Institute for Domestic & International Affairs, Inc.
Commonwealth of Independent States Dissolution of the Soviet Union Director: Matt Korostoff
Š 2009 Institute for Domestic & International Affairs, Inc. (IDIA) This document is solely for use in preparation for Philadelphia Model United Nations 2009. Use for other purposes is not permitted without the express written consent of IDIA. For more information, please write us at idiainfo@idia.net
Policy Dilemma ______________________________________________________________ 1 Chronology __________________________________________________________________ 3 1945: Birth of the Eastern Bloc ______________________________________________________ 3 25 February 1956: The Khrushchev Thaw ____________________________________________ 3 January-August 1968: The Prague Spring_____________________________________________ 3 December 1979: Soviet Troops Invade Afghanistan _____________________________________ 4 March 1985: Gorbachev Comes to Power _____________________________________________ 4 1986: Beginning of Massive Economic Deterioration ____________________________________ 5 26 April 1986: Chernobyl Explosion__________________________________________________ 5 June 1987: Perestroika Announced __________________________________________________ 6 1988: Glasnost Announced _________________________________________________________ 6 February 1990: Multiparty Elections _________________________________________________ 7 August 1991: Failed Coup against Gorbachev__________________________________________ 7
Post-Soviet Challenges_________________________________________________________ 9 Economic Collapse ________________________________________________________________ 9 The Dilemma of Liberalization _____________________________________________________ 10 Security ________________________________________________________________________ 12 Summary of Challenges ___________________________________________________________ 13 Projections and Implications _______________________________________________________ 13
Actors and Interests __________________________________________________________ 14 Russia__________________________________________________________________________ 14 Communist Parties _______________________________________________________________ 15 Democrats ______________________________________________________________________ 16 Organized Crime ________________________________________________________________ 16
Conclusion _________________________________________________________________ 18 Discussion Questions _________________________________________________________ 19 Bibliography ________________________________________________________________ 20 For Further Reading _____________________________________________________________ 20 Works Cited ____________________________________________________________________ 21 Works Referenced _______________________________________________________________ 23
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Policy Dilemma On 8 December 1991 the leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine met in Poland to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and create the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).1
The CIS was conceived as an intergovernmental organization whose
mission was to foster security, economic growth, and personal freedom through mutual aid and cooperation. The previous decade had brought unprecedented challenges to the Soviet system, including widespread political dissidence, economic collapse, and a bitter military defeat in Afghanistan. By December of 1991, there was no doubt that the Soviet Union would be dissolved.
Soviet leaders would be left to determine the political
structure and cultural norms that would take its place. Inarguably, economic stagnation was the greatest challenge faced by post-Soviet leaders. The Soviet system had eschewed private property, instead relying on state ownership and planning. Under the U.S.S.R., virtually all industry was state owned, and the central planning commission (Gosplan) mandated output, worker compensation, and prices. Planning the distribution of wealth for the U.S.S.R.’s 290 million inhabitants was incalculably complex, and Gosplan was simply not equal to the task. Though reliable Soviet economic data are notoriously hard to come by, some estimates place inflation at 100 per cent in 1991 alone and real GDP growth at negative 15 per cent in the same period.2 In the post-Soviet system, few doubted that economic growth would be driven by some form of free-market capitalism. To build a market economy in fifteen Soviet republics would require epochal change.
Western capitalism is profoundly institutionalized—a fact often taken for
granted by industrialized states. Western democracies are equipped with stock markets, regulatory agencies, courts to settle financial disputes, trained business professionals and schools to train them, an infrastructure for banking and lending, and a social safety net to
1
The Soviet Union was a federation of fifteen republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. 2 Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, Sixth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 601-605.
