Gee, and I thought GQ was supposed to deal in facts and citations, not unwaivering commitment to one’s opinion.
The best answers to the question that was actually asked (“what hapened in 1991 to topple everything?”) have been provided by Little Nemo and flodnak. The failure of the USSR to crack down on Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall gave the signal to the Soviet republics to stake claim to their independence. In 1990, this basically happened, and by late 1991, the whole structure of the Soviet Union was basically about tossed out the window in favor of what was basically a federation.
Hardliners didn’t like this, and in August 1991, attempted a coup. It collapsed, along with Gorbachev’s power, and Yeltsin gained power. Once Gorby, as head of the Communist Party, could no longer pull the levers of power, the jig was up.
There was jack-all going on with SDI, defense spending, Reagan, or anything else happening in 1990 or 1991 that caused all of this. If you want to explain why the situation was as it was in 1990, then yes, you must consider what roles Reagan, glastnost, the Solidarity movement, the space race, and Soviet technology and agricultural policy. That is a much larger question, which it sounds like the OP was not asking.
-Ravenman
MSc, diplomatic history of the 20th century
I’m actually factually interested. There are tons on books on this subject in the West, but I yet to see an account from the Soviet side. Do you know one? If you’re not prepared to bring anything into the debate you should stay out of GQ and GD, an park your ass in MPSIMS.
[nitpick]The enhanced radiation (neutron) bomb is considered to be a tactical weapon, not a strategic one, used for anti-personnel applications, disruption of supply chains and logistics, and denial of battlespace. (Strategic weapons are used to destroy–not disable–industrial or strategic targets, like oil refineries or missile complexes.) The only “strategic” applications in which ER packages were used were in ABM systems like Nike-X/Safeguard/Sentinel, as compact, high radiation anti-missile warheads. Reagan, or rather the people advising him on strategic affairs, realized that intermediate range and ostensibly tactical weapons were highly destabilizing with regard to Mutually Assured Destruction (the governing strategic nuclear doctrine) and represented both an operational and security risk that ICBMs did not, hence the pressure for their removal from service. The nations of NATO were also agitating for the elimination of European based nukes for obvious reasons, and with the large, very accurate and responsive Minuteman-III ICBM and C-4 Trident SBBM forces (and coming high payload MIRV-capable MX/Peacekeeper, the D-5 Trident and and mobile Midgetman ICBMs) IRBMs were just no longer needed. (Neither were strategic bombers, which didn’t stop us from developing the B1-B Lancer and B2 Spirit.)
As can be seen by the multitude of answers (most at least partially correct) there was no one single cause for the collapse. The conditions had been brewing for years–specifically, since the deposition of Krushchev, who despite his crudness of manner was sincere in his desire for economic reforms and greater exchange with the rest of the world–and while the catalysed with the attempted coup, the final slide started with the death of Konstantin Chernenko and with him the last of the hardline ideologues who had blindly guided Soviet foriegn and military policy for twenty years. The existing, if suppressed, fragmentation and ethnic distinctions of the Balkan and Eastern European satellites of the USSR were invigorated by the repudiation of the Brezhnev Doctrine and the withdrawl from Afghanistan during Gorbechev’s tenure merely secured the deal in a relatively bloodless fashion, but the argument could be made that the Soviet Union was long held together by threat (and sometimes action) of force and strength of personality and ideology rather than any unifying national impulse, and would have come apart sooner or later.
The economic argument–that they failed because they just ran out of money, whether owing to the arms race/space race/mineshaft race or because of their fiscal incompetence–has some amount of merit, but in fact the Soviets had long been bankrupt by Western standards, and had they simply needed cash they could have sold any amount of their abundant natural resources (titanium, uranium, petroleum, platinum, tungsten). (Since most of these resources like outside of Russia, in other republics that have neither the infrastructure nor the political stability to extract and utilize them, they remain largely untapped.) Ultimately, the Soviet Union came apart because the threat of reprisal from seperation evaporated. Gorbechev’s complete loss of control of even his own politcal structure just crystalized for the outlying republics and the rest of the world that the bear was toothless.
Interestingly, if you read Orwell’s Animal Farm, he essentially predicts the trend of Soviet history, if not quite every major event, including the lapse away from ideological Communism (or, in the book, Animalism) and the economic co-opting of the Soviet Union (Animal Farm) by Western capitalism, including reverting back to the former state (Manor Farm). If Eric Blair could see the dissolution of Soviet Communism four and a half decades prior then the problems were obviously long-standing and inherent in the system, rather than a result of recent influence.
