Soviet Collapse and European Union

On Christmas Day 1991, Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev announced to the world in his farewell speech, “We’re now living in a new world. And end has been put to the cold war and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country, which has crippled our economy, public attitudes and morals. The threat of nuclear war has been removed.”

The Soviet Union was broken into 14 independent nations (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) breaking away from Russia and the Cold War was over without a shot being fired. Many in the United States look to Ronald Reagan as the man who orchestrated the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the fuel that sparked this change did not come from outside but from Gorbachev and his internal reforms.

Gorbachev had risen to power in 1985 at just the age of 54. He came to power much as Reagan had, after a period of economic stagnation and political frustration. He represented a youthful hope of a bright future for the Soviet Union. However, Gorbachev knew that to wake up this giant of a nation from its slumber would take more than empty promises. It would take a new kind of revolution.

This revolution came in the form of two ideas that shaped Gorbachev’s plans. These two ideas are summed up in two Russian words that have become synonymous with Gorbachev.

Glasnost and Perestroika

These ideas will sound a lot more familiar in English. Glasnost means “openness.” It was a commitment to allow open discussion between the public and the government. This came primarily in the form of the loosening of restrictions of the press and in the release of political prisoners.

Perestroika means “restructuring.” In the Soviet economy before Gorbachev, the state was in ownership of the factories, the markets, and the agriculture. This was the Socialist way. However, this organization was wasteful, unmotivated, and often inept. Perestroika allowed for some private control to return and it opened the door for renewed trade.

These reforms called for fast-paced technological modernization and increased industrial and agricultural productivity. He also tried to make the Soviet bureaucracy more efficient, believing that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without also reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation.

Above all, Gorbachev has said in later years that while he didn’t intend for the whole Soviet Union to collapse, his real goal was for peace. He knew that over 25% of their national budget was being spent trying to keep up with the Americans in the armament of the Cold War. If a peace agreement could be reached, then that was money that could be used to bring reforms to the economy and relieve the growing poverty in the Soviet states.

Of course, the U.S. was not lining up to help the Soviet Union. Even before Gorbachev came to power, the Soviets were involved in an unpopular invasion of Afghanistan that was failing. Reagan’s administration took a hard-line stance against Communism, calling them an “evil empire” back in 1983. The U.S. was also undermining Soviet-supported governments in places like Angola and Nicaragua by supplying weapons and supplies to the anti-communist resistance movements.

Tear Down This Wall

Listen to a segment of this speech given by Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin in 1987. He mentions the reforms of Gorbachev, but despite these efforts, he is still skeptical. The entire era seems like a standoff with two gunfighters who don’t want to have a shootout refusing to take their fingers off the triggers until the other one does it first.

I honestly believe that one event changed Gorbachev’s outlook more than any other, and it wasn’t a speech given by an American president.

Since the time of Nikita Khruschev in 1959, relations between the Soviet Union and China had been strained at best. Despite being the world’s two largest Communist countries and neighbors, they had split due to ideological differences between Mao Zedong and Khruschev. However, 30 years after the last meeting between the leaders of the countries, in the summer of 1989, Gorbachev went to Beijing to meet with the aging ruler of China, Deng Xiaoping. As you might guess, this was a historic meeting, so there were numerous reporters covering this visit.

At the time of his arrival in China, there were tens of thousands of students that had been protesting and hunger striking for about a month in Tienanmen Square. This was a great embarrassment to the Chinese government. They were calling for freedoms and reforms much like the ones that Gorbachev was already giving the Soviet people. The reporters who were there to cover Gorbachev’s visit quickly realized that there was a bigger story brewing.

Gorbachev and his cabinet were stunned at the scale of the protests and said, “Some of those present here, have promoted the idea of taking the Chinese road. We saw today where this road leads. I do not want Red Square to look like Tiananmen Square.” On June 4, 1989, just two weeks after the Soviet visitors left, the Chinese military rolled into the square to suppress the protests.

That suppression is known as the Tienanmen Square Massacre and through the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of protesters the uprising was suppressed and Communism in China lived on. It has now been 30 years since this massacre took place and the Communist leadership of China would have its people believe that it never happened. However, the cameras of the world recorded the dead and wounded being carted away on rickshaws as the bullets rang out in the night. This event would spark further openness to economic reform in China, but they would maintain their tight Communist authoritarian government through violence and secrecy.

I believe that Gorbachev was moved by what he saw in China. He loved his fellow soviet people and did not want to have the same type of blood on his hands. He had called for openness, and the people of the non-Russian soviet countries were asking for freedom. Previous Soviet leaders built walls to keep them in, but when they began to press for freedom, Gorbachev did not stand in their way. Soon, Hungary and Chechoslovakia had both

Fall of the Wall

Immediately following Tienanmen, anti-communist protests and activities began in Hungary and Poland. The Soviet military did not suppress it, but fell short of endorsing it. This was the voice of the people. On November 9, the world was shocked to hear news from Berlin. East Germany’s government had announced that they would not stop anyone from crossing into West Berlin and on to the world. It turns out that Gorbachev would not need to “tear down this wall,” he would allow the people to do it for him.

Gorbachev had not intended to dismantle the Soviet empire. In launching his reforms, he wanted to reform. However, the Soviet Union at this point was beyond reformation. Perestroika and glasnost had made the system fragile, because the lie was no longer there to blind people as it did in China. As a former White House official said, “Gorbachev has let the genie out of the bottle, and his successors will not be able to stuff it back in.”

In 1990, Gorbachev changed the government and opened democratic elections. This did not please the communist hardliners, but it was too late at this point. They had lost power to the vote of the people. Thus, in December 1991 after a failed communist coup, eleven of the Soviet republics declared their independence from the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was now a ruler without a realm, he resigned with a simple speech sharing his regrets and hopes, turned over power to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and the political system that had seemed indestructible and unbeatable was eviscerated from the world political map.

European Union

Immediately after the fall of communism in Europe, the former satellites of the Soviet Union clearly chose to join the unified European family and NATO. In the 15 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, almost all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe submitted their applications to join the European Union and NATO. For these countries, membership is a political symbol. They want to guarantee their freedom and sovereignty.

Entering a unified Europe means that they are equal partners and not merely “little brothers” as they were in the USSR. Having been long oppressed by a regime imposed from outside, these countries were finally able to defend their interests in the democratic framework that the European Union offers.

Without Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, the world today would not be the same. These were the tools used to democratize Central and Eastern Europe and because of it, Europe is no longer divided in two.