The Breakup of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was established in 1917 as a result of revolutionary developments in Russia dating back to the 19th Century. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Russia was essentially a feudal society, lagging economically and politically behind the countries of western Europe. A few individuals had been inspired by the American and French revolutions in the 18th Century to attempt to change the autocratic government of the Tsar, but had little support within Russia. The movement towards a more democratic form of government accelerated at the beginning of the 20th Century; in 1905 a semi-constitutional government was formed and the State Duma (an elected parliament) was established to rule the country along with the Tsar.

By 1914, Russia was slowly evolving into a modern democracy, but this slow evolution was halted by the First World War, which literally destroyed the Russian economy. By 1917, peasant families were faced with starvation as all able bodied males were drafted into an army which was continually suffering catastrophic casualties. Thus Lenin's calls for soldiers to turn their guns on their officers and turn the "imperialist war into civil war" found many receptive ears. The February revolution in 1917

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Union. Ineffective agricultural reforms were introduced. Under Kruschev, the Communist Party regained the central role through the state apparatus and political police, a role which it had lost under Stalin. While the reforms were many, they were disjointed and ultimately ineffective. Despite the fact that Kruschev publicly denounced Stalin and the kind of society he had wrought, the reforms failed to destroy the essence of the existing Soviet system. In fact, Kruschev was overthrown largely because of his efforts, although the plotters did not have him executed (one sign that a few vestiges of Stalinism had been eliminated). Kruschev's reforms, however, did have one important effect. Those members of the elite in Soviet society who "came of age," so to speak, during Kruschev's rule eventually became the architects and principal supporters of Glasnost and Perestroika. These young individuals had attained positions of relative power and importance under Kruschev; the dismantling of the spirit of reform under Brezhnev cost them this power and higher standard of living. The resulting resentment was later used to good advantage by Gorbachev. Although Brezhnev attempted to stop or at least slow the mood for change among the S
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Approximate Word count = 2937
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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