Without going into this, China divisions are not only geographic, but political. Whole mdepartments engage regularly in near-open economic warfare and completely refuse to cooperate. I think this, along wit increasing domestic unrest, is why China’s gov has been doing saber-rattling against Taiwan, upgrading their military, and possibly sparking open riots against Japan. It’s in hopes of pulling things back together, which is a problem since the current generation of leaders no longer cares much for any ideological or much even nationalistic sentiment. It’s all about money and power, and they’re just decent enough not to be openly evil about getting it. This is very bad, because after the Communist takeover and subsequent culture wars, there was relatively little left of the traditional cultural spheres, obligations, and ties.
China, of course, will remain China, but much of what we now call China just plain isn’t. At best, the weastern lands were never more than outposts. I think, and we may hope, that it will one day experience a velvet revolution. But that may not occur until the next generation comes to power, or the one after that.
Just to get this in before this is sent to GD or the Pit:
The inherent efficiency of capitalism allowed the US and the West to have guns and butter. The Soviet economy was roughly half the size of the US economy, but military spending was almost equivalent. The Soviet managed the transition to an industrial economy relatively well, although much later than the US, but when the world switched to the Information Age, the Soviet tradition of repression and hidden information meant that they could not keep up. The enormous increase in the speed of information dissemination meant two things:[ul][li]The West was able to take advantage of this near-instantaneous transfer of cost information because they were more used to reacting to the free market, and the Soviets could not prevent their people from seeing at near first-hand the abundance of consumer goods in the West.[/ul]It was the contrast of the dingy and dilapidated USSR with the economic juggernaut of the the US and Europe that put paid to the Soviet Union. The high-tech explosion in the military, symbolized by SDI, also cut the legs of confidence from under the Soviet military. Those guys weren’t stupid. Their enormous edge in conventional arms was being systematically eroded by the advanced communication/command/control capabilities of NATO. [/li]
Notice, if you like, that Gulf War I was fought between a shit load of Soviet tanks and airplanes vs. a twentyfirst century Allied force - and it was a turkey shoot. The only option the Soviets could have had in a shooting war was the nuclear option, MAD meant that it would be suicidal, and SDI implied that even Soviet ICBMs might become obsolete. Sure, they could have tried to bypass it. But the US and the West, who led the world in software, weren’t going to sit around and let that stand. From then on, the Soviets were forced to become reactive, and try to come up with something to counter the technology that the USSR already was ten years behind in.
IMHO, Putin is doing his dead level best to bring back the USSR. Note the systematic dismantling of fair elections, jailing rich entrepreneurs, crippling the news’ media outlets and concentrating power in his hands. I wonder how this will turn out?
This is not a debate. I answered a question with an opinion, much like I’d answer one of the “Why won’t my car start?” questions. Obviously, there may be a number of factors contributing to why a car won’t start.
There are also a number of factors that contributed to the downfall of the USSR. I believe the expense of the arms race is one of them. (See Shodan’s post concerning guns and butter, above.) I also believe that Reagan’s will to up the ante in that race was a significant factor.
This is not GD, which mostly consists of inane political sniping. I seldom post in GD, as the intellectual level of discourse in MPSIMS is generally higher than GD, and GD’s repetitious partisan bickering is tiresome and non-productive.
John, you really shouldn’t bring a post that, by your own admission, is a Great Debates style post into this forum and then protest that you don’t like Great Debates type arguments when people respond to it.
Thank you for being courteous. Because you were, I gave your post some thought. I can see where maybe, even if it wasn’t my intent, this: “PS: Soon, the usual army of SDMB lefties will be along to claim Reagan had nothing to do with it, but that’s my opinion and I’m stickin’ to it!” may have invited debate.
My intention was to warn the OP of what would be coming in response to my opinion, not start a debate.
But, intentions be dammed. Since I do despise hypocrisy, I hereby apologize for inciting debate in GQ.
And thank you as well. I think it is possible to discuss any subject, even one in which the participants passionately hold differing beliefs, while maintaining some courtesy. So while I am willing to participate in a heated argument when necessary, I always attempt to remain polite until the other guy fires the first shot and I’m glad when others show similar restraint, as you have done.