How Important Were The Policies Of Gorbachev In Bringing An End To The Cold War In Europe?

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How Important Were The Policies Of Gorbachev In Bringing An End To The Cold War In Europe?

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union. His new policies had an impact on Eastern Europe. As he was from a younger generation, his viewpoint on Communism and the Soviet state differed from previous Soviet leaders. His policies aimed to make the Communist Party more responsive and to liberalise the faltering economy. In effect, he called from an end to the Cold War. His policies were only one factor in bringing an end to the Cold War and other factors such as his new approach, his attitudes and Western pressure eventually led to the end of the Cold War.

        Gorbachev wanted to change the Soviet Union for several reasons. Firstly, the Soviet Unions economy was extremely weak. Its expenditure on the arms race was too much and the war with Afghanistan was unwinnable. Previously, there had been no new thinking about how to run the Soviet economy since the days of Stalin. Each leader had followed the same policies and ignored and warnings that the economy was in trouble. Gerontocracy was used to describe the Soviet leadership between 190-1985. At this time, the Soviet Union was in need of reforms, but all the leaders were in too poor of condition to do anything effective. For example, Brezhnev died in 1982; therefore there was no change in Soviet foreign policy. Andropov was 69 when he come to power. He attempted to start domestic reform, but died soon after. Chernenko, his successor was unable to have an impact on policy and died after less than a year in office. Soviet workers had no chance of bettering themselves, it led them to be cynical and lose faith in the government.  Something had to be done.

        His first policy to try and rejuvenate the Soviet Union was the policy of Perestroika. This had the aim of reconstructuring the economy, involving a measure of private enterprises to promote production, efficiency and higher quality goods. It permitted various industrial and agricultural branches to conduct foreign trade by themselves, rather than having to operate indirectly through the bureaucracy of trade ministry organisations. In addition, regional and local organisations and individual state enterprises were allowed to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to fix the lack of contact between soviet economy and foreign partners. However,

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Another policy was, Glasnost. This was a policy of openness that encouraged the population to put forward new ideas and show initiative. Gorbachev pressured conservatives who opposed , to encourage public debate and participation; Gorbachev hoped to increase the Soviet people's support for and participation in  via his Glasnost. Glasnost gave new freedoms to the people, such as a greater freedom of speech — a radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. However, Glasnost did allow freedom of expression, but it was said that it was ...

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