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Russia emerged from a civil war in 1921 upon overthrowing the centuries-old Romanov monarchy and became the newly formed Soviet Union. The world’s first Marxist-Communist state was anticipated to become one of the world’s most influential and biggest nations before its fall and ultimate dissolution in 1991 (Saikowski 1). The United Socialist Soviet Republic (U.S.S.R.) comprised fifteen republics. After the establishment of the Russian Empire, a long and bloody civil war erupted with the Red Army, supported by the Bolshevik government, defeating the white military, which constituted a large group of loosely allied forces involving supporters of socialism, capitalists, and monarchists (Gorbachev 403). Khrushchev, in his speeches, predicted that burying the capitalist West did not come true as the Soviets lost the cold war (Bostdorff 12). Therefore, the Soviet’s loss in the Cold War resulted from the Khrushchev Party.
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany at the end of the second world war, the uncomfortable wartime alliance between Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union started to crumble. By 1948 the Soviet Union had installed communist-leaning governments in eastern European nations, the U.S.S.R, and liberated from the control of the Nazis during the war (Rhodes 37). Both British and Americans feared communism spreading into Western Europe and across the world. As a result, Canada, the U.S., and its European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 as a political force to fight against the uprising U.S.S.R. and its partners. In 1955 the Soviet Union responded to NATO by consolidating power among Eastern Bloc nations under a rival alliance known as the Warsaw Pact, which set off the Cold War (Bostdorff 16; Truman 385). The cold war power struggle was waged on economic, political, and propaganda fronts amid the western and Eastern blocs and persisted in numerous forms until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Nikita Khrushchev rose to power after the death of Stalin in 1953 and became communist party secretary in the same year and premier in 1958. The tenure of Khrushchev spanned the tensest years of the Cold War, and on several occasions, he made predictions about burying the capitalists. However, his prediction did not come true because, at home, he initiated a series of political reforms that made Soviet society less repressive (Triska 393). At this time, he criticized Stalin for arresting and deporting opponents, taking steps to raise living conditions, freeing political prisoners, loosening artistic censorship, and closing the Gulag labor camps. Deteriorating interrelationships with neighboring countries like China and the Soviet Union caused food shortages in the entire U.S.S.R., which eroded his legitimacy in the eyes of the communist party leadership (Tolz 195). In 1964, Khrushchev was removed from office by members of his political party, thereby not realizing his dream of burying the capitalist West.
In 1991, the Soviet Union was the most prominent nation worldwide, with more distinct nationalities and populations within its borders. The union had more nuclear weapons and boasted a sphere of influence across Eastern Europe. However, within a year, the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, marking the collapse of the Cold War. Several external and internal factors, including political and economic factors, constituted the collapse. Based on the political aspect, when Mikhail Gorbachev was announced as general secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union in 1985, his key role was jump-starting the declining Soviet economy and restructuring the unwieldy government bureaucracy (Gorbachev 404). When the initial attempts failed to bear significant results, the secretary introduced the policies of openness to foster dialogue and restructuring quasi-free market policies to government-run industries. Instead of these policies reviving communist thoughts, they led to criticism of the whole soviet apparatus. The government then lost control of the public and media while democratic reform movements gained steam in the entire Soviet bloc.
Through restructuring quasi-free market policies, price controls in some markets were lifted, leaving existing bureaucratic structures intact. As a result, communist officials could push back against policies that were not beneficial to them personally. In the long run, the reforms of Gorbachev and his neglect of the Brezhnev doctrine accelerated the collapse of the Soviet empire. Towards the end of 1989, the Soviet Union borders began dismantling, and nations took concrete steps towards independence (Saikowski 5). The Birling Wall collapsed, and the Iron Curtain failed, with the Soviet Union not outlasting it for long.
Furthermore, economic factors contributed to the end of the Cold War. The Soviet economy, to some extent, was regarded as the second largest in the world in 1990. However, there was an expected shortage of consumer goods. Soviet black-market economy formed ten percent of the official G.D.P. of the country (Riddick 384). For many years the nation experienced economic stagnation following the restructuring of quasi-free market policy reforms that worsened the situation. The printing of money hiked wages that fueled an inflationary spiral, and fiscal policy mismanagement made the nation susceptible to external forces. A sharp drop in oil prices sent the Soviet Union’s economy into a tailspin. The Soviet Union had been ranked as the top global producer of energy resources, including natural gas and oil, in the 1970s and ’80s (Rhodes 37). The export of these commodities played crucial roles in shoring up the world’s largest command economy. The fall of oil prices contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union due to the drying up of external capital.
Works Cited
Bostdorff, Denise M. “Harry S. Truman, ‘Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey: The Truman Doctrine (1947).” Voices of Democracy 4 2009: 1–22.
Gorbachev, Mikhail 402-405. “Vital Speeches of the Day.” (1992): 402-405.
Rhodes, Jack A. “Congressional Committee Reorganization in 1946.” The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 1947: 36–52.
Riddick, Floyd M 384. “The Second Session of the Seventy-ninth Congress.” American Political Science Review 41.1 (1947): 384.
Saikowski, Charlotte, and Leo Gruliow, eds. Current Soviet Policies 4. Columbia UP, 1962.
Tolz, Vera. “The new role of the media and public opinion under Mikhail Gorbachev.” The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 9.1 1993: 192–209.
Triska, Jan F 393-394. “Current Soviet Policies IV: The Documentary Record of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Edited by Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow. From the Translations of the Current Digest of the Soviet Press. With a Who’s Who of the Central Committee, compiled by Mark Neuweld. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1962. vii+ 248 pp. $8.50.” Slavic Review 22.3 1963: 393-394.
Truman, Harry S 385-386. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, Volume 7. Vol. 7. Best Books on, 1965.
White, James, and D. Lenin. “The Practice and Theory of Revolution.”
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