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account for the short comings of the free market. All these things were absent in postSoviet states, and would need to be created in order for capitalism to function.3 Soviet leaders would also debate the extent to which their citizens should enjoy political rights and freedoms. Soviet government had been largely sustained through censorship and political repression. As restrictions on freedom of speech, religion, and assembly were gradually lifted throughout the 1980s, dissident movements gathered steam at an alarming pace. Nationalist movements asserted independence in the Baltic States and the Caucuses. In 1989, the Polish labor movement Solidarity unseated the Communist government, following nine years of agitation.4 Increasingly, democratic reforms had unintended consequences for Soviet republics. Communist party insiders began to wonder whether Eastern Europe could be both free and stable. “It was only a matter of months,” commented Communist ideologue Mikhail Suslov, “after the removal of censorship in Czechoslovakia that the tanks had to roll in [to suppress a popular revolt]. Who [would] send tanks to the Soviet Union?”5 Defense in the post-Soviet world would also be a priority for the CIS. The Soviet Union had maintained a defense pact with several Eastern European states.6 After the fall, it was unclear how these states would defend themselves. Russia, the strongest postSoviet military power by far, had made a strong commitment to reducing military expenditures, which had become an intolerable economic burden. On 12 December 1991 the leaders of all fifteen Soviet republics met in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan to discuss the terms of CIS membership. All of these questions were open for debate at Alma Ata. A successful transition into the post-Soviet world would require CIS leaders to promptly and effectively resolve each of these issues.
3
Ibid. Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 44-50. 5 Ibid. 6 This was known as the Warsaw Pact and its members were: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany. 4
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Chronology 1945: Birth of the Eastern Bloc At the conclusion of World War Two, the Soviet Union established itself as the guardian of all European states between Moscow and Berlin. Without exception, the U.S.S.R. would support Communist governments in these states, whose leaders largely followed Soviet instructions. Known as “the Satellites,” these states depended on Soviet military support for their survival.7 In 1955 all but one of these states (Yugoslavia) signed the Warsaw Pact, promising mutual military support. Until Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Soviet leaders would consistently use violence and political oppression to maintain Communism within the Union and in the Satellites.
25 February 1956: The Khrushchev Thaw At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech condemning the genocidal reign of Joseph Stalin.
This
marked the beginning of the so-called “Khrushchev Thaw,” in which Stalinist censorship and repression were partially repudiated. Khrushchev embarked on a campaign of “deStalinization,” in which he rejected Stalinist totalitarianism and prohibited Stalinist iconography. This was the first in a long line of popular reformist half-measures taken by a Soviet leader, from which Gorbachev’s reforms ultimately descend.
January-August 1968: The Prague Spring In January 1968, newly elected Czech leader Alexander Dubček implemented a variety of liberal reforms, most notably regarding the freedom of the press and travel. Dubček’s reforms anticipated the reforms of the Gorbachev era, but the Soviet government—then led by Leonid Brezhnev—saw them as a move towards capitalism. In August of 1968, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia, deposing Dubček and replacing him with a hard-line Communist government.
7
The satellites were: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
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December 1979: Soviet Troops Invade Afghanistan In December 1979, the Soviet Union launched a brutal invasion of Afghanistan, supporting the Afghani Communist government against popular mujahedeen resistance. During the disastrous war that followed, one million Afghans would be killed and eight million would be displaced (from a total population of fifteen million). The conflict would drag on for a full decade, killing fifteen thousand Red Army soldiers, significantly depleting Soviet wealth, and ultimately concluding in defeat.8 The conflict highlighted the excesses of Soviet totalitarianism for Soviet citizens—who had been falsely instructed that the Afghan invasion was a war of liberation popularly supported by the Afghani people—and foreign observers alike.9 In 1988, as deceptions related to the Afghan conflict became apparent to Soviet citizens, the use of force to prop up Communist regimes abroad lost popular support. Worse still for the Soviet government was that they had given up the moral ground from which they commonly condemned “Western imperialism.” The conflict is often referred to as the “Soviet Vietnam.”10
March 1985: Gorbachev Comes to Power Mikhail Gorbachev was the most important force in bringing about the end of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was a deeply committed socialist and lifelong CPSU member. Gorbachev would euphemistically extol “Creative Marxism-Leninism,” which accepted democratic participation and market institutions.11 Gorbachev well understood that the Soviet economy was performing poorly as compared to Western states. Nonetheless, he argued, socialism was a “more humane” system and could be made to work through openness, market reform, and democratic participation. Gorbachev argued that Soviet totalitarianism was unnecessary and counterproductive: given the freedom to choose, workers would certainly reject the inequity of capitalism. Gorbachev’s reforms allowed Soviet citizens to learn the true extent of Soviet brutality, with revelations including the existence of Gulag prison camps, the systematic persecution of ethnic minorities, and 8
Riasanovsky Delerium 10 James Kelly, “A War Without End,” Time, January 1987. 11 Sakwa 9
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crimes during the Second World War. Moreover, by making limited inroads toward freemarkets and private property, Gorbachev had helped to plant the seeds for the capitalist institutions that would eventually supplant the Soviet system. In addition, by refusing military support to Communist governments in Warsaw Pact states, Gorbachev virtually guaranteed that their people would soon throw off Communism, and all eventually did.
