How much of this rise in nationalist tendencies is due to Eastern Europe than it is to Gorbachev’s glasnost, however, can be challenged. In November 1988, the Estonian Parliament had declared Independence after the Popular Front for Perestroika was set up in April that year. Autonomist movements had sprung in Moldavia January 1989, along with huge demonstrations of green nationalism early 1988 in Latvia. These uprisings and movements had already been happening from 1987, in a more subdued form, after the implementation of glasnost. Citizens in the Soviet republics were only then able to make known their nationalist views in public, and gather support. These examples have shown how the communist collapse in Eastern Europe did not incite the beginning of these movements. The inspiration, thus, worked to encourage dormant parties to rise again and for active movements to increase momentum. In other words, the collapse of the Soviet Union was already in place before the Eastern Europe revolutions, as nationalistic tendencies had already arisen prior to that.
Second, the developments in Eastern Europe changed the mindsets of the Soviets in power and the Russian people. Similar to the situation in the other soviet republics, there was a breaking of the psychological barrier to the idea of a dissolved Soviet Union. The Soviets were confronted with the illegitimacy of communist rule, and the inevitability of Communist collapse in the Soviet Union. In particular, Gorbachev was influenced by the relinquishing on monopoly power of the Yugoslav League of Communists in January 1990 to permit legal non-communist activities and parties throughout the Soviet Union, in effect breaking the CPSU’s monopoly of power. From then on, nationalist parties rapidly rose to power in the various soviet republics, and the danger of mass decolonisation (Pearson, 1997) became clear. Only with this legalisation of non-CPSU parties were nationalist movements allowed to rapidly gain ground and exert pressure onto the central Soviet government, now having legislative powers, which was much more effective than having only the non-constitutional modifying power to command masses in demonstrations and strikes.
Developments in Eastern Europe also increased Gorbachev’s will to reform Soviet society and the economy. An aide of Gorbachev, Sergei Karaganov, said that “the changes in the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, and Romania have provided a potent push for perestroika... showed that there is no reasonable alternative to the democratisation of the political system and marketisation of the economy.” Gorbachev used the events in Eastern Europe as a continued justification for his reforms, and this continued opening of Soviet society and economy eventually leads to the widespread criticism and fiscal collapse of the Soviet Union.
There was a crisis of confidence in the Soviet Union’s survival for the Russians themselves. They realised that there were no chances of stopping the newly independent Eastern Europe nations from influencing the Soviet republics to secede, just like how it was impossible to stop Eastern Europe from falling to the West. The Russians realised that the European composition of the Soviet bloc had decreased as a result of the loss of the outer empire, with an increased composition of Asiatic peoples (e.g., Muslims) in the Soviet bloc. Some Russians wanted to get rid of Central Asia republics. Ultra-nationalists went as far as calling for the shedding of all non-Russian territory in the Soviet Union. These voices were definitely heard by the Supreme Soviet, and others in power, such as Boris Yeltsin, having the effect of accelerating events leading towards the breakdown of the Soviet Union.
Third, the Eastern Europe developments weakened support for Gorbachev, in the eyes of those whose actions would determine the fate of the Soviet Union, such as the bureaucracy, political opposition and the military. The conservatives criticised Gorbachev for having easily given away post-Yalta gains to the Western world (Kennedy-Pipe, 1998). This was a fundamental concession the conservatives felt had destroyed the Soviet Union’s international standing and signified subservience to the United States. Coupled with other areas in which Gorbachev was criticised for, including his handling of the Soviet Union’s economic situation, Gorbachev began to look like an incompetent weakling. This was important as eventually, these conservatives launched a coup in 1991 on Gorbachev, which was stopped by Boris Yeltsin. This whole political drama resulted in the finality of the political demise of Gorbachev, and helped to boost the rising popularity of Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin’s influence in the affairs of the Soviet Union later was one of the precipitating factors of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
But was this coup primarily motivated by the loss of the Eastern Europe outer empire? It seems to have played a crucial role as the coup was primarily motivated by the fear of the collapse of the Soviet Union caused by Gorbachev’s political reforms, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, as pointed out previously, helped to change the mindsets of the Soviets, so the developments of Eastern Europe similarly warned the conservatives of the huge likelihood that the same would happen to the Soviet Union as well if Gorbachev’s reforms were to be continued, compelling them to action.
Fourth, letting go of Eastern Europe helped the Soviet Union economically in two ways: shedding its liabilities in having to provide for these states, and internationally in striking a more conciliatory stance, thawing Cold War tensions and creating a pathway for aid from the West. It had been using valuable resources to subsidise oil, and to station military troops in the outer empire. These could have been factors in helping to prop up the Soviet Union, as economic collapse was a main force for the collapse, but at the same time, despite this, there had been little change in the dire economic situation that the Soviet Union was stuck in. Over the course of 1991, national income fell, according to official sources, 15% more relatively than the 30’s US. The saving on costs on Eastern Europe, and the help that Germany (US$8 billion), the United States, and other West European countries that amounted to several billions did not help it enough. The Soviet Union did not receive any large scale Western aid that Gorbachev had been pining for, mainly due to the West’s recession of 1990 and of the basketcase nature of the Russian economy that decreased investor confidence. Furthermore, as a result of this aid, Gorbachev, perhaps wanting more or only too happy to be grateful, continued giving in to ideals of democratisation and Westernisation. These continued reforms proved to outweigh the effects of an improved Russian economy, destroying the foundation of the Soviet Union.
