Reform & Collapse in Eastern Europe and the USSR

Reform & Collapse in Eastern Europe and the USSR Kevin Benoy

Reform in the USSR • Gorbachev inherited a mess. • The Afghan war was bleeding military and economic resources. • The economy was stagnating and corruption made it impossible to realistically evaluate its true state.

Reform in the USSR • Domestically, Gorbachev sought to address the problem of a no-growth economy. • He formulated a policy of Perestroika – restructuring. This would have 3 phases.

Perestroika • First, he would restore order to the work place – this was to happen between 1985-87. • An anti-alcoholism campaign was launched. • Corrupt officials were to be disciplined – requiring a policy of Glasnost – openness – allowing public criticism of government officials. • More scope was allowed for private enterprises. • Investment in modern machinery was stepped up.

Perestroika • Between 1988 and 1990 Large enterprises were to get more independence. • Managers were to become responsible for the success or failure of their enterprises. • Failing or unprofitable enterprises would not be propped up. • Prices were to reflect market forces more realistically. • State bureaucracies were to be trimmed.

Perestroika • By 1991 the whole economy should have been on the new system, with growth accelerating as motivation increased and investment came on stream.

Perestroika • Reform did not go unchallenged. • Hard-line communists said Gorbachev was destroying socialism. • Liberals claimed he wasn’t moving fast enough. • Managers did not know how to work in an open market and many did not care to learn. • The system was geared to monopolies, so no real competition existed anyway.

Perestroika • Workers also resisted change as job security was threatened. • Prices rose faster than wages.

Perestroika • Boris Yeltsin, a long time supporter of Gorbachev, broke with him, calling for faster reform. • Gorbachev himself seemed to draw back as reform brought not increased, but decreased production and labour disputes grew.

Effects of Glasnost • Glasnost opened up old wounds. • New questions were asked about the role of the Communist Party in Stalin’s crimes. • Nationalities also took advantage of the new openness to call for radical reforms. • If reform was possible in the Soviet Union, what about in Soviet satellite states?

Poland • In 1956 Poland caused the Soviets almost as much grief as the Czechs, but Gomulka knew when to draw back. • In 1970 he was forced to resign after riots in Gydnia. • 1979 saw the wildly popular visit of Polish Pope John Paul II. • In 1980 trouble occurred after food shortages and industrial unrest erupted – particularly at the huge Gdansk Shipyard.

Poland • The troubles forced the Polish leader, Gierek, to recognize the right to strike and to legalize the new independent trade union, Solidarity. • Led by electrician Lech Walesa, the union won significant concessions.

Poland • Soon after, Gierek was replaced by Kania, who was, in turn, replaced by General Wojceich Jaruzelski. • Jaruzelski introduced martial law and tried to break the union. Walesa was imprisoned.

Poland • Try as he might, the General could not break the union. • Key to its survival was the support of the union by the Catholic church. • Church leaders cooperated with the underground union, distributing its literature, providing communications and hiding equipment and activists. • Eventually the Polish government decided to negotiate.

Poland • Talks between the government and Solidarity union-led opposition resulted in semi-free elections in the country and a transitional government created. • Soon a Solidarity based coalition came to power and Lech Walesa became the first non-Communist leader since the War.

Poland • August 19, 1989 marked the date of the first non-Communist government in Poland since 1945. • It was only possible because Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev refused to invoke the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Hungary • The Hungarian road to greater freedom was less calamitous. • The lessons of 1956 taught that only small steps to reform were possible (until the Gorbachev years), consequently Hungarian governments stayed clear of political change and focussed on greater consumerism – what came to be known as Goulash Communism.

Hungary • Events in Poland triggered change that even Hungary’s goulash communists could not survive. • In January, 1989 a Polish Communist leader announced that the events of 1956 were a “people’s uprising.” This was not approved by the politburo. • Hungary’s communist leaders were divided, but radical reformers prevailed. • On October 7, the Hungarian Socialist Worker Party dissolved itself and was refounded as the Hungarian Socialist Party – a western style social democratic party. • Hard-line communists split off as the Hungarian Communist Worker’s Party.