1986: Beginning of Massive Economic Deterioration High oil prices in the 1970s and 1980s had sustained the U.S.S.R. financially, despite runaway spending. From 1973 to 1985, the U.S.S.R. was the world’s largest producer of petroleum and the sale of fossil fuels constituted 80 per cent of Soviet hard currency earnings.12
In 1986, world oil prices collapsed and Soviet production
plummeted, depriving the Soviet government of much needed revenue. This, combined with a pre-existing commitment to social justice programs and defense spending, resulted in a twenty-six billion dollar deficit. The Soviet economic downslide was dramatic and did not slow until after the breakup of the U.S.S.R. For a more in depth discussion of the state of the Soviet economy at the time of the fall, please see “Economic Collapse” in the chapter “Post-Soviet Challenges” bellow.
26 April 1986: Chernobyl Explosion On 26 April 1986, the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded in the largest nuclear accident ever recorded. The radiation from the event forced 300 thousand people from their homes, and directly resulted in 56 deaths, with up to four-thousand cancer deaths following over twenty years.13
The Soviet government’s slow and
ineffective response to the disaster prompted criticism that leaders either did not know about or were not interested in the true extent of the damage. Making matters worse, the Soviet bureaucracy deliberately concealed details of the disaster, slowing recovery efforts and deterring international aide. Details of the explosion found their way into the press almost immediately, badly damaging the credibility of the Soviet government.14 12
Kotkin, 15. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/04/inside-chernobyl/stone-text/2 14 Gouren Suny, The Soviet Experiment, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 453. 13
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Gorbachev exacerbated the situation by not dismissing the officials directly responsible for several months.
June 1987: Perestroika Announced In June of 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev put forward a package of sweeping economic reforms known as perestroika. Literally translated as “restructuring,� perestroika was designed to foster economic growth and efficiency by permitting a greater degree of private commerce. Perestroika represented a frank reckoning with economic conditions in the Soviet Union, and stands along with glasnost (discussed bellow) as one of the seminal policy reforms leading up to the fall. The central pieces of legislation under perestroika were the Law on State Enterprise (July 1987) and the Law on Cooperatives (May 1988). Under these two laws, the role of Gosplan was significantly reduced to little more than an advisory committee, giving production goals rather than legally enforced quotas.15 Furthermore, under the Law on Cooperatives, private business ownership was legalized and Russian industry began the long road toward privatization. In one sense, perestroika was a failure. The Soviet economy did not improve as anticipated, but rather entered an unchecked free-fall.16 Most modern analysts agree, however, that perestroika was not the cause of Soviet market inefficiency but instead served to highlight unsustainable practices and eliminate unprofitable sectors. Perestroika exposed bloated and inefficient Soviet industries to competition for the first time since before WWII, eliminating many of the worst practices in Soviet business. More importantly, perestroika began the U.S.S.R. on the difficult road to marketization.
1988: Glasnost Announced Originally meant as a slogan regarding bureaucratic transparency, by 1988 glasnost had came to refer to the expanded freedom of conscience generally. Glasnost, according to Gorbachev, would speed the process of perestroika by exposing the Soviet
15
Geoffrey Ponton, The Soviet Era: Soviet Politics from Lenin to Yeltsin, (Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1994), 121134. 16 Ibid.
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government to criticism, thereby encouraging reform.17
By the account of one
Communist party censor, the list of restricted subjects was reduced by a third, and enforcement of the remainder was largely forgotten.18 Ultimately Glasnost went far beyond anything Gorbachev had intended, leading to an explosion of artistic and political expression unprecedented in the Soviet Union.
New newspapers emerged and old
newspapers—notably including propaganda apparatus Pravda—brimmed with letters criticizing the Soviet government. Both the press and the public gradually tested the limits of speech and “one after another,” writes historian John Keep, “taboos were broken and apparently impregnable dogmas called in question.”19 As new ideas and information flooded into the Soviet republics, the propaganda efforts of the Soviet government fell apart. Glasnot illuminated problems in the Soviet Union as never before, and the Soviet governing apparatus, unused to answering public criticism, repeatedly embarrassed itself by reporting obviously false information.
