Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich

V

Domestic Policies

After taking office, Gorbachev promptly moved young, energetic politicians into key positions, including Nikolay Ryzhkov as prime minister, Eduard Shevardnadze as foreign minister, and Aleksandr Yakovlev as coordinator of ideological affairs for the Central Committee. Gorbachev also carried out numerous changes at lower levels of the power structure. Along with the personnel changes, Gorbachev pursued a crackdown on corruption and incompetence within the Communist Party organization (an effort begun by his mentor Yuri Andropov), announced a campaign against alcohol consumption, and undertook a review of the USSR’s declining economic situation.

Then in 1986 Gorbachev’s policies took a radical turn. Gorbachev was frustrated by bureaucratic resistance to the measures he had introduced, by popular apathy, and by the poor quality of the information he and the rest of the Soviet leadership were receiving—dramatically illustrated by the belated official reaction to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in April of that year (see Chernobyl Accident). He recast his reform programme as one of comprehensive perestroika (restructuring) of society and economy and declared that glasnost (candour or openness) had to be fostered in the mass media and in governmental and party organizations. In January 1987 Gorbachev came out in favour of demokratizatsiia (democratization) of the Soviet regime, a process that took on an increasingly sweeping character with the passage of time. In October 1987 Gorbachev had a dispute with Boris Yeltsin, CPSU leader for the city of Moscow, who was pushing for an acceleration of reform. The dispute had a chilling effect on Gorbachev for several months; however, in 1988 he renewed his efforts, initiating a critical re-evaluation of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian rule and pushing for further liberalization of major Soviet institutions. These changes were approved by a national conference of the CPSU, held in June and July of that year.

In September 1988 Gorbachev became chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet (national legislature), a post equivalent to head of state. Despite his success in consolidating his power, Gorbachev felt his efforts to reform the Soviet system were being obstructed by the Communist Party organization. Under his leadership, the Soviet constitution was amended to provide for the election of a new 2,250-member Congress of People’s Deputies to replace the Supreme Soviet. Elections to the congress were held throughout the Soviet Union in March and April 1989—the first competitive elections held in the USSR since its founding in 1922. After taking office, the Congress of People’s Deputies elected from its ranks a new Supreme Soviet, which, unlike its predecessor, had real and substantial legislative powers. The Supreme Soviet elected Gorbachev to be its chairman in May.

Considerably more democratic elections were held in 1990 in the 15 constituent republics of the USSR and in the regions and localities within them. The elections greatly diluted the power of the CPSU apparatus, and the party lost the right to issue binding directives to departments in the government apparatus. Meanwhile, Gorbachev implemented various other political reforms, including eliminating censorship of the press, lifting the prohibition on independent organizations and associations, and easing restrictions on foreign travel and emigration. Numerous opposition parties sprang into existence in the USSR, although they were not at first recognized by the Soviet authorities. In March 1990, at Gorbachev’s insistence, the Congress of People’s Deputies amended the Soviet constitution to allow non-Communist parties to register. Believing that he needed more authority to keep the country together, Gorbachev also persuaded the congress to pass a constitutional amendment separating the executive branch from the legislative branch and to elect him as president, making him the first—and, it would turn out, the only—president of the USSR.

Gorbachev’s economic reforms lagged far behind his political reforms. In 1987 the CPSU Central Committee voted to move gradually towards a market economy, but little progress was made on this front. The most significant change was the committee’s decision in 1988 to allow for small private businesses and cooperatives, which could exist either inside state enterprises or separate from them. However, disagreement among the Soviet leaders and their economic advisers, and between Russia and the other Soviet republics, prevented the adoption of a realistic reform programme for the Soviet economy as a whole. This deadlock, as well as the drift of control away from state planners, led to a severe economic crisis by 1990. The effects of this crisis included declining production, growing inflation, pervasive shortages of consumer goods, labour unrest, and, most importantly, a widespread loss of confidence in Gorbachev’s ability to handle economic issues.

VI

Foreign Relations

Gorbachev was convinced that internal reform could not proceed without a major shift in Soviet foreign policy. Relations with the West had been sorely strained in the early 1980s, owing largely to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan (to prop up an unpopular Communist regime) and its possession of medium-range nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe. Soviet ties with China and Japan were also poor, while in Eastern Europe and much of the developing world the USSR had accumulated more military commitments than it could afford.

