This paper will discuss the dissolution of the Soviet Union, focusing particularly upon the nature of the communist government and the effects of Mikhail Gorbachev's economic, political, and social reforms in the 1980s.
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 overthrew the Tsar and briefly established a democratic government in Russia; the October revolution destroyed this government and brought to power the Communist Party under the direction of Lenin.
Many assert that the seeds of the 1991 collapse were sown in the early years following the October revolution, when Lenin attempted to establish a planned economy, following Marxist principles. Central economic planning was one of the central tenets of Marxist ideology, which rejected the free mar...