Reasons for the Rapid Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991

This document discusses the reasons for the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union in the period 1990-1991. It explores the impact of policies like glasnost and perestroika, economic reforms, regional factors, and the influence of the United States. The document also highlights the role of technology, industrialization, and military spending in the downfall of the USSR.

SOCIOLOGY

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EXPLAIN WHY THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED SO RAPIDLY IN THE
PERIOD 1990-1991.
Soviet Union was always a great power in the world. After the Russian Revolution in 1917,
Soviet Union emerged as one of the biggest powers in European and Asian Region. After the
end of World War II, they remain to be so and the age of cold war began with United States.
In the time of cold war Soviet Union developed itself in different aspects. From military to
Space they have got an edge over all the countries of the world (Hosking, 2017). The Tussle
between US and USSR was always putting other countries of the world in the pressure.
USSR became so powerful that the countries like Canada, U.S. and its European allies
formed an organisation named North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Both USSR and U.S. was
trying to gain their dominance in different fields and it was the major reason that their tussle
increased. This shaped the international politics in a totally different manner. Both the
countries tried to add allies so that they could become the bigger force. This period noticed
the development of weapons equipped with advanced nuclear technology. This made the
world to shiver a bit more. Many historians believed that the death of the USSR was sudden.
Since there are large numbers of rebellion regions emerging in the last few decades, it was
getting difficult for the government to handle the security of the state. Finally in 1991, USSR
broke into 15 independent republics (Hanson, 2014). Many people believed that Gorbachev
was a weak leader and his policies made the country weaker. Historians believed that his two
policies named glasnost meaning openness and perestroika meaning restructuring was
introduced so as to address the challenges that are faced by the nation. Both these strategies
speed up the process of dissolution of Soviet system which was already at the downfall stage.
Glasnost which started in 1980’s was a push towards bringing more transparency in the
governance. It limited state censorship which allowed media of the state to report all the
things happening in the country including reporting of painful, long-covered-up truths. Facts
such as increasing incidences of infant mortality, rising alcoholism, decline in the life
expectancy came up on the headlines. The situation became worst when the media reported
that the condition of the life standard is improving in the west. All these created
dissatisfaction in the minds of the people. Along with this the policies allowed non-
communist parties to take part in the elections (Funk and Mueller, 2018). This created a
political hostile environment in the nation.

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On the other hand second policy i.e. Perestroika was made as an economic reform that aimed
at reviving a long suffering economy. It somewhat backfired as it shifted USSR from the
central-command model in which business was administered and owned by the government
towards the hybrid communism-capitalism model that incorporated free market reforms. New
entrepreneurs were supported and the citizens were allowed to open private businesses as
well as the multinational companies were allowed to take part in the joint ventures
(Ambrosio, 2016). The result of it was seen when McDonalds opened their outlets in nation’s
capital i.e. January 1990. But this removed the control of the government over the economic
activities in the nation and new era of economic hardship and shortages came into existence.
It was also considered as the downfall of the image of the Golden Arches in Pushkin Square
seemed like a triumph of Western capitalism. Regional leaders such as Ukraine and Lithuania
emerged as powers in the form of non-Russian Union Republics (Janos, 2018). They utilised
their freshly opened political processes so as to demand autonomy from the Kremlin,
ultimately leading to demise of USSR. Many people at that time believed that perestroika was
just an expression of suffering over the decline in spirituality and corrosive effects of Stalinist
past. It was a phase when desperate answers to big questions were found out such as what is
good life? What makes social and economic justice? What is a legitimate and decent state?
What must be the relationship of civil society with the state? Gorbachev stated that country
cannot move forward without changing the lives of the people radically and staying away
from malpractices followed in the past. The ideals of perestroika increased the irritation in the
minds of the people against corruption, lies, thievery and other obstacles in the way of honest
work (Strayer, 2016). New perception began to change in attitudes towards the regime and
shift in values.
It was the media that played a major role in the collapse of Soviet Union as many liberal
newspaper came out. They all reported the illness in the society which acted as a voice of the
people who wanted freedom from the communist regime (Shlapentokh, 2017). People also
started to raise their thoughts in different forms as they felt the government will not do any
harm to their changing ideologies.
It was not just Gorbachev but their previous leaders also did not look towards the economic
condition of USSR getting down. Even the last President did not utilise profits from the two-
decade oil bloom and spent it on an arm race with the United Sates. It was the perfect time
when the government could have invested on the social reforms so as to improve the life
standards of the people (Plokhy, 2015). The sudden downfall of Soviet Union was seen from

