What Explains the Fall of the USSR, c1985–1991? - Historical Interpretations (Edexcel A Level History: Route E: Communist states in the twentieth century): Exam Questions

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From Edward Acton and Tom Stableford, The Soviet Union Volume 2 1939–1991, published 2007.

The end of the Soviet Union was triggered by the new General Secretary appointed in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev. He changed the USSR's foreign policy. He attempted to accelerate industrial growth and later began to dismantle many of the structures of the command economy. He radically loosened the rigour of censorship and the scope for questioning the certainties of Marxism-Leninism. He instigated dramatic reform of the party and of the entire political system, introducing competitive elections both at the All-Union level and within each Republic. His confidence that the result would be the revitalisation of the Soviet Union proved gravely misplaced. The attempt to reform society from above unleashed forces for change which the government proved wholly unable to control. It undermined the economy, turning stagnation into steep decline. It ignited a cultural and ideological revolution that swiftly stripped the regime of its legitimacy and ruptured the Communist Party. It set off an explosion which ripped apart the Soviet system and fractured the country along the fault-lines of the fifteen constituent Union Republics. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, for so long a major fixture in international relations, disappeared into history.

Extract 2: From Raymond Pearson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, published 2002.

A complex interaction of overthrow from below – 'people power' – and collapse from above brought about the events of 1989 across the Soviet empire of Eastern Europe. This deadly combination of predominantly nationalist pressure and Soviet imperial withdrawal spread east to contaminate the USSR itself during 1990–91. Another major shortcoming was the Soviet Union's inefficient and wasteful economic performance. By the time Gorbachev was promoting ideas on the desirability and practicability of a mixed economy in the late 1980s, a doomed atmosphere of 'too little too late' hung over the commitment to perestroika. By its last decade, the sprawling, outdated and dysfunctional economy of the Soviet Empire could neither deliver the welfare state by fulfilling the economic and social expectations of its population nor supply the warfare state by satisfying the spiralling financial and technological demands of the Cold War. By 1990, financial bankruptcy ensured that the stricken Soviet Union could sustain neither role.

In the light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because Gorbachev's confidence in his reform policies 'proved gravely misplaced' (Extract 1, line 9)?

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From Geoffrey Hosking, Russia and the Russians: From Earliest Times to the Present, 2nd edition, published 2012.

In 1990 Gorbachev loosened the electoral structure one stage further. He amended Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution to end the Communist Party's monopoly and legalised the formation of alternative political parties. At the time, elections to the Supreme Soviets of the union republics were imminent and these elections transformed the political scene yet again. For one thing, they fatally weakened the Communist Party's executive power: more or less since 1917 it had been the effective focus of state authority, coordinating and directing whatever was undertaken by public bodies. Its abdication of this function left a great vacuum at the centre of politics. Gorbachev attempted to fill it by creating the post of President of the USSR and having himself elected to it by the Congress of People's Deputies. But the new presidency had no real executive chain of command of its own. In any case, Gorbachev, never having been confirmed by popular election, lacked the legitimacy of, say, a US president. This lack of either symbolic or actual authority undermined him fatally over the next 18 months as economic crisis and inter-ethnic conflict engulfed his reform programme.

Extract 2: From Orlando Figes, Revolutionary Russia 1891–1991, published 2014.

Economically, perestroika had a lot in common with the NEP. It rested on the hopeful assumption that market mechanisms could be added to the structures of the planned economy to stimulate production and satisfy consumer needs. State controls on wages and prices were loosened by a 1987 Law on State Enterprises. Co-operatives were legalised in 1988, resulting in a NEP-like sprouting up of cafés, restaurants and small shops or kiosks, selling mostly vodka (now re-legalised), cigarettes and pornographic videos imported from abroad. But these measures failed to ease the shortages of food and essential household goods. Inflation increased, aggravated by the lifting of controls on wages and prices. Only the dismantling of the planned economy could have solved the crisis. But ideologically that was impossible until 1989, when Gorbachev began to break free from the Soviet way of thinking. Even then it was too radical for him to legislate until August 1990, when the 500-Day Plan for the transition to a market-based economy was at last introduced by the Supreme Soviet. But by then it was too late to halt the economic crash.