February 1990: Multiparty Elections In February of 1990, faced with unprecedented political dissent and pressure to reform, the CPSU agreed to multiparty elections. The elections were generally carried out in good faith and opposition groups formed large coalitions in the congresses of all fifteen republics. In the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), where anti-Soviet feelings had always run high, new governments almost immediately declared their independence from the Soviet Union, though they would not receive recognition until the following year.
August 1991: Failed Coup against Gorbachev Fearing that further reforms might undo CPSU hegemony in the Soviet Union, a group of eight hard-liners attempted to overthrow Gorbachev.
While Gorbachev
vacationed in the Crimea, the “Gang of Eight” as they are often known, dispatched troops to quarantine him in his home. The coup leaders then held a press conference asserting 17
John L. H. Keep, The Last of Empires, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 342-343. Ibid. 19 Ibid. 18
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that Gorbachev had chosen to take leave due to illness, and that they would assume emergency powers. They then dispatched tanks to Moscow and Leningrad to shore up CPSU power in the Russian republic.20 This move was a disaster from the perspective of the coup leaders, and Russian citizens took to the streets erecting barricades and wielding clubs against the invasion. “Press freedom and competitive elections had become regular features of Russian life,” writes historian Stephen Kotkin, and Russians would not see these reforms undone. From his White House office, Russian Congress of People’s Deputies (CPD) president Boris Yeltsin called military commanders around Moscow and successfully implored them not to become involved in the coup.21 In a now-infamous moment of defiance, Yeltsin climbed atop a tank to address a cheering crowd and condemned the coup as illegal. Without strong leadership, and facing popular resistance, the coup fell apart.
August—December 1991: Collapse The coup fatally and irrevocably compromised power structures in the Soviet Union. Clearly, Gorbachev could no longer command the CPSU and the CPSU could no longer command the Russian republic. In this power vacuum, Yeltsin began to dismantle Soviet apparatus in the Russian republic. On 22 August, the Russian CPD declared itself sovereign over the Soviet Union, and named Yeltsin the first president of Russia. Any notion of the U.S.S.R. without Russia was an obvious fiction, and in the autumn of 1991 every Soviet republic declared their independence from the Union.22 On 6 November, Yeltsin banned the CPSU in Russia, eliminating the last Soviet political institution of any consequence. In December 1991 a series of meetings between leaders of the republics declared the dissolution of the Union, and created the CIS. On Christmas Day, 1991, Gorbachev resigned from public office and the flag of the Soviet Union was removed from the Kremlin, ending the Union’s existence.
20
“Russia” is often inaccurately used as a synonym for “the U.S.S.R.” by Westerners. The Russian republic was one of fifteen republics which comprised the Soviet Union. 21 Kotkin, 105. 22 Ibid.
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Post-Soviet Challenges Economic Collapse If there is a single condition most responsible for the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the suffering that followed, it is clearly the broken economy. The best estimations of modern economists paint a grim picture of the period immediately preceding the fall.23 In 1990 alone, the average national income fell by nine per cent and industrial productivity fell by eight per cent.24 Added to these crises were the longstanding Soviet problems of poor housing and food shortage. As compared to their chief rival, the United States, Soviet economic performance was abysmal. In 1991, the Soviet gross national product (GNP) per capita was just 30 per cent that of the United States, and per-workeroutput was just 25 per cent that of the United States.25 As a result, post-Soviet leaders were in a very different financial position than their Communist predecessors. Many of the assumptions of western capitalism were inapplicable to the Soviet Union, where market institutions were lacking or non-existent. All major industries had been state owned and centrally administered under the Soviet system.26 In western capitalist nations, nearly all industry is owned by private citizens, who often trade ownership shares on stock markets. Who, asked onlookers, would own industry in the CIS? There was no Soviet stock market, nor were there any of the professional services which made stock markets functional in the West.