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last three four years as the government announced that USSR would loosen their military
control on neighbouring Warsaw pact nations. This empowered the nations to immediately
fight for more autonomy. Communist regime failed in many countries such as Poland,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania. German Unification Began after falling of
Berlin war which made another big power in the region. Till the time Gorbachev tried to dial
back his reform, it was too late. Larger social forces had been unleashed. Gorbachev
succeeded in weakening a regime of totalitarian in favour of rights of individual despite of
the internal party resistance (Flakierski, 2017). He just wanted to make an idealistic and more
moral Soviet Union which did not worked out. He preferred right moral over economic
wrongs.
Baltic States such as Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were one of those countries which
achieved autonomy. Lithuania declared independence in March 1990, which triggered other
similar kind of declarations in other states of USSR. The referendums in these three states
acknowledged the separation. It was a wrong decision from the government of Soviet Union
to do referendums in many parts of the Russia so as to understand the mood of these states
(Kotz and Weir, 2013). It was the effect of the independence that Gorbachev’s resigned. In
Asia, China gained control over certain part of Asia and in European region Germany started
to emerge as a super power. This reduced the political and economic control in the both the
regions which were previously considered to be as the strong hold of Soviet Union.
The regional factors that led to collapse of the Soviet Union were considered to be as the
downfall in the Agriculture. This led to confusion and resistance to collectivization in the
countryside. There was food shortage in the boundary states of the Soviet Union. According
to Historians, the story of this downfall started two decades during the 1960 and 1970s as
many of the members of the communist party gained too much wealth and the people started
facing starvation (McCauley, 2014). Soviet Union wanted to get industrialise at any cost
which resulted in frequent shortage of consumers good and food. The citizens did not have
the access to basic needs like shoes and clothing. An ultimate divide between the extremely
rich mainly belonging from politburo and poor of the nation has created a consent against the
state. Youngsters especially did not want to adopt the ideology of Communist party as what
their parents had.
The influence of America in this downfall can also be understood by the fact that United
States president Ronald Reagan isolated Soviet economy from rest of the world (Appel and

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Orenstein, 2013). This was done by reducing the oil prices to their lowest of level in the
decade which was one of the major sources of their economy. It came down to $20 a barrel in
1986 to $66 a barrel in 1980. Due to this dropping of oil prices began Soviet Union to lose its
hold on the Eastern European region. This increased the rate of inflation (Approx. 7 percent)
in the country which made further difficult for the citizens to avail goods of common needs.
The increasing inflation was also because government removed price control from some
markets. The reforms made by the government were slow to yield fruits and rather paced the
collapse of USSR.
Many researchers suggest that government’s decision to loosen their control on people led
democratic forces to spread their feet in the Russian Politics. These forces were suppressed in
the past by the means of political oppression. Communist party did not understand that how
much oddity was present in the society at the lower levels; they were assuming it to be small
(Dyker, 2013). The increasing poverty and long queues in the stores created rebel against the
government. Even the GDP of the country slowed down after 1985, when compared with the
last decade. The average growth rate was just 1.9 percent a year. There was enormous
financial burden on government as they had to maintain a huge territory. Large amount of
investment was needed to maintain an empire of that extent. The cost of Afghan War was
estimated to be $4 to $5 billion in 1985 was further reducing their economic strength. Due to
glasnost, people opened door to the vocalisation of widespread war weariness. Western
Capitalism seemed to be the only way in which Soviet Union could fight the economic
challenges faced by them. Country’s disjointed reforms to decentralised economic power
ultimately undermined its economy.
Soviet Economy become increasingly complex as they did not had development models to
imitate. At the same time adopting the economies of other developed nation that runs on
technology would have come at an expense of fostering an innovative domestic economy
(Nourkova and Brown, 2015). As what was happening in many other parts of the world,
USSR also opened their economy for foreign companies which again proved to be an
opposition to nature of the previously existing command economy. Soviet firms along with
the firms from external markets took advantage of new freedom and new investment
opportunities. Soviet leaders had no longer powers to intervene amidst the increasing
economic chaos. Local leaders demanded decentralisation, shaking the foundations of the
command economy. Soviet Union under the pressure of the new economic powers had to
adopt the technologies developed by other countries rather than developing their own

