Logan+Davis

Research question:
==== “To what extent did the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev lead to the dissolution of the USSR?” This Looks at the Soviet Union during the tenure of Mikhail Gorbachev which was from the years 1985-1991 and only looks at policies and initiatives initiated by Gorbachev. This question will be answered through a number of sources, most of which are secondary sources. Once the research has been done I will analyze and make sense of all of it before definitively answering the question. ====

====Gorbachev was appointed as General Secretary in March of 1985 as the youngest General secretary ever of the Soviet Union.[1] His first policy he tried to impose on his people was an anti-alcohol, prohibition like policy[2]. But being one of the few men in Russia who did not drink, it quickly failed[3]. His second attempt at reform was called Acceleration[4]. He basically used the traditional communist method of exhorting people to work harder. This policy also failed to make much difference. This is when Gorbachev figured out that a restructuring would work. He called this policy Perestroika(meaning date what it did). His goal was to change the economy. He saw it as the economic system was not broken but more so as that there were glitches that needed to be fixed[5].====

====“His first attempt at economic reformation was a policy called Self-finance. It allowed Enterprises (Russian term for business) to finance themselves with their own profits. This meant if a business was failing it was not saved by government subsidies as it was in the past. But in an economy where money doesn’t mean anything and where all prices are centrally regulated it was hard to justify the new policy”[6]. Also when prices were centralized and production costs were not enterprises needed to make up the deficit so they would produce cheaply made and poorly functioning goods[7]. Which led to another problem which arose for Gorbachev which was quality control. To cope with this he created a government agency to regulate quality and ensure that no goods would be sold without their stamp of approval[8]. “This meant that without the stamp of approval Enterprises would not meet their quotas which meant they had to answer to the government. It was a very altruistic plan because it was based on a group of people operating with honesty and integrity. But this was not the case.”[9] Enterprises and quality control people would lie and many enterprises were guilty of finding loopholes to get through the checks. And because of this lack of useful goods a black market began to arise where people could get goods that they actually wanted.[10]====

====His earlier failures proved to show a naivete in Gorbachev. This misunderstanding of how the Soviet Union work was a product of the fact that he was born when Russia was already Communist so he was never able to understand the intricacies of how the party really worked[11]. Which resulted in him believing that it was the conservative elements in the communist party which weren’t allowing Perestroika to work. Much like Soviet leaders before him Gorbachev believed that there were saboteurs within the party who were undermining his idea[12]. He aimed to undercut the wreckers of his system who were in the party elite by initiating Glasnost. This idea of limited freedom of speech was supposed to allow people to say what they felt about the economy to the Politburo and in return, fix the economy. So, what started out as very restricted freedom of speech to the point where you could only say what the government told you you could say quickly expanded into almost complete freedom of speech.[13]====

====This became a large issue. In a country where fear was the mortar holding the bricks together allowing freedom of speech was not a wise decision. Glasnost led to loss of this pivotal fear of government.[14] And the lack of fear in each citizen led to a lack of from the countries in the Soviet Union. So, when the fear was gone, the Baltic states and the the other 12 countries which were a part of the soviet Union, including Russia started agitating for independence.[15]====

====Gorbachev was distracted with the economy and with the political and social issues brought about by Perestroika and more specifically Glasnost.[16] So in 1988 at the conference of the CPSU Gorbachev decides to reduce government control. The Soviet government had always been a two tiered system where the Party ran parallel to the State. Gorbachev wanted to change this by taking power away from the party and putting it into the state. He did this by creating the executive presidency and the congress of people’s deputies. So with this new presidential position came the first free elections but Gorbachev ruined the legitimacy of these decisions by having himself appointed to it.[17] He resigned as president on December 25, 1991 and in January of 1992, by popular demand, the Soviet Union ceased to exist”.[18]====