Few in the U.S.S.R. had the
disposable income to buy a factory. If buyers were to emerge, there would be no one to report prices to them, no one to train them for the world of finance, and no agency to regulate them as they traded. There would be no courts to settle business disputes, nor laws to guide their decisions, nor lawyers to appear before them. Capitalism holds that free “Markets,” writes political philosopher Stephen Holmes, “presuppose a competent and honest bureaucracy.”27 23
Because the Soviet government routinely fabricated economic data and withheld relevant statistics, assessments of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable. 24 Richard Sakwa, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union 1917-1991, (New York: Routledge, 1991), 426-27. 25 Ibid. 26 Riasanovsky, 601-604. 27 Kotkin, 142.
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By December 1991, Soviet law makers generally agreed that the post-Soviet economy would permit private property and free-markets. Before such monumental reforms could be undertaken though, post-Soviet leaders would have to overcome an immense set of challenges. Economist Gregory Grossman summarizes the challenges of the post-Soviet economy as follows: (1) Stopping the rapid downslide of the real economy. (2) Stabilization: moving into a condition in which domestic money is an effective medium of exchange, and prices are reasonably stable. (3) Marketization of the command economy. (4) Legalization of business activity, plus privatization of hitherto state-owned businesses. (5) Integration into the world economy. (6) A social safety net adequate to the economic dislocations that can fairly be expected. (7) Fiscal and banking structures corresponding to the solutions taken under (1)-(6).28
In December of 1991, whether these challenges would be met was very much an open question.
The Dilemma of Liberalization Beginning in 1921, Marxist ideology had been the only ideology permitted in the Soviet Union and, until Gorbachev came to power, all debate regarding political rights had been violently stifled. Marxist ideology explicitly rejected the notion of inalienable human rights, arguing that individual liberties such as speech, religion, and most of all property isolate citizens, leaving them “withdrawn behind [their] private interests and whims and separated from the community.”29 Western democracies had universally created constitutions enshrining freedoms of conscience (speech, religion, association), individualism, democracy, and the rule of law. The Soviet tradition was very different. Soviet culture valued mutual obligation over individual liberty (“Collectivism instead of egoism,” in the words of Gorbachev) and equality of fact over equality of opportunity.30 In the political climate of 1991, the viability of a Western-style liberal democracy in Eastern Europe was a very open question. As restrictions on speech and travel gradually lifted throughout the late 1980s, Marxist ideology began to unravel, leaving a void for citizens and leaders alike. “For the 28
Riasanovsky, 602. Leif Wenar, "Rights", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/rights/, accessed December 11, 2008. 30 Sakwa, Rise and Fall, 438. 29
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first time,” writes historian David Satter, “Soviet citizens began to sense the outlines of the real world, and as faith in the utopia...began to fade, the ideological universe of their imagination ceased to make sense.”31 One of the greatest challenges for post-Soviet leaders would be to convince their citizens that there could ever be a viable alternative to Marxism, and to form a working coalition on that basis. One Soviet citizen describes living through the collapse of Marxist ideology: Everything in life that I believed in has turned to dust. Nothing sacred has been left. Stalin, Molotov, Vorishilov....We sang songs for them. We believed in them more than in ourselves. And we taught others to believe. How can I look others in the eye? My whole life turns out to have been useless.32
Once the Soviet Constitution was dismantled, post-Soviet leaders would need to conduct a frank analysis of the rights of their people which, in the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, “does not fear any truth,” in order to form a new Constitution.33 There were also more pragmatic considerations to be made. In the U.S.S.R., liberalization had historically preceded ethnic and political fractiousness.
The
Khrushchev Thaw had resulted in revolt in Hungary, the loosening of censorship in Czechoslovakia had resulted in the Prague Spring, and perestroika had resulted in strong nationalist movements in a half-dozen of the Soviet republics. Even after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., many of the republics—notably Russia, Georgia, and satellite Yugoslavia—would need to hold together an ethnically diverse population under a central government. In particular, a strong nationalist movement in the Russian region of Chechnya threatened a violent conflict. Just how these movements could be squelched without political repression remained to be seen. Finally, if post-Soviet republics accepted liberal Western values, they would need to overcome a profoundly broken bureaucracy. Corruption abounded in the judicial systems of all fifteen republics, and there was serious doubt as to whether courts could reliably enforce personal liberties.34 Uncompetitive or fraudulent elections had been features of Soviet society since the time of Stalin, and effectively no one in the U.S.S.R. 31
David Satter, Age of Delirium, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 41. Ibid. 33 Qtd in Sakwa, Rise and Fall, 440. 34 Satter, 90-105. 32
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had experience conducting fair elections. Just as the post-Soviet economy was plagued by a lack of market institutions, so too would post-Soviet politics be plagued by a lack of democratic institutions.35
The absence of functional political parties, professional
journalism, and a strong regulatory apparatus presented major challenges to the health of liberal governments in all of the Soviet republics.
