Stagnation and Decline of Communism
in Eastern Europe, 1964-1991
Leonid Brezhnev,
r. 1964-1982
•
•
•
•
Geriatocracy
Stagnation
Economic decline
Collectivized Agriculture:
– Frequent reform attempts
• Lack of consumer goods:
– Toilet paper
– denim jeans
– Good shoes
Soviet private lives
• Work: over-employment, make-work
projects
• Home: apartment shuffling
• Queuing everywhere
• Low quality of goods
• Grey/black market
• Party privileges: stores, trips, prestige
• The Soviet Mind
The Prague Spring, 1968
• Aleksandr Dubcek
• Action Program
• “Socialism with a human
face”
• Ludvik Vaculik, “Two
Thousand Words”
• August: 200,000 Warsaw
Pact Troops (and 2000 tanks)
invaded
• Brezhnev Doctrine
• Vaclav Havel
Poland and Solidarity
• 1976: Workers strikes
• KOR: Committee for Defense of
Workers
• Oct. 1978: Pope John Paul II
• Gdansk
• Lenin Shipyards
Charter 77
• August 1975: Helsinki
Accords
• Plastic People of the
Universe
• Vaclav Havel
• "loose, informal, and open
association of people . . . united
by the will to strive individually
and collectively for respect for
human and civil rights in our
country and throughout the
world."
Soviet Invasion of
Afghanistan, 1979-1989
• Brezhnev stumbled into
invading.
• Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan
– Babrak Karmal
• Mujahideen: “freedomfighters”
• Soviet losses:
– 14,453 Killed (total)
– 35,478 Wounded
• Afghan minimum losses:
700,000
Poland and Solidarity
• Aug. 1980: Gdansk Agreement: Party
granted right to strike and independent
unions
• Sept. 1980: Solidarity: Union of Trade
Unions
• By early 1981: 10 million Solidarity members
• Lech Walesa
• December 1981: Martial Law imposed
• General W. Jaruzelski
Lech Walesa
Mikhail Gorbachev, r. 1985-1991
• A reformer in sheep’s
clothing
• Reform Communism
(still idealism)
• Attempted moderate
reform
• Perestroika
(restructuring)
• Glasnost (openness)
Late Soviet Economy
• Agriculture: in 1979, 28% of agriculture came
from private plots (1% of land).
• 1989 GDP:
– USSR: $9211 per capita
– USA: 21,082 per capita
• Soviet economy about half as productive with
10% more people.
• Military budget increased every year.
• Does NOT prove communism does not work.
• Does prove strength of world capitalism.
• USSR felt compelled to trade with West.
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident,
April 1986
•
•
•
•
Poor design
Staff did wrong test
56 died immediately
4000 died from
radiation exposure
• Party’s control of
information exposed
as very dangerous.
Gorbachev takes bolder action
• January 1987 CC plenum
• Perestroika:
– Economic:
• cooperatives
– Political reform
• Multi-candidate elections
• Glasnost:
– Rehabilitated more victims
– Allowed many documents
published.
• Foreign policy:
– Nuclear disarmament
– Let East Europe go
1988
• Feb: Polish government raised food prices
• May: Workers struck
• October: Solidarity and Polish government
began Round Table talks
• December: at UN Gorbachev promised to
withdraw troops from Eastern Europe.
1989: Year of Revolutions
• Feb: Hungarians renounced party’s leading
role
• April: Solidarity legalized; June wins election
• June: Tiananmen square massacre
• August: GDR refugees left via Hungary.
• Oct: Gorbachev visited GDR; encouraged
reform.
• Nov: Berlin wall opened; Czechoslovak govt
resigned: “Velvet Revolution”
• December: Romanians overthrew
Ceaucescu
1990
• March: Lithuania declared independence
from USSR
• July: Ukraine declared sovereignty
• July: CPSU declared end to power
monopoly.
• Oct: German unification; Gorbachev won
Nobel Peace Prize.
• Dec: Lech Walesa elected president of
Poland.
1991
• June: Croatia and Slovenia declared independence
from Yugoslavia; leads to war.
• July: Soviet Republics negotiate new union treaty
• Ukraine’s Supreme Soviet declared independence
• Warsaw Pact dissolved.
• August: Hard-line communists attempt coup:
– rise of Boris Yeltsin
– Fall of Gorbachev
• December 8: presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus
signed Belavezha Accords
– declared the Soviet Union dissolved
– established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
in its place
• December: Ukraine votes from independence
CAUSES of the collapse of Communism in
Eastern Europe and Soviet Union:
1. Negative comparisons with West
2. Communism was not working
3. Pressure of Western containment policy and
Soviet military spending
4. Persistence of nationalism
5. Chernobyl nuclear disaster (April 1986)
6. Soviet intervention in Afghan war (1979-1989)
7. Chinese reform efforts
8. Mikhail Gorbachev (idealist, planned reform
before power, unwilling to use violence)
The New Europe