==== The First source I used was an article written for The Cold War Museum. It was written to provide an overview of the events which transpired which led to the fall of the Soviet Union. It h elped me by giving a brief timeline of events allowing me to know the series and order of events so I can go more in depth on them. I plan to use some of the references to the nuances of the Soviet Union to show why things happened the way they did. The main parts of the source that I plan to use would consist of the summaries of the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev. My question is about his contribution to the dissolution of the USSR so knowing his policies and what failed and why will be vital to say the least. It gave me a first look at Perestroika and Glasnost two policies I tend to heavily dwell on. Lastly, it sheds light on the factors not related to Gorbachev which are just as important in answering my research question. Despite these many uses the source was a little lacking because there is plenty of more information I needed to gather. This source helped as an overview but I will need to go much more in depth to fully answer the question. Other limitations are that it gives an outside almost retrospective point of view and the reasoning behind certain events being so detrimental to the USSR’S existence is lacking. Aside from that it is a very good source. ====

My next source was the interview of my aunt. She is a professor at Denison with a PHD in political science with a focus on Russian history (cold war) and a frequent visitor of Russia now and during the cold war. It gave me a very well-rounded view of my topic. The clarification I received about Glasnost and perestroika will definitely be vital. She also gave me a definitive answer to the extent that Gorbachev was responsible for the USSR’s dissolution. I don’t fully agree but some of the details will surely help my argument. Finally, she gave me some facts about the reasoning behind Gorbachev’s actions that I hadn’t found anywhere else. Also she gave me some books to read that may pertain to my topic. Though this is a very complete look at the topic it is still a more biased look than that of an encyclopedia for example. I still need to find more sources so I can make my own judgements. Other limitations were that some facts need to be checked because she obviously can’t remember every specific detail exactly so it is not a finished source yet.

Purpose: To provide an overview of the events which transpired which led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
==== Value: Helped me by giving a brief timeline of events allowing me to know the series and order of events so I can go more in depth on them. I plan to use some of the references to the nuances of the Soviet Union to show why things happened the way they did. The main parts of the source that I plan to use would consist of the summaries of the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev. My question is about his contribution to the dissolution of the USSR so knowing his policies and what failed and why will be vital to say the least. It gave me a first look at Perestroika and Glasnost two policies I tend to heavily dwell on. Lastly, it sheds light on the factors not related to Gorbachev which are just as important in answering my research question. ==== ==== Limitations: As far as what more I need to learn, there is plenty of more information to gather. This source helped as an overview but I will need to go much more in depth to fully answer the question. Other limitations are that it gives an outside almost retrospective point of view and the reasoning behind certain events being so detrimental to the USSR’S existence is lacking. Aside from that it is a very good source. ====

Origin: New york in 2004 in the 3rd volume of the Encyclopedia of Russian History
==== Purpose: The point of this article is to inform people on what Perestroika is. It was written to go along with similar entries about Glasnost and other policies introduced by Gorbachev during his brief tenure as General Secretary. ==== ==== Value: This article has a good amount of information that I can use to answer my research question. The first piece is that it gave me an in depth overview of what Perestroika was and why Gorbachev issued it. My research question is about how Mikhail Gorbachev’s time in power led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And this source shows directly how Perestroika partially led to the fall of the USSR. So I plan to use that information along with other facts that support ,y thesis of how Gorbachev did in fact play a large role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. ==== ==== Limitations: The limitations in this source are that it is a bit a=hard to follow the course of logic. It seems to outline Perestroika as this ambiguous shape shifting type policy. I think this is because it is not paired with facts on enough facts about Glasnost. The two policies often went hand and hand so to explain them separately limits the degree to how the concepts can be grasped ====

