Economically, Gorbachev attempted to restructure the inefficient centrally-planned economy under his policy of perestroika. Some collective farms were broken up and farm workers were given larger private plots; industrial mangers were given more freedom to plan production. However, because of the problems within the layers of bureaucracy and serious corruptions, his economic reforms resulted in increasing food shortages and rapid inflation. The further deterioration of the Soviet economy caused public discontent; Gorbachev’s popularity decreased subsequently.
In external affairs, Gorbachev followed the moderate Sinatra Doctrine. His response to the Solidarity movement in Poland was that the Soviet Union would no longer send in troops to pop up unpopular Communist governments, and that the leaders of Eastern Europe should listen to their peoples. As a result, free elections were held in Poland in 1989, Solidarity gained 99 out of 100 seats in the Polish Senate; it was the end of Communist rule in Poland. In addition to that, when Gorbachev visited East Germany in Oct 1989, there were enormous demonstrations. However, Gorbachev once again made it clear that Soviet tanks would not move in to restore order, and he asked the East German leader Erich Honecker to reform. A month later the Berlin Wall which symbolises the barrier between East and West Germany was dismantled. Therefore, Gorbachev’s response gave people in Eastern Europe hope that the USSR was softening its policies against oppositions. This had a ‘dominos’ effect in democratic movements in Eastern Europe; communist governments collapsed one after another: Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. This led to the break down of the Warsaw Pact and hence the total collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.
Gorbachev’s policies in arms limitation also had a certain degree of impact on the collapse of communism as international relations had improved. In 1988, the USSR and the US signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in which both agreed to destroy nuclear weapons. In 1989, the Soviet army withdrew from the wearing war in Afghanistan. In 1990, another treaty was singed to limit non-nuclear weapons as well. Gorbachev’s great desire to reduce nuclear weapons helped to end the Soviet-American arms race. After a series of summits, Gorbachev and the American President Bush officially declared the end of the Cold War. An improved relationship with the USA had greatly decreased anti-Western attitudes within the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was seen as a reliable and open-minded leader, clearly different from the traditional Soviet line. Western ideas of liberty, democracy and capitalism were not as unacceptable as they had been in the old Soviet times. Soviet people began to question whether Communism is their preferred form of living.
However, although it was Gorbachev who initiated and set the many reforms into motion, things got out of control; the consequences of his policies had gone far from what he had imagined. He was still a loyal believer in Communism. His policies were aimed to achieve the purest and final stage of Communism, so that the Communist rule could be strengthened. Despite his policies, it was the things happened beyond his control which led to the collapse of Communism.
The Communist rule collapsed from the outside. The Solidarity movement in Poland triggered the events that happened in Eastern Europe. Soviet-controlled countries declared independence one after another in a shockingly fast pace. By the end of 1989, it was obvious that the ‘Iron Curtain’ had been lifted; the Soviet empire ceased to exist. At his home country, when Boris Yeltsin declared the Russian Republic to be independent, there was no longer anything Gorbachev could do to save the situation.
In conclusion, the Soviet Union was clearly doomed in the 1980s. Economic problems were apparent, living standards were far below that in the West, and it had clearly lost the Arms Race. The Soviet people had had enough what Communism had brought them. Had Gorbachev done nothing, somebody would have acted and the USSR would have eventually collapsed because of its own impossibility.