Security In Western democracies, security and intelligence operations are highly bureaucratized.
Different agencies fulfill specific, well defined functions under the
guidance of complex legal codes. In the Soviet Union, totalitarianism left “a patchworktype
organizational
structure”
with
unclear
jurisdictions
and
overlapping
responsibilities.36 This system produced strong security under the Soviet Union, because police and intelligence agencies were invested with broad discretion—which they had notoriously abused. The vast stockpile of nuclear weapons was a major security hazard at the time of the fall. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is responsible for securing the nuclear stockpile, was badly underfunded.
In the period after the fall, the Russian
government was repeatedly embarrassed by nuclear security mishaps. At one facility in Moscow, an inspection by international observers uncovered 100 kilograms of completely unguarded, weapons-grade uranium. The facility manager explained that they could not afford the standard salary for an army guard, 200 dollars per month.37 Furthermore, security personnel in place were often underpaid and ill-treated, leaving them susceptible to bribery and black-market buyers. In September 1998, the Russian nuclear security personnel sued the Ministry of Atomic Energy for failing to pay wages throughout July and August, claiming 400 million rubles in back pay. To make matters worse, large portions of the Soviet stockpile had gone undocumented during the Cold 35
Ibid. Alexander Cooley, “Globalization and National Security in the Post-Soviet Space” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, March 17, 2004, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p73801_index.html, accessed December 11, 2008. 37 Matthew Bunn, “Loose Nukes Fears: Anecdotes of the Crisis,” PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/readings/fears.html, accessed December 9, 2008. 36
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War, or documents had been destroyed. Under Communism, the CPSU had mandated output from uranium enrichment facilities, penalizing those facilities which failed to meet quotas.38 As a result, when enrichment facilities produced a surplus, managers would often conceal that fact, reporting at-quota production levels, so that the remainder could be used later in the event of a shortfall.
Summary of Challenges Increasingly, economic and political openness exposed the broken Soviet system. Gorbachev has argued repeatedly that reformist measures were necessary to preserve socialism in Eastern Europe. As Gorbachev put his theories into practice throughout the late 1980s, this belief was shown to be faulty; Soviet socialism had only given the illusion of functionality through propaganda, and reform brought the Soviet backwardness to light. The absence of capitalism and democracy in the Soviet Union had left Soviet society unprepared for the challenges faced by all liberal democracies. Indeed, the issues described above had been mutually reinforcing: lack of transparency had allowed runaway military spending that significantly contributed to Soviet economic decline.
Projections and Implications If the challenges described above are not competently answered by post-Soviet leaders, all will grow worse and economic challenges in particular are likely to grow “radically worse,� according to economist Gregory Grossman.39 If post-Soviet leaders are committed to marketization of the command economy, then some sort of transition plan is necessary. Increasingly, in the absence of mediating market institutions, postSoviet capitalism is led by organized crime and a very small number of wealthy individuals. Market reform was initially alluring to Gorbachev because it promised economic growth which Communism had not produced, though he feared it might
38 39
Ibid. Riasanvosky, 603.
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produce inequalities. As the Union collapsed, inequalities have manifested but growth has not. That is a trend which will continue on into the foreseeable future. It also remains to be seen if the liberal state can be made to work in the former Soviet Union. In 1991, there were over 100 political parties registered in Russia alone, but none other than the Communist party had any national visibility or reliable source of funding.40 In the absence of serious political opposition a resurgence of Communism in former Soviet states is not only possible but likely. Without some strong commitment to the development of democratic institutions, it is reasonable to suppose that they will continue to flounder.
