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Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War
Joseph S Nye is Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government and author, most recently, of The Power Game: A
Washington Novel.
by Joseph S Nye
Earlier this month, Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his 75th birthday with a concert and conference at his foundation in Moscow. Unfortunately, he is not popular with the Russian people, who blame him for the loss of Soviet power. But, as Gorbachev has replied to those who shout abuse at him, “Remember, I am the one who gave you the right to shout.”
When he came to power in 1985, Gorbachev tried to discipline the Soviet people as a way to overcome economic stagnation. When discipline failed to solve the problem, he launched perestroika (“restructuring”). And when bureaucrats continually thwarted his orders, he used glasnost, or open discussion and democratisation. But once glasnost let people say what they thought, many people said, “We want out.” By December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Gorbachev’s foreign policy, which he called “new thinking,” also contributed to the Cold War’s end. Gorbachev said that security was a game from which all could benefit through cooperation. Rather than try to build as many nuclear weapons as possible, he proclaimed a doctrine of “sufficiency,” holding only a minimal number for protection. He also believed that Soviet control over an empire in Eastern Europe was costing too much and providing too little benefit, and that the invasion of Afghanistan had been a costly disaster.
By the summer of 1989, East Europeans were given more degrees of freedom. Gorbachev refused to sanction the use of force to put down demonstrations. By November, the Berlin Wall had fallen.
Some of these events stemmed from Gorbachev’s miscalculations. After all, he wanted to reform communism, not replace it. But his reforms snowballed into a revolution driven from below rather than controlled from above. In trying to repair communism, he punched a hole in it. Like a hole in a dam, once pent-up pressure began to escape, it widened the opening and tore apart the system.
By contrast, if the Communist Party’s Politburo had chosen one of Gorbachev’s hard-line competitors in 1985, it is plausible that the declining Soviet Union could have held on for another decade or so. It did not have to collapse so quickly. Gorbachev’s humanitarian tinkering contributed greatly to the timing.
But there were also deeper causes for the Soviet demise. One was the “soft” power of liberal ideas, whose spread was aided by the growth of transnational communications and contacts, while the demonstration effect of Western economic success gave them additional appeal. In addition, the huge Soviet defense budget began to undermine other aspects of Soviet society. Health care deteriorated and the mortality rate increased (the only developed country where that occurred). Eventually, even the military became aware of the tremendous burden caused by imperial overstretch.
Ultimately, the deepest causes of the Soviet collapse were the decline of communist ideology and economic failure. This would have happened even without Gorbachev. In the early Cold War, communism and the Soviet Union had considerable soft power. Many communists led the resistance against fascism in Europe, and many people believed that communism was the wave of the future.
But Soviet soft power was undercut by the exposure of Stalin’s crimes in 1956, and by the repression in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981. Although in theory communism aimed to establish a system of class justice, Lenin’s heirs maintained domestic power through a brutal security apparatus involving lethal purges, gulags, broad censorship, and ubiquitous informants. The net effect of these brutal measures was a general loss of faith in the system.
The Soviet economy’s decline, meanwhile, reflected the diminished ability of central planning to respond to global economic change. Stalin had created a command economy that emphasized heavy manufacturing and smokestack industries, making it highly inflexible – all thumbs and no fingers.
As the economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, capitalism is “creative destruction,” a way of responding flexibly to major waves of technological change. At the end of the twentieth century, the major technological change of the third industrial revolution was the growing role of information as the scarcest resource in an economy. The Soviet system was particularly inept at handling information. The deep secrecy of its political system meant that the flow of information was slow and cumbersome.
Economic globalisation created turmoil throughout the world at the end of the twentieth century, but the Western market economies were able to re-allocate labor to services, restructure their heavy industries, and switch to computers. The Soviet Union could not keep up.
Indeed, when Gorbachev came to power in 1985, there were 50,000 personal computers in the Soviet Union; in the US, there were 30 million. Four years later, there were about 400,000 personal computers in the Soviet Union, and 40 million in the US. According to one Soviet economist, by the late 1980’s, only 8% of Soviet industry was globally competitive. It is difficult for a country to remain a superpower when the world doesn’t want 92% of what it produces.
The lessons for today are clear. While military power remains important, it
is a mistake for any country to discount the role of economic power and soft
power. But it is also a mistake to discount the importance of leaders with
humanitarian values. The Soviet Union may have been doomed, but the world has
Gorbachev to thank for the fact that the empire he oversaw ended without a
bloody conflagration.
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Bertrand and socialism
Michael de Angelos: "This brings to mind the theory of the great philospher Bertrand Russell who said as far back as the '50's that the USSR and USA would gradually merge their systems with Russia becoming more capitalistic and the West beconming more socialist."
Sorry, Michael. I just cannot ignore that.
Here's what Bertrand Russel actually said about the future of capitalism;
(A central world capitalist authority) will still need to produce submissiveness in the lower caste, lest it should rebel against the rich. This will involve a lower level of culture, and will perhaps lead the rich to encourage breeding among black rather than white or yellow proletarians. The white race may thus gradually become a numerically smaller aristocracy, and be finally exterminated by a negro insurrection... It is because I do not desire the collapse of civilisation that I am a socialist.
(B Russell: 'The Dangers of Creed Wars', Sceptical Essays, Routledge Classics, first published 1928)
Are you sure you want to "quote" him?
When will the regime's lies ever cease?
Michael de Angelos: "You aren't following the news of your dreaded leftie countries C Parsons. Cuba most certainly will ease into a democratic state after Castro dies as that's what he wants."
