Answer to Question #273429 in History for dfsdhfwawfel

Question

In the reading from Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Premier lays out his concerns with the state of his nation. What does Gorbachev consider some of the most pressing issues facing the Soviet Union, and where do you understand these issues to have come from? Do you think that Gorbachev was being naïve to suggest that glasnost and perestroika would be enough to fix the problems facing the USSR? Would there have been a way to continue on the path that he laid out in the document of fixing the country’s problems with “more socialism?” Was it Socialism to blame for the failing Soviet economy or was it something greater? Bring in your knowledge of Soviet life and economy from prior lessons in answering this question

Answer 1

Most top groups realized the Soviet economy was in jeopardy when Brezhnev died in 1982. Brezhnev had not been in effective control of the country in his final years due to senility, and Kosygin had died in 1980. The Politburo was controlled by elderly men, the majority of whom were Russian. The proportion of non-Russians at the head of the party and in the government has dwindled over time. From 1982 until 1985, Yury V. Andropov and then Konstantin Chernenko headed the country, but their administrations failed to solve important issues. The nationality issue became urgent for Gorbachev as the Soviet Union's economic troubles worsened (for the first time since Stalin, rationing was implemented for some basic food staples) and calls for faster political reforms and decentralization grew louder. Limited force was employed to resolve nationality issues in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Baltic nations, but Gorbachev was never willing to deploy systematic force to reinstate central control. Gorbachev's position as Soviet leader was severely undercut by the resurgence of Russian nationalism.

The Gorbachev administration's commitment to allowing Soviet citizens to examine their system's faults and potential solutions in public was reflected in Glasnost. Gorbachev promoted public inspection and criticism of leaders, as well as a certain amount of media exposure. In Gorbachev's case, looking for precise categories misses the point about his paradox: he felt driven toward the reforms he thought were vitally necessary, but he also felt pulled back by the tradition from which he had come and to which he still belonged in a profound way. While he was the only one who had to deal with his circumstance, his problems were not his fault. They embodied the hegemonic Bolshevik cosmos, especially in terms of organizational culture. His politics were rooted in the peculiar condition in which Bolshevism's hegemony had survived in the Soviet system, even though he was a partially emancipated member of this universe.