Actors and Interests Russia Russia had been the unquestioned power center of Soviet politic and economic life, and would inherit the lion’s share of post-Soviet problems. Russian leaders would be plagued by runaway military spending, which had comprised a quarter of all Soviet spending leading up to the fall.41 Virtually all nuclear facilities had been in Russian territory, and the difficult decommissioning process would consume a great deal of the Russian defense budget. Russian reformers would struggle against a deeply entrenched military establishment to reduce expenses and spur economic growth. Russia, as the center of Soviet culture and government, would also inherit Cold War animosities with the West, who continued to view Russia as a potential security threat. To the surprise of Russian leaders, the Western Cold War alliance NATO—which had been explicitly founded with the goal of countering Soviet imperial ambitions in Central and Western Europe—was renewed after the fall. NATO sought to restrict Russian military action outside its borders, but the Russian government remained concerned about growing militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and internal province Chechnya. The 40
Kotkin, 133. Anders Åslund, “How small is the Soviet National Income?” in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, Jr., eds., The Impoverished Superpower: Perestroika and the Soviet Military Burden (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990), p. 49. 41
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governments of these states proved unable—and, in the case of Afghanistan, unwilling— to deal with independent rebel groups, but strongly rebuked Russian interests in military intervention.
For Russia to take action against militants in Afghanistan, accurately
charged the Afghani government, would be an act of aggression.
Furthermore, the
demoralizing memory of the 1979-1989 Afghani war left the Russian public skeptical of intervention abroad. Until 1991, Russia had not been ruled democratically at any point in its history, and leaders had always used violence to solve political fractiousness. A diplomatic solution to violent rebellion, then, would require innovative leadership indeed.
Communist Parties The only well organized political party in most of the former Soviet republics was the Communist party. Though the CPSU had been abolished in all of the republics, its former members quickly rallied to establish national parties that met with some success. In most former Soviet states, the fall brought little change in political leadership, other than in name only.42 In several states—notably Belarus—Communist forces remained in place both during and after the fall.43 Communist parties in post-Soviet politics—in stark contrast with the CPSU—participated in the political process, rather than subverting it, eventually winning competitive elections in Lithuania, as well as satellites Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.44 Communism was eradicated with varying levels of success in different republics, with only Estonia and Latvia eliminating all communist influence. Communist resurgence remained a constant concern for reformist leaders in all republics, particularly in Ukraine, which found surprising economic success under capitalism.
42
Cato Institute, “Red Phoenix Rising? Dealing with the Communist Resurgence in Eastern Europe,” June 13, 1996, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-255.html, accessed December 12, 2008. 43 Luke March, The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia, (New York: Manchester University Press, 2002), 1220. 44 Ibid.
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Democrats In Russia and Ukraine, champions of democracy and liberalization (i.e. “democrats”) took control immediately after the fall.45 Democrats, by definition, favored a package of reforms known in the West as “liberalism”: the rule of law, democratic governance, and protection for personal liberties. “Liberals,” writes historian Ilya Prizel, “saw no solution for Russia’s political suffering other than a rapid adoption of the Western model.”46 Democrats regarded nationalism skeptically, particularly within the Russian republic where separatist movements bogged down Russian resources and disrupted democratic coalitions. Russian democrats believed that Russian policy must be inwardly directed, eschewing both imperialism and aid to other former Soviet republics. Many former Soviet citizens regarded the democrats with antipathy, blaming them for the dissolution of the Union, which had severely bruised nationalist pride.
Organized Crime After the fall, organized crime constituted a major player in the post-Soviet economies and politics. Organized crime had been present to some limited degree in the USSR, but flourished in the confusion immediately after the dissolution of the Union. Organized crime has been able to disrupt electoral politics in much of the former Soviet Union, maintaining close, well documented ties with members of parliament in many former Soviet republics, especially in Russia and Ukraine.47 After the fall, corruption, bribe taking, and Mafiya intimidation became “a way of life for Government officials in Russia.”48 It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which Mafiya influence has undermined government transparency and public trust in the post-Soviet republics, where it has “cement[ed] anarchy” and “prevent[ed] the rule of law.”49 The expansion of Mafiya influence is both a cause of a consequence of broken Eastern European 45
Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 220-228. Not to be confused with the formal Democratic party. 46 Ibid. 47 Louise I. Shelley, “Post Soviet Organized Crime: Implications for Economic, Social and Political Development,” in Demokratizatsiyai, Vol.2 No. 4, 1994, pp. 342. 48 Scott P. Boylan, Organized Crime and Corruption in Russia: Implications for U.S. International Law, Fordham Journal of International Law, Vol. 19, 1996. 49 Ibid.
