not follow this
When is the USSR effectively bankrupt?
Summer 1991
When and what is glasnost?
1986
Liberalisation- allowed further revelation of Stalinist crimes
Stop manipulation of economic info to aid perestroika
Double edged sword- media first attacks Stalin but then turns to root problems on the Party and communism
When was there a peak in Gorby’s personal popularity?
1989
When and what was the Chernobyl disaster?
Nuclear reactor fire (largest recorded) in April 1986
How was Chernobyl obfuscated?
Local officials waited 2 days to report it
Gorby spoke of it 2 weeks later
Concealed real causes of poor design and health/safety, cheap construction, bad management… inherent in command economy system
When was Gulag Archipelago published in the USSR?
By Solzhenitsyn
1989
15 yrs after first appearance in the West
What happened in the 1988 All-Union Party Conference?
Allowed elections of multiple candidates to Russian Congress of People’s Deputies
Democratisation- more power to state soviets
What happened in the March 1989 elections?
Yeltsin wins 89% vote in Moscow
Gorby declare himself President of the USSR, gives himself emergency powers
When is Yeltsin elected President of the Russian Republic?
June 1991
What and when was the Minsk Agreement?
Agreed the the USSR was replaced by the CIS
Signed by Yeltsin (Russia), Ukraine, Belorussia
