I don’t want to ruffle any feathers here, or burst anyone’s bubble who thinks the U.S. is great (I think the U.S. is great too–but I also think it was Russia who ultimately ended the Cold War and Communism, at least as a threat). So let me make it clear here and now that this is only a fact finding thing that I post here. The only reason why I place it in GD is because I realize the subject is open to wide debate.
But I think the historical evidence speaks for itself. President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) created a huge arms build up that ultimately led to record national debts. The Soviet Union while trying to keep up, was also facing internal political instability with the death of Gen. Sec. Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, and then Yuri Andropov just two years later in 1984.
Finally in 1985, for the first time in over 60 years there was a glimmer of hope with the appointment of moderate Gen. Sec. Mikhail Gorbechev. Gorbechev introduced unprecedented measures like glasnost (literally “openness” in Russian) and the radical, capitalist-style economic restructuring of perestroika. It was slow at first, and U.S. leaders claimed interest in the progress (but what did they really have to do with it directly, I ask?). But all of Gorbechev’s efforts came to a peak with the symbolic tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Now there was no doubt that the Cold War and the alleged threat of Communism was gone. Soon Soviet “satellite” countries like Romania disbanded and embraced democratic reform too. And except for a small ill-fated coup in 1991, Communism soon left the Soviet Union which itself also disbanded that year.
And yet I hear people (not to point blame at any one group, but they are usually conservatives) who claim the U.S. ended the Cold War and communism. I just have one question, and understand it is factual and not just rhetorical: How?
Gorby was trying to keep the Soviet state running, not to bring about its downfall.
Why did he instistute those reforms? Because the economic situation in the USSR was deteriorating. Why was it deteriorating? Because, to keep miliary parity with the US, the USSR had to keep spending a greater and greater percentage of its (smaller) economy on their military budget.
When Ronnie stepped up to the plate and announced a massive increase in American military spending, the Soviets were faced with either admitting military inferiority (and then focusing on fixing their economy), or making an attempt at parity. They tried for parity and lost.
Opposing its military expansion throughout the world. Once Eastern Europe was lost to Communist violence and poverty things were looking pretty grim for liberal democracy. Right after WWII there was a serious military situation evolving in Europe. It was obvious that Stalin had no intention of allowing any political freedom. He was a murderous butcher throughout his “administration.”
The Soviets nuclearized – with the help of some concerned Americans for social justice – in 1949. Stalin with nukes. Luckily, he died not too long after that. Chris Matthews spoke my mind this evening when he noted that there have been dozens of movies made about the Nazi mass murderers, but none about the Communist mass murderers. Equal time? Shouldn’t a really high body count qualify you for the mass murder Hall of Shame whatever your political stripe?
Korea and Vietnam spring to mind. At least tying the Korean War allows one half of the peninsula to be lit by something other than rocket engines.
Vietnam, of course, was a great triumph (sarcasm) of half measures and no plan to win the war.
“By 1988, the USSR was spending between 15 and 17 percent of its GNP on military spending.”
So what? How much is this compared to earlier periods? Other dictatorships have spent even larger amounts without collapsing. For instance North Korea spends more than 30% of GDP on its military even though it’s a lot poorer than the Soviet Union was.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm
This is a good article on the issue in the Atlantic Monthly:
“The Soviet Union’s defense spending did not rise or fall in response to American military expenditures. Revised estimates by the Central Intelligence Agency indicate that Soviet expenditures on defense remained more or less constant throughout the 1980s. Neither the military buildup under Jimmy Carter and Reagan nor SDI had any real impact on gross spending levels in the USSR”
“Gorbachev felt free to make a series of proposals for deep cuts in his country’s nuclear arsenal because he was confident that the United States would not attack the Soviet Union. In conversation with his military advisers he rejected any plans that were premised on war with the West. Since he saw no threat of attack by the United States, Gorbachev was not intimidated by the military programs of the Reagan Administration. “These were unnecessary and wasteful expenditures that we were not going to match,” he told us.”
Glasnost and Perestroika were choices made by Gorbachev which eventually lead to the Communist collapse (though this was not intended by him). A different leader could have made different choices and the Soviet regime would have survived; maybe till this day.
Incidentally it should be noted that the 80’s military buildup was begun by Carter. So was the policy of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan.
I read somewhere (sorry, I can’t find it now) that many of the Glasnost and Perestroika programs were simply new names for old habits. That is, under the guise of making changes, Gorbachev was able to oust older party officials and install his own people.
If any single president should be credited with comunism’s downfall (and I think this should not be done as it was a long hard effort by people in the US as well as very brave people in the USSR) My vote has to go to Truman. If I recall correctly he coined the principles of containment which lead eventually to comunism’s downfall. Gorbechev and to some extent Reagan were simply the ones in office when that policy achieved it ultimate goal.