Without Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika which started the ball rolling towards the fall of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe would not have had an impact domestically at all, as in the case of West and East Germany – strong nationalistic movements only arose in the East after its Gorbachev-initiated reforms of glasnost and perestroika. In Stalin’s totalitarian era, criticism of his policies towards Eastern Europe would not surface for the population and even within the Communist Party, making it difficult for any widespread discontent to gain any ground, much less for dissidents to get elected into power and defiantly push for independence without central government approval. In the late 90s, many republic governments were engaged in the “War of Laws” against the central government as they implemented laws that contradicted and ignored the USSR ones. In response to this, there was no military action taken, with the exception of two incidents in Lithuania and Latvia killing around 20. This was however not initiated by Gorbachev and happened when Gorbachev was retreating to the right in an attempt to save his political fortunes in January 1991. By that time, glasnost had already taken hold of the Soviet Union, rendering the military intervention counterproductive, decreasing Gorbachev’s support further. Thus it is only with glasnost and perestroika that these movements start and get going, becoming stronger after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Although Gorbachev did not intend to even allow Germany to be reunified and even for the Soviet Union to collapse through his reforms, he failed to realise this potential for the collapse of these institutions through his reforms.
Even without Eastern Europe first collapsing, it is entirely possible that the Soviet Union was going to collapse from internal pressure, as glasnost and perestroika too had profound effects on Russian/Soviet society, destroying the Soviet-Communist myth. Also, the coup that dealt the fatal blow to Gorbachev’s political life was also motivated by Gorbachev’s handling of other affairs such as the Afghanistan war, Shatalin plan, in line with his other measures to liberalise the Soviet Union. Thus possibly the conservative coup would still have happened, and ultra-liberal Boris Yeltsin would still be able to wield tremendous influence after it failed. The bureaucracy and military industrial complex were similarly powerful and was a key driving force in the political fall of Gorbachev, indirectly helping (as they were not on the same political wavelength) Yeltsin gain the amount of popular support he commanded, and successfully utilising his position as the head of Russia to push for the breakdown of the Soviet Union in June 1991, and later, officially, in December 1991.
Putting these events into perspective with the bigger picture of what actually happened during the collapse, ultimately the Eastern Europe revolutions played a role in the power struggle between Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev, which precipitated the collapse. Within Russia, Boris Yeltsin threw his support behind the separatist movements, playing a role in the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (as head of Russia) and the Alma Ata Protocol, finally causing Gorbachev to step down, resigned to the breakdown of the USSR. Even though Yeltson did not wish for the USSR to be dissolved (Strayer, 1998) the events in Eastern Europe must have convinced him that it was impractical to resist and politically advantageous against Gorbachev to support the other soviet republics in their quest for greater freedom and autonomy, casuing Yeltsin’s continued support to these movements, thereby accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Even if we were to discount the assumption that the coup on Gorbachev and the Yeltsin-Gorbachev power struggle were not at all important in the collapse of the Soviet Union, it ccan be argued that factors within the federation, such as widespread popular discontent against the government, had already taken root in the country. Thus, conditions were created by Gorbachev’s policies such that some political body or person (e.g.,Yeltsin) would stand up to change things, if Gorbachev did not move to strongly repress these uprisings. Yet, as stated previously in the case of Lithuania and Latvia even repression can be counterproductive in silencing the masses.
Gorbachev’s allowing for other political parties in 1990, in effect causing the breaking of the Soviet Union’s monopoly, is crucial in electing nationalist governments to the individual soviet republics of the Soviet Union, which later push for independence successfully. However, it can be argued that Gorbachev was not so much influenced by the Yugoslavs as he was to continue pushing for political openness. This landmark decision taken by Gorbachev can be viewed as just a continuation of the June 1988 radical reforms that reduced party control of the government apparatus, lessening the influence of the Eastern Europe communist collapse.
Though the Soviet Union did not collapse by revolution, violent uprising, popular support of leaders moving away from the Soviet model was important in keeping these leaders in power and giving them the political will to push through initiatives, such as the Alma Ata Protocol which received widespread public support.
In conclusion, the developments in Eastern Europe represent the effectiveness of the reformist policies of Gorbachev. Emphasis should be placed on these policies that are the root cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In that sense, the revolutions in Eastern Europe are important as providing a milestone to which the glasnost and perestroika policies have been realised (though ironically in contradiction to Gorbachev’s original aims to revitalise the Soviet Union), and an indication of what was to come for the Soviet Union. These developments are not crucial as the collapse of the Soviet Union could have happened otherwise anyway. However their role is not merely symbolic – Eastern Europe quickens the pace of events by strengthening nationalistic movements and weakening the will and ability of those in power.
Comments: Although the essay loses a bit of its impetus and conviction towards the end, overall this is a very good, relevant, and focused analysis of the issues
References
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