Davis, Sue. Personal interview. 5 Feb. 2012.
====Origin: I conducted the interview of my aunt. She is a professor at Denison with a PHD in political science with a focus on Russian history (cold war). She is a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev and a frequent visitor of Russia now and during the cold war. ==== ====Purpose: I conducted this interview to acquire some of my aunt’s expert knowledge of my topic. And it gives me a well rounded story all from one source without needed to combine a bunch of sources. ==== ====Value: I plan on using a lot of the information I obtained from my interview. The clarification I received about Glasnost and perestroika will definitely be vital. She also gave me a definitive answer to the extent that Gorbachev was responsible for the USSR’s dissolution. I don’t fully agree but some of the details will surely help my argument. Finally, she gave me some facts about the reasoning behind Gorbachev’s actions that I hadn’t found anywhere else. Also she gave me some books to read that may pertain to my topic. ==== ====Limitations: Though this is a very complete look at the topic it is still a more biased look than that of an encyclopedia for example. I still need to find more sources so I can make my own judgements. Other limitations were that some facts need to be checked because she obviously can’t remember every specific detail exactly so it is not a finished source yet. ====

Purpose: This was published to inform people of the reasons why the Soviet Union fell and make a comprehensive and intertwined group of articles all linked to the topic.
==== Value: This source has an overall good amount of information. I plan on using information contained in the ranked list of events and how they contributed to the fall of the USSR versus other events. I only plan to use events related to the election of Gorbachev and different policies and decisions he created. ==== ==== Limitations: This article however, is reasonably brief which means I will have to find some information that is more in depth. As a result of its brevity it can be a bit vague about some facts and my sense it that it omits certain facts. I think I would need to more extensively learn the areas where there are gaps to use this source to its full potential. ====

==== The term of Mikhail Gorbachev can best be summed up by the fact that the end product was the dissolution of the USSR. It is obvious that any leader who leads their country into non-existence is a failure. That being said, the extent to which Gorbachev did fail is debatable. His first mistake was that he cared too much and tried too hard. He went about affecting change on the USSR in the wrong way. He tried to change policies and not deep-seeded issues that posed a much larger threat to the well being of the country. This caused Gorbachev to inadvertently accelerate the downfall of his country. Ironically, one of the first ways he did this was through a policy called Acceleration. He tried to motivate workers to work harder but they had nothing to work harder for. Without the cooperation of an efficient and deligent workforce the Soviet Union didn’t stand a chance. The flaws in the system lay within the people. They didn’t want to work. The only thing that made them work was fear. Fear of starvation and fear of the government liquidating them. The people did the bare minimum because they were not self-motivated to do their part, which is a necessity for communism to work. ====

==== During Gorbachev’s secretaryship the country was still running off of five-year plans. All they have to do is meet their five year quotas and they won’t have to hear from the government. However when a shoe factory was given the order that in the next five years they needed to produce 100,000 shoes they would simply do it in the easiest way possible. Make 100,000 size 9 right shoes. This demonstrates the fatal flaw in the Soviet System. The workers were not working to better the country they were only working just hard enough to slip by. But Gorbachev had faith in his people. He had such an altruistic view but it was simply unrealistic. In a soceity where for it to be successful everyone has to buy in there wasn't enough people doing so. Even when he tries to give some financial motivation to enterprises they too find loopholes and even black markets form. ====

==== Gorbachev's economic policies were failing because of social issues so he was forced to try to change the country through social reform. Gorbachev's naivete becomes apparent when he tries to outlaw alcohol early in his term. But in a country where there is 15 liters of alcohol consumed per person in a year that policy did not go over well. That was when he was forced to make glasnost to couple with perestroika. Once again, in a perfect world giving the Soviets citizens freedom of speech would be a good thing. However in a country where fear was the only thing keeping people in line, letting people speak their minds freely is a bad idea. This led to people voicing opinions more and more and calling for change. Once the fear was gone the country was as good as dissolved. ====

==== That is if it wasn't doomed already. Gorbachev may be responsible for bringing these flaws to light and exacerbating them, but to blame it all on him is false. Because he was a product of the Soviet system and grew up in a propagandized Russia he was ill equipped to do his job correctly. The best thing he could have done was nothing at all, which would have only delayed the inevitable. ====