Romania • In the 1960’s Romania seemed to prosper, based on oil and wheat production. • At the same time, its leader, Ceaucescu, tried to distance himself from the Soviet Union. • Russian was dropped as a compulsory school subject in 1962. • Ties with the West and China were increased.

Romania • Ceaucescu’s gamble did not pay off. • Borrowed western money was frittered away through corruption and incompetence. • Ceaucescu’s regime became increasingly repressive, as other Eastern Bloc regimes opened up.

Romania • Ethnic Hungarians were a particular target. • Many fled to nearby Hungary. • Others risked all to protest in the streets of their Transylvanian cities, most notably in Timisoara. • Enraged by Securitate murders of demonstrators, peaceful demonstrations turned into riots.

Romania • Riots turned to revolution as army forces joined the demonstrators. • Ceaucescu was shouted down as he attempted to make a speech before a crowd of supposed supporters. • Booing and whistling was followed by chants of “Ti-mi-soa-ra.” • He retreated from the podium.

Romania • Media announced the death of Defense Minister Vasile Milea. • Milea had committed suicide, but the military believed him murdered for refusing orders to fire on civilians. • Military support of the revolution went from spotty to general. • Another attempt to speak to the people was turned back by stones and other missiles.

Romania • The crowd now stormed the palace. • Ceacescu, his wife and a few close supporters narrowly escaped by helicopter from the roof. • Their escape was foiled when they were forced down by the army. • Taken into custody, they were placed on trial on December 25.

Romania • The result was as expected – condemnation and death by public execution. • It was to have been televised, but the eager volunteers carried out the act too quickly for the television cameramen to film it. However, other film exists – see left. • Ion Iliescu, a former communist, headed a government calling itself the National Salvation Front. • Romania’s Communist Party simply dissolved.

Albania • Originally willing to follow the Stalinist line despite not relying on Soviet troops to liberate it in WW2, the Albanians later chose to split from the Soviets. • Albanian leader Enver Hoxha resented Khrushchev’s break from the Stalinist line. He severed relations with the USSR in 1968.

Albania • Albania did stay in the Warsaw Pact until 1968 – but then achieved an alliance with China. • This collapsed when China too went on a revisionist path under Deng Xiaoping. • The Albanians were left alone – and were the last European Communist country to reject Socialism. • Hoxha died in 1985 and some reform was introduced. Even hermitic Albania could not escape the calamitous events of 1989. Fearing the same fate as Ceacescu, Communist chief Ramiz Alia allowed free elections

Albania • The transition to a free market was particularly difficult for Albania. • The government collapsed in 1997 with the inevitable collapse of pyramid selling schemes. • When the army attempted to put down rebellion, this too failed – due to corruption in the military. • Eventually order was restored.

East Germany • Germans lived with, but were not reconciled to a divided country. • Families were separated by a barbed wire and landmine filled border. • It was increasingly clear that the West was prospering and the East stagnating.

East Germany • The failure of the Soviets to push the West out of Berlin made the contrast apparent to all in the East. • For years, many in the East wanted out and some were desperate enough to risk everything in daring breaks. • 70 people lost their lives in the attempt

East Germany • In the 1980s the Cold War began to that – largely through the efforts of Gorbachev. • Reform in the Soviet Union had side-effects in the Soviet satellites as it was clear that Gorbachev was less and less inclined to enforce the Brezhnev Doctrine. • In 1988 Gorbachev declared that the Brezhnev Doctrine was dead.

East Germany • Goulash Communism in Hungary brought increasingly open borders between it and the West as Hungarian leaders saw travel as a safety valve. • Many East Germans saw Hungary as a back daw to the West. • West German television, watched in the East, announced Hungary allowed free movement between it and Austria. • East Germans flooded into Hungary only to find that travel was not open for them. Many found themselves stranded there or in Czechoslovakia – another possible exit point.

East Germany • On October 6, 1989 East Germans were to celebrate their 40th anniversary as a country – with Mikhail Gorbachev in attendance.