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(Österblom and Folke, 2015). Their failure to invest and carry on with technological
innovations especially related to computer technology.
Industrialisation in many parts of the world was considered to be one of the major reasons for
the downfall of USSR. As companies gained control in the politburo and started to shape the
economy of the world. It was seen that in order to fight the economic challenges, they
supported industrialisation. In other parts of the world it was a success but since communist
ideology did not allowed some people to grow high rich and other poor hence they were
unable to implement it a better manner (Hahn, 2018). When people started seeing that
companies were making the political members rich while people at the ground levels were
still suffering, their faiths in communist ideology fall down. If it would have the time of some
other president they would have used power to oppress the negative consent of the people
against the state. But, Gorbachev disliked violence and mass coercion and hence did not
deployed Stalinist to preserve the law and order in the countryside.
It was the development of technology that made the race fiercer and the era of cold war
became an era of innovation. Cold War continued till 1990-1991. The end of Cold war was
noticed by disintegration of USSR. There are many reasons given for the sudden collapse of
USSR during the period 1990-91. An edge of America in the computer technologies has been
considered as one of the major reasons for their downfall. This became a major factor when
the internet technology developed. It was found that countries started to move towards
America which resulted in the weakening of the economy of Russia. The economic condition
in the country already started to fall down from last decade or so. 1990-91 was the phase
when most of the companies tried to do bring automation in their business. When companies
had those technologies they expanded their business in many parts of the world (Zaslavsky,
2018). Since America was the forerunner of all the nations in these technologies hence they
were able to grow their economic base in other parts of the world. Most of the companies that
were emerging at that time were from US. With the help computer technology they were able
to gain the control of the innovation which become one of the major reasons for downfall of
Soviet Union as it weakened the economy.
The military factor such as spending over the arms was also understood as one of the major
factors for their downfall. When the government had to focus more on the social
development, they ranged their spending between 10 and 20 of the GDP (Aron, 2018). With
each ministry having own interest exact accounting of the spending was unable to be made. It

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was their arm race with other countries that when other aspects of the economy lagged with
the world standards, military remained to be heavily funded. It was also evident from the fact
that when the government had to fund towards the technology that could change the market,
they actually funnelled into defence industries. People also started to think in a different
manner as due to reforms they were eager to what’s happening in the country and hence
politburo faced credibility issues as people thought that country is not looking at their
problems and was busy in some other race. In the sake of openness media started to report
everything and when the incident of Chernobyl power station happened, the media reports
were tried to suppress. When the people wanted to know about the misfortune what they
received was a great lie from the side of government. This acted as a final nail in the coffin of
trust between people and the communist government.
In conclusion it can be said that the downfall of Soviet Union was a result of the change of
the ideology in both political and economic terms. It was a period of transition both
politically and economical which the country was unable to digest (History, 2018). The
policies made by the government and their failure towards understanding the needs of the
changing global economy and their society made the Soviet Union to fall.

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