In 1985 Gorbachev installed the reform-minded Eduard Shevardnadze as foreign minister and held his first summit meeting with US president Ronald Reagan. In all, Gorbachev held nine summits with US presidents Reagan and George Bush, and also established relationships with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, and other Western leaders. In 1987 Gorbachev called for “new thinking” in the Soviet Union regarding international relations, and in many ways he put the fresh ideas that came to the fore into effect. That year he and President Reagan signed an agreement calling for both countries’ elimination of all their land-based nuclear missiles of intermediate and shorter range. In July 1991 he and President Bush signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), committing the two countries to sharp reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Gorbachev’s government withdrew all forces from Afghanistan between May 1988 and early 1989 and cut its support for revolutionary movements and anti-Western governments in Africa. In the Middle East, the Soviet government improved relations with Israel and cooperated in the American-led effort to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, during the Gulf War.

The most far-reaching changes, however, were in Soviet policy towards the other countries of Eastern Europe, which had been under Soviet domination since the 1940s. Gorbachev warned the Communist governments in those countries that the USSR would no longer use force to keep them in power, and he encouraged the East European countries to fend for themselves economically and to embark on internal reforms. In 1989 a tide of political change washed over the region, culminating in the collapse of the Communist regime in East Germany and the opening of the Berlin Wall. In 1990 Gorbachev agreed to the reunification of Germany and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. In October of that year Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his foreign policy initiatives.

VII

Breakup of the Soviet Union

Gorbachev’s policies eroded the Communist regime’s authoritarian controls without putting any solid alternative structure in their place. Politically, he was caught between conflicting forces: on the one hand, his reforms went too far for conservative elements in the Soviet Communist Party and government bureaucracy, and on the other hand, they did not go far enough to suit the more radically minded. By late 1990 Gorbachev faced competing pressures from both these camps, and also from secessionists within the 15 republics that comprised the USSR. In the face of these pressures, a weakening Soviet economy, and growing political instability, Gorbachev allied himself temporarily with party conservatives and security organs within the Soviet government.

In theory, the USSR had since its inception been a federation; in reality, however, central government institutions had always held the bulk of power within the Soviet Union. After the Soviet republics held democratic elections in 1990, their new governments one by one adopted resolutions proclaiming their sovereignty. Although the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were the first to challenge the Soviet leadership, the most dangerous threat came from the Russian republic, which contained more than half of the USSR’s population. In May 1990 Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev’s leading radical critic, was chosen to be chairman of the Russian parliament. In June 1991 Yeltsin was voted president of Russia in a direct public election.

Unwilling to use force to quell his opponents within the constituent republics, Gorbachev tried to draw the republics voluntarily into a new “Union Treaty” of federation, which would update the original treaty that established the USSR in 1922. A preliminary version of such a treaty was to be initialled by a number of the republics on August 20, 1991. That signing never took place, however, for on August 19, a group of Gorbachev’s closest associates—all Communist conservatives at the highest levels of government—attempted a coup against Gorbachev by declaring a national state of emergency. Gorbachev, under guard at his summer home, refused to endorse the plot, which quickly crumbled in the face of street protests in Moscow spearheaded by Russian president Yeltsin—who emerged as the hero of the hour—and other pro-democracy politicians. Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but his leadership had been severely discredited by the crisis. On August 24 Gorbachev resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party. Within several days, party activities had been suspended.

Over the next four months, Gorbachev struggled to salvage a weak federal union, a transitional central government, and some place in it for himself, but he was unable to reach any kind of lasting agreement. By October, all of the Soviet republics except for Russia and Kazakhstan had declared their independence from the USSR. Then, on December 8, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared the USSR defunct and announced that they were forming a loose alliance called the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president on December 25 in a solemn television address, and the USSR ceased to exist (see Communism, Collapse of).

VIII

Life as a Private Citizen

After leaving office, Gorbachev remained publicly active, focusing much of his energy on the Foundation for Social, Economic, and Political Research in Moscow (also called the Gorbachev Foundation), which he established in December 1991. He continued to speak in favour of democratic socialism, lecturing frequently outside Russia and taking part in international conferences. His memoirs, Life and Reforms, were published in Russia in 1995. Although many Russian people blamed him for the ills of the post-Soviet era, Gorbachev decided to run in the 1996 Russian presidential elections, portraying himself as an experienced and moderate candidate. In the first round of the election, held in June, Gorbachev won only 386,000 votes, or one half of one per cent of those cast. His nemesis, presidential incumbent Boris Yeltsin, led the polls and was elected to a second term in the runoff election in July.

IX

Assessment

Gorbachev did not achieve what he set out to do as Soviet leader—that is, to save the country’s existing social and political system by reforming it from within. In some areas, notably economics, he produced few results at all. Nevertheless, Gorbachev’s political and foreign policies made a tremendous difference to the countries of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and in some respects the entire world. The cumulative effect of these policies was to loosen the grip of the Soviet Communist dictatorship, thereby allowing leaders throughout the Communist Eastern bloc to search out new ways of governing. On the international scene, Gorbachev’s policies put an end to the Cold War and the post-World War II division of Europe. Gorbachev is thus one of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century.