East Germany • Gorbachev embarrassed his hosts when he noted that STASI agents seemed to outnumber the public at official ceremonies. • Gorbachev pushed E. German leader Honecker to initiate reforms, saying “life punishes those who lag behind.”

East Germany • On October 8 a protest was staged in Leipzig with thousands attending. • Similar protests elsewhere brought hundreds of thousands into the streets. • The East German government was taken aback, not knowing what to do.

East Germany • As a gesture, many E. Germans in Czechoslovakia were allowed to go on to the West. • On November 9, East German television announced: “The citizens of the GDR are as from now free to move wherever and whenever they want.” • This surprised everyone and so many E. Germans rushed out that cartoons encouraged the last to leave to turn out the lights.

East Germany • West Germany announced that DM100 would be given to every E. German arrival. • Numbers grew larger as exhilarated “Ossies” celebrated their new freedom.

East Germany • Crowds of Ossies and Wessies congregated around the Berlin Wall. • On November 11 the first concrete slab was removed as the mob cheered. • More and more openings were made to facilitate travel and the crowd helped tear away more with picks and sledgehammers. • E. German border guards stood aside, not knowing what to do and waiting for directions that never came.

East Germany • With the East German government in complete disarray and no support from the Soviet Union forthcoming, the GDR leadership simply gave up. • On November 28, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl presented a bill before the Bundestag establishing a framework for the integration of the GDR into the Federal Republic. • On August 31, 1990 German Reunification was agreed. • October 3, 1990 was declared Unity Day. • The real work of unifying two into one would be more difficult.

The Soviet Collapse • The Soviet leadership found independent thinking hard to limit at home. • Economic problems and disasters like Chernobyl and the Aral Sea meant many questioned authority.

The Soviet Collapse • Nationalist discontent boiled over in the Soviet Baltic states as the 3 republics seemed to favour breaking away from the USSR. • In the Caucasus Armenians and Azeris were locked in a bloody civil war. • Gorbachev’s answer was to work toward creating a new union treaty for the USSR.

The Soviet Collapse • Many Soviet leaders felt Gorbachev was letting everything spin out of control. • Hard-liners finaly had enough when on August 18, 1991 the Soviet President was placed under house arrest at his dacha on the Black Sea – just as Khrushchev had been a quarter of a century earlier.

The Soviet Collapse • The Coup leaders sought to assert control, but were not up to the task. • They were inept and out of touch with the population. • Worse, they faced a formidable opponent when Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Republic, stood up to them – with support from some of the Soviet military in Moscow.

The Soviet Collapse • Yeltsin bravely called on the people of Moscow to resist the coup and to surround the Russian Federation headquarters, the so-called “white house,” with a human shield. • Hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, did so.

The Soviet Collapse • Coup leaders ordered Soviet military forces to seize the white house and capture or kill Yeltsin. • Instead, many hoisted Russian ensigns as a sign of their new allegiance, turning their gun barrels outward. • It is claimed that two generals even threatened to bomb the Kremlin, where the coup leaders were located, if the white house were stormed.

The Soviet Collapse • Yeltsin also garnered the support of foreign leaders. • The coup fizzled and its leaders were all arrested or committed suicide.

The Soviet Collapse • Gorbachev was freed and returned to Moscow – but the events of 1991 had marginalized him. • The entire fabric of the USSR began to unravel.

The Soviet Collapse • Gorbachev tried to put together a new union treaty, but it came to nothing. • Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Krawchuck sought a looser federation – the Commonwealth of Independent States. • They got what they wanted.

The Soviet Collapse • A new federation existed in name, but in reality it was largely a fiction. • Nationalism was triumphant – leading to trouble between successor states. • The future of the Soviet Black Sea fleet hung in the balance – along with its high tech nuclear arsenal. • Territorial boundaries were disputed between many newly independent republics.

Conclusions • Soviet Communism and its Eastern European derivatives proved unable to adapt to much needed reforms. • Overly bureaucratic in politics and economics, it simply could not overcome inertia without toppling completely. • At its heart, the foremost members of the CPSU had lost faith in their own ideology as it was practiced.

Reform & Collapse in Eastern Europe and the USSR