Thanks for that, Michael. It's always good to start the day with a laugh.
At least, if you are correct, Castro has finally stopped pretending Cuba ever was a democracy. That's a development, I suppose.
Unless it is a "democracy" in the sense of the various Democratic People's Republics (Kampuchea, East Germany, North Korea, etc) that Fidel was formerly aligned to?
And you are right, too, that there's very little chance that his "revolution" (as you term it) would last under the stewardship of his incompetent brother Raul, widely tipped as Fidel's successor.
So, after 47 years of lies, murders and economic failures the old gangster suddenly "wants" democracy.
Is this so his lickspittle acolytes in the West will be able to claim credit for "bringing democracy to Cuba" after having spent their entire lives singing the glories of the dictatorship?
He "wants" a democracy? LOL
Can you point us to a source?
Cuba next?
You aren't following the news of your dreaded leftie countries C Parsons. Cuba most certainly will ease into a democratic state after Castro dies as that's what he wants. Fidel's a bit too smart to believe the "revolution" will carry on regardless after he's gone and his country's survival is paramount to him.
The problem there is that the US has got itself into such a demented knot about the place that Castro's family members are signing deals left right and centre with a number of European countries but mainly Canada much to the Bush regime's chagrin. Although the US would have invaded long ago if it thought it was financially worthwhile.
There were many factors that caused the collapse of the USSR , the debilitating war waged in Afghanistan being one but shifting from communism to capitalism means little to the majority of Russians if it's by-passing them. Just as Iraqis don't give a stuff about our lofty moral claims that we have freed them to be mudered by militias, Russians just want at least the minimal security they once enjoyed no matter how ramshackle it was.
You and Syd Drate seem to think anyone on the "left" of politics is so wedded to their ideals that they are completely rigid when it comes to results. I'm quite sure most Russians do not care which system they live under - they just at least want what they had before, which was more than they now have despite the massive wealth and resources in the land.
Visiting one of Moscow's top nightspot's it's amazing to see the utter vulgarity of wealth on display but when you leave and get a block away from the dozens of Bentley Continentals, BMWs and Mercs guarded by armed chauffeurs to find rows of elderly Russians on a corner selling their pitiful life possesions for the price of a bowl of soup, it's quite clear the miracle of capitalism hasn't reached everyone.
We are now entering a similar massive change here whereby we know that the last 100 years and the battles of trade unions have resulted in the vast majority of Australians living a lifestyle envied by the rest of the world yet for the sake of Howard & Co's "trickle down theory" - despite history showing it doesn't work, we are embarking on a Soviet style rigid emplyee/employer relationship where the State and the bosses rule supremely.
This brings to mind the theory of the great philospher Bertrand Russell who said as far back as the '50's that the USSR and USA would gradually merge their systems with Russia becoming more capitalistic and the West beconming more socialist. That's what is happening but not quite the way he envisiaged - the corporate sector in the West is hooked on welfare while the losers are derided as being "welfare bludgers" and Russia has cherry picked capitalism so that only a handful are benefitting.
externalities
Tony Phillips: "...the Soviet system definitely hit limits in terms of its incapacity to move from an extensive to an intensive economy."
It certainly did.
I recall reading an OECD report on science policy in the Soviet Union (this was in the early '80s) which pointed to the staggering negative externalities in the Soviet economy and the complete inability of planner and technocrats to do anything about them.
Firm manangers used to actually ramp up costs because performance was being measured by throughput, not cost-revenue criteria.
Specific case studies included a lumber plantation and mill which simply threw away tailings and offcuts because its specific plan was to lop down tree trunks and slice those into boards.
So that's all it did.
This was in spite of the fact there was a world wide paper shortage and paper mills were scouring the planet looking for anything that could be turned into pulp, and the West's woodchip industry was at full capacity.
Along with dozens of other examples of that sort of thing - even as the USSR was scrounging around for any hard currency it could find.
It also detailed huge amounts of oil escaping from the Baju oil fields into the adjoining sea.
Nobody gave a damn.
A transport firm used to actually deliberately direct its truck fleets on roundabout trips to clock up miles.
Incredibly, and sincerely, GOSPLAN officials were boasting about meeting all, and even exceeding their production quotas.
In things like coal, machine parts, tractors, you name it. Much of which then lay idle as inventories piled up.
Hidden unemployment was rife throughout the economy.
This was precisely at the time the West was begining to go through the IT revolution rendering practically every existing production mode obsolete.
Again, when I drew this to the attention of "political economist" Jock Collins who taught at my Uni, I was told the OECD was a tool of Western propaganda.
In less than a decade, the invincible Soviet Union was vapour.
For sheer blinkered stupidity and arrogance nothing surpassed the USSR's overseas lackeys.
Soviet demise and after
Nye's overview is pretty good given how few words he has to summarise such a complex piece of history.
A few points:
Finally I recall a joke I heard in Moscow in I think 1993, though it may have been late 1992. "We now know everything they told us about communism was a lie. Unfortunately we also now know that everything they told us about capitalism was true."
This is funny but a bit misleading. The wild capitalism of Russia is in part an outcome of Western and Russian naive ideas about capitalism and how it works. Western economists full of hubris were major advisors to the Russian government in the early days, and the IMF laid down similar idealised free market mantras. At the same time stuff ups also occurred because the Yeltsin government was not strong enough to pursue a consistent reform policy, this prolonged the agony.
Much academic work has been devoted to learning lessons from all this. The importance of social institