Gorbachev's New Thinking

Question 1

Cause 1 - Problems in the economy and standard of living meant new policies were needed

Answer 1

Under Brezhnev, huge amounts of money were spent on developing arms to keep pace with the USA. Investment in the Soviet economy was low. There was barely any growth in the Soviet Union or its satellite states in the 1980s. Standards of living were nowhere near what could be found in the West. Low standards of living and the lack of human rights were leading to unrest in some satellite states.

Question 2

Cause 2 - Poor leadership had led to a lack of strategic planning in the Soviet Union which also encouraged a new direction of policy

Answer 2

Brezhnev died in 1982 after a long illness. His successor Andropov died in 1984 and Chernenko followed and died a year later. These problems meant that the Soviet Union had not been planning for the long term and now found itself in a bad situation that needed quite radical new ideas as solutions.

Question 3

Event 1 - Perestroika

Answer 3

Gorbachev was determined to reform communism in the Soviet Union. He proposed that the Soviet state and economy should be reformed to include some of the practices that had made capitalism so successful. This was called perestroika - reconstruction in English.

Question 4

Event 2 - Glasnost

Answer 4

Gorbachev also felt there should be more openness and less corruption in government. People should not need to fear the state or fear expressing their opinions. This policy of glasnost (openness) would allow opposition to the government and give the people a better understanding of how the country was run. Also, Gorbachev announced the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Question 5

Consequence 1 - The American Response

Answer 5

Ronald Reagan had started his presidency with a very tough policy (the Reagan Doctrine) against communism, including spending more money on weapons. However, Gorbachev’s new thinking also produced a change in American policy when the Americans realised they could work with Gorbachev and yet still achieve their overall aims.

Question 6

Consequence 2 - The end of the Brezhnev Doctrine led to the beginning of the end for the USSR

Answer 6

Gorbachev had announced that the Soviet Union was giving up the Brezhnev Doctrine. This meant that satellite states were free to choose how they would be governed and no longer had to fear that the Soviets would intervene as they had in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Eventually this led to satellite states breaking away, such as when Hungary took down the fence along the border with non-communist Austria in May 1989.