In light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because of the consequences of Gorbachev's political reforms.

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From Catherine Merridale, Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History, published 2013.

Yeltsin was building an independent power-base by appealing to ethnic Russian patriotism. In 1989 and 1990, nationalist demonstrations dominated the news. These demonstrations culminated in unilateral declarations of independence in the Baltic and armed uprisings in the Caucasus. Gorbachev's creation of a new post, President of the USSR, was intended to strengthen the Soviet Union and hold the republics together by giving them a single figurehead. However, spurred by the success of their neighbours in Eastern Europe, Soviet citizens increased their demands. Lithuania's campaign for independence was particularly vocal. Protesters in Moscow called on Gorbachev to 'Remember Romania!', linking him with the detested Ceausescu*, who had been executed following a popular uprising in December 1989. This was unfair, for it was Gorbachev who had unleashed the popular tide in Europe in the first place. In January 1991, Soviet troops moved into the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The demonstrations there were suppressed at the cost of fourteen lives. Thanks to Gorbachev's earlier reforms, the violence was televised and images of Soviet tanks loomed once again across Europe. President Gorbachev – and the Soviet Union – had lost the moral argument forever.

Ceausescu - ruler of communist Romania

Extract 2: From Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age, published 2014.

Gorbachev has been regarded by some as a 'weak' leader, or even a failure, because the country over which he presided – the Soviet Union – ceased to exist at the end of 1991. The USSR could have been held together for many more years had he not embarked on the liberalisation of the Soviet economy, the democratisation of the Soviet political system, and the transformation of Soviet foreign policy. The most dissatisfied Soviet nationalities – the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians – saw the peoples of Eastern Europe achieving independent statehood in 1989. This raised their aspirations from seeking greater freedom within a Soviet state to demanding full independence. Gorbachev consciously sought to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet state but he was not prepared to resort to the kind of sustained use of force that would have been required to crush independence movements once expectations were aroused. The fact that the Soviet Union was dissolved largely peacefully was in some ways an achievement on Gorbachev's part, although it was very much an unintended consequence of changes to the system. Most fundamentally, it was Gorbachev's liberalisation and democratisation that made the pursuit of independence possible.

In the light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because of a nationalist resurgence in the Soviet bloc?

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991, published 1992.

Reform of the Soviet economy in the mid-to-late 1980s faced formidable obstacles. First, ideologically, for many Soviet communist officials and citizens, free market thinking and socialism seemed completely incompatible. Ordinary citizens also saw private enterprise and trading for profit as a 'black market' activity. The masses were accustomed to, and valued, low-priced necessities and job security, but improved economic efficiency required a break with such practices. A second obstacle was the determination of many officials in the party-state machine to retain their function of allocating resources, which was a vital source of their power and privilege. Consequently, bureaucrats could and did obstruct change. A third obstacle was that millions of Soviet citizens had become accustomed to the old system and knew how to operate within it. Management was used to having their customers designated by central planning and had never had to advertise or promote their products. All this helps to explain the failure of economic perestroika. However, the government also made serious economic policy errors, which made a difficult task altogether impossible. Such errors included the 12th Five Year Plan, the failure to tackle the budget deficit that stood at nearly 100 billion roubles in 1989, and the reluctance to raise prices. The stage was set for disintegration.

Extract 2: From P. M. H. Bell, The World Since 1945: An International History, published 2001.

Gorbachev gambled everything on the reform of the Soviet system. He hoped that he could somehow introduce a socialist-style market economy without letting the market dominate, permit greater freedom to the nationalities without conceding independence, and delegate power in a centralised system without leading to disintegration. In 1990, it grew increasingly unlikely that he could succeed, as a threefold crisis developed within the Soviet Union – ideological, economic and nationalist. The decision to repeal Article 6 of the constitution and create the new post of President of the Soviet Union removed the directing role and political monopoly of the Soviet Communist Party. This change produced a profound ideological crisis regarding the purpose of communism but offered nothing to replace it. At the same time, the Soviet economy fell into actual decline, as gross national product contracted by between 2.4 per cent and 5 per cent. Finally, the nationalities' pursuit of independence or separation gathered pace in 1990. The areas most affected included the Baltic states, the Russian republic and the Ukraine. Gorbachev tried to hold the USSR together but, in practice, disintegration was setting in.

