The Collapse of the Soviet Union 1985-1991

The Collapse of the Soviet Union 1985-1991

By: David R. Marples

Chris Holmes

Mod. Eur. History

Mikhail Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in a village of Privolnoye, Krasnogvardeisk. He was the leader of the Soviet Union during the time period that it collapsed. The Gorbachev era begun march 11, 1985 and went until the end of 1991. He ushered the process that would lead to the political collapse of the Soviet Union. He was also dismantling the soviet administrative command economy through his program of glasnost. Glasnost was a program of political openness. By 1989 the process of openness and democratization began to run out of control. It ended up going farther than Gorbachev intended it to. Then the communist party lost control of the media. The media then began to expose severe social and economical problems. When the public found out about all of this the soviet government just denied it and covered it all up. The problems all consisted of poor housing, alcoholism, drug abuse, and pollution. All of these things eroded the communist party's social power base. Then Gorbackev's attempts where not good enough to get the countries sluggish economy back on track. By 1990 the soviet government virtually lost control over economic conditions.

On February 7, 1990 the central committee of the communist party of the Soviet Union agreed to give up its monopoly of power. After they refused to pay taxes to central Moscow government they really got in trouble. When they did this it caused their supply lines in the economy to be broken. It overall just caused the soviet economy to decline even further. On March 11, 1990 Lithuania declared the restitution of independence and announced that it was pulling out of the Soviet Union. Then on March 30, 1990 Estonia started the process to become an independent state also. But even after Lithuania became

Chris Holmes

Mod. Eur. History

an independent state the Red Army was still there to secure the rights of ethic Russians. Then in January 1991 a clash between troops of the red army and the civilians of Lithuania happened and killed 20 people. None of this was helping out the soviet government in there attempt to come back. They weren't going anywhere but down. On December 25, 1991 Gorbachev resigned, as the USSR officially dissolved. He was then replaced by Boris Yeltsin. The next day the Supreme Soviet voted to repeal the declaration written in 1922. This was the major turn around for the soviet union. Then on December 31, 1991 all official soviet institutions had ceased operations. As the Soviet Union was unraveling Gorbachev and U.S. President Bush declared a U.S.-Soviet strategic partnership