As to the OP, this policy achieved its goal simply by allowing the communists enough rope to hang themselves. I am not claiming that such was its justification. Just that communism is a flawed economic model. And that the policies of containment allowed it to burn out on its own.
According to this cite, North Korean spending was at 11.6% in 1993. I doubt a ~20% increase in the past decade.
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Sure, the final amount actually spent on defense needs in the USSR may have been relatively static. But as a percentage of GNP, it was unsustainable.
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Yes, Gorby realiized that the communist system was not able to compete with the capitalist system. Good for him!
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Absolutely. But a different leader didn’t, so we had the collapse of the communist Soviet Union.
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While much of the technology was indeed in the development stage during the Carter administration, it would be wrong to say that the actual build-up began under his adminstration.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html
My source for North Korean military expenditure; it’s 33.9% of GDP.
For another less extreme example Saudi Arabia spends 13% of its GDP on the military; not far from the 15-17% for the Soviet Union.
. “But a different leader didn’t, so we had the collapse of the communist Soviet Union”
That’s the point; it was Gorbachev’s decisions that ended the Cold War; it was not the case that the geo-political situation forced him to make those decisions. As North Korea and Cuba show, Communist dictators can hang on to power for a long time if they want to regardless of economic perfomance.
As for Carter his last two budgets increased military spending as a percentage of GDP to 5.2% and then Reagan increased it further to a peak of 6.2%. Not a huge difference.
Yeah but old Ronnie did something Carter never thought of - he brought out the USS Missouri from mothballs and put nuclear tipped tomahawks in her! Man, if there was one signal which said he was serious - that was it! And what did the Soviets do to respond, huh? Huh?
Let’s not forget US ‘willingness’? to make a first use of nuclear weapons a part of its stated policy of Communist containment. Yes, we would nuke first if the Soviets decided to take a trip to the English Channel through Germany. The so-called “nuclear umbrella.”
Then, to counter our ‘imperialism’? the Soviets made huge city busting nukes far beyond our weenie little nukes. And so on…
MAD ‘worked’? I’m thinking the experts finally did enough projections of a nuclear war between the major powers to have them all link hands and sing “let’s call the whole thing off.” I wish.
White Nights isn’t about the gulag per se, but the backdrop was the Soviet Union’s rigid control of their citizens, which needed no explaining at the time. And the USSR was the ‘bad guy’ in the movie.
And you’ve already mentioned The Killing Fields, about communist Cambodia.
You are all wrong. What caused the collapse of the Soviet Union was Reagan saying, “Mr Gorbechev, tear down this wall.” Had he not said that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact could’ve gone on forever.
(You have just read a message from the RNC. Remember, don’t watch the new, improved “The Reagans” this Fall on CBS!) :rolleyes:
Would it be fair to say that the USSR was based on a BS ideology pretending to be Marxist and would’ve collapsed under its own weight eventually, anyway? And by unifying the population (and through that deifying Stalin) Hitler actually propped up the Soviet system rather than destroying it as he intended?
Hey… rusty gears churning Does that book have one chapter about, let’s say, “salted potatos”? I’ll bet it does. That’s the sort of stuff I read when I was a teen. Geek.
That didn’t get quite the pub of any WWII Nazi movie I can remember. There was Red Dawn, which probably set back serious anti-Communism about 10 years.
There were many good movies about the nuclear situation between the Soviet Union and the United States: from Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe (1964) to The Hunt for Red October. I won’t diss Hollywood’s treatment of the nuclear war issue.
What exactly are you implying? That there’s some sort of conspiracy to downplay Soviet atrocities in favor of Nazi atrocities? I hardly think Soviet mass-murders were swept under the rug. Movie-makers are not a monolithic entity; individual producers decide that they want to make a movie about a particular topic. Two obvious reasons why movie-makers would consider Nazi Germany to be a hot topic:
-Nostalgia. That was our war; the Axis powers attacked us, and a lot of older people remember fighting Hitler. It was a very emotional time for the U.S.
-Hitler didn’t just commit mass-murder, he attempted to wipe out an entire race. Not that it makes what the Soviets did any less horrendous, but it does make for a compelling story. I mean, it’s not like there’s some central committee that decides what movies get made.
I actually think Dallas on Finish television did more than any meager military threats to the Sovet regime. Estonia and Northern Russian provinces were blighted by the millionaire drama and it spread.
Western popmusik worked its decadent magic on Russian youth. Starting with the hugely popular Boney M, followed up by the very popular STRAX from Iceland. The death blow to “communism” came with WHAM from England (George Michael) working their pinkish freedom-charm.
No need to write long 300 page tomes on history anymore, our man Brutus can sum everything up in a few sentances. Basically, St. Reagan did it, and that’s all you’ll need to know. Focus on the existence of Reagan to the exclusion of all other factors, and you’ll see: everything revolved around him. Case closed.