In the light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because Soviet economic reform 'faced formidable obstacles' (Extract 1, lines 1–2)?

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism, published 2010.

In the Soviet Union, reform produced crisis more than crisis forced reform. In 1985 neither the Soviet system nor the Soviet state were under threat. By 1989 both of them were. Gorbachev and his advisers wanted to dismantle the communist system but were strongly opposed to the breakup of the Soviet state. However, they were not prepared to sacrifice the liberalised and democratising political system in favour of the violent suppression of national separatism. Perestroika achieved a great deal. Fear of the state authorities was removed, liberty was introduced, competitive elections took place, and democratic accountability emerged in the USSR. It was no coincidence that these things happened shortly before the Soviet state itself ceased to exist. The task of holding together a democratised multinational state, in which each nation could point to a long list of grievances, was far harder than preserving the Soviet Union as a highly authoritarian state. Until the mid-1980s, it had been taken for granted that every demonstration of nationalism would be stamped out ruthlessly. It was when that ceased to be the case that expectations were raised and the Soviet state was called into question.

Extract 2: From Lee Edwards, The Collapse of Communism, published 2013.

Resolving Soviet economic stagnation could only have been accomplished by tampering with the system, which carried obvious risks. It was common knowledge in the 1980s that the Soviet economy was in deep trouble. The US Central Intelligence Agency forecast virtually zero growth for the USSR. Even within the Soviet Union voices were heard calling for major changes in the way the economy was run. A heavy and unanticipated blow was the sudden drop in the price of oil, the country's leading export and main currency earner. The decline in earnings from oil forced Moscow to resort to heavy borrowing from abroad. In addition, the Soviet government preferred to ignore the nationalist tensions within the USSR. Consequently, the Soviet leadership did nothing and things soon got out of hand. The moment the politicians of the non-Russian republics sensed that Soviet authority was wobbling, they began to clamour for national rights and independence. Gorbachev made a desperate attempt to preserve the Soviet Union by drafting a new constitutional charter granting concessions to the republics, but he was overtaken by events.

In the light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because 'reform produced crisis' [Extract 1, line 1]?

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.

Study Extracts 1 and 2 before you answer this question.

Extract 1: From David R Marples, The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985–1991, published 2004.

Gorbachev's most important failure was not to reconcile the results of glasnost with the rise of the national question in the Soviet Union. Problems in the republics emerged almost immediately upon his taking office and were only increased by the more tolerant atmosphere within the media. In the Baltic states, there were widespread protests. Arguably Gorbachev could have negotiated the departure of the three Baltic states from the USSR and still maintained the union. His hesitation ensured that the initiatives of the Baltic leaders, and particularly the popular fronts, spread to the other republics. The rise in national sentiment in the republics received a significant boost from the downfall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. In the first instance, Gorbachev's abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine led to the overthrow of the obsolete communist governments in Poland and East Germany, which had almost no popular support. When the Soviet Union did not respond to stop the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet republics could act with more confidence.

Extract 2: From John Keep, A History of the Soviet Union 1945–1991, published 1995.

Gorbachev's miscalculations were so enormous that some contemporary observers thought they might be 'deliberate mistakes'. In other words, that he was following a secret agenda and was working to bring down the Soviet regime. First, he authorised the spending spree of 1985–86, which undermined the country's financial stability. The financial stability of the Soviet Union was already more seriously threatened than he realised since his predecessors had treated financial matters as top-secret. Second, he underestimated the seriousness of nationalist tensions within the Soviet Union which could not be easily resolved by the rational, common sense methods he applied. Third, although he believed that the socialist option was irreversible, he weakened the party machinery that embodied it. Finally, in 1990, he refused to endorse the programme of his adviser Shatalin for transition to a free market. All of these miscalculations were rooted in a failure to appreciate the true nature of the Soviet political system, which, being totalitarian, was held together ultimately by coercion and deceitful propaganda.

In the light of differing interpretations, how convincing do you find the view that the USSR collapsed in 1991 because of the 'rise of the national question' [Extract 1, line 2]?

To explain your answer, analyse and evaluate the material in both extracts, using your own knowledge of the issues.