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bureaucracies. As businesses have found legitimate government channels inadequate to regulate the flow of commerce—courts are slow and often unfair, city planning boards responsible for licensing new businesses are often unresponsive and incompetent— organized crime has emerged as a self-regulating extra-legal business. As government circumvention has grown into the rule, rather than the exception, bureaucracies have become less and less responsive to the public.
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Conclusion The dissolution of the Soviet Union left an immense void in international politics and in Eastern Europe especially. Creating capitalist democracies in the fifteen republics will be the greatest political challenge in Europe since WWII, and only a coordinated effort can be expected to succeed. Deliberations in the Commonwealth of Independent States will begin 12 December 1991. The direct use of any fact or event that occurred after that date is strictly prohibited. Representatives will determine how to best assist each other through the processes of marketization and liberalization, as well as declare the rights and values which will guide them through this journey.
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Discussion Questions • How can post-Soviet leaders work together to prevent further economic collapse? Is it acceptable to allow the reemergence of Socialist programs during the transition period? • What institutions are indispensible to a market economy? Which of these was present at the time of the fall? • What personal rights are appropriate for the Soviet citizens? Can the former Soviet republics hold together diverse ethnic coalitions? • What is the role of a bureaucracy in a functioning democracy? participation possible without a functioning bureaucracy?
Is electoral
• How can “loose nukes” be controlled? • How might citizens in former Soviet states be convinced to abandon their Marxist ideology?
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Bibliography For Further Reading Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). An analytical narrative history of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This book provides an eye opening and meticulously researched account of the causes of the fall, without sacrificing entertainment value. Kotkin narrates the history of the fall interlaced with his own scholarly conclusions. Riasanovsky, Nicholas. A History of Russia, Sixth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). A crisp and sober textbook account of Russian history. Riasanovsky provides quite possibly the most comprehensive and detailed single-volume account of Russian history ever assembled. His discussion of the dissolution of the Soviet Union is succinct, but enlightening. Satter, David. Age of Delirium, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). A worm’s eye view of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Satter tells about Soviet collapse through a series of human interest stories. Satter attempts to give the reader an appreciation for what the dissolution of the Soviet Union felt like for people who lived through it.
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Works Cited Aslund, Anders. “How small is the Soviet National Income?” in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, Jr., eds., The Impoverished Superpower: Perestroika and the Soviet Military Burden (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990). Bunn, Matthew. “Loose Nukes Fears: Anecdotes of the Crisis,” PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/readings/fears.html, accessed December 9, 2008. Cato Institute, “Red Phoenix Rising? Dealing with the Communist Resurgence in Eastern Europe,” June 13, 1996, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-255.html, accessed December 12, 2008. Cooley, Alexander. "Globalization and National Security in the Post-Soviet Space" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mar 17, 2004, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p73801_index.html. Prizel, Ilya. National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 220-228. Keep, John L. H. The Last of Empires, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Kelly, James. “A War Without End,” Time, January 1987. Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). March, Luke. The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia, (New York: Manchester University Press, 2002), 12-20. Ponton, Geoffrey. The Soviet Era: Soviet Politics from Lenin to Yeltsin, (Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1994). Riasanovsky, Nicholas. A History of Russia, Sixth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Sakwa, Richard. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union 1917-1991, (New York: Routledge, 1991). Satter, David. Age of Delirium, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).
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Louise I. Shelley, “Post Soviet Organized Crime: Implications for Economic, Social and Political Development,� in Demokratizatsiyai, Vol.2 No. 4, 1994, pp. 342. Suny, Gouren. The Soviet Experiment, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 453. Wenar, Leif. "Rights", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/rights/, accessed December 11, 2008.
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Works Referenced Anders, Aslund. Gorbachev’s Struggle for Economic Reform, 2nd ed, (London: Printer Publishers, 1991). Blackwell, Robert E. “Cadres Policy in the Breszhnev Era,” Problems of Communism, Vol. 28, No. 2 (March-April 1979). Gorbachev, Mikhail. The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons, (New York: Harper Collins, 1991). BBC News, “Timeline: Soviet Union,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1112551.stm, accessed December 9, 2008. Whitefield, Stephen. Industrial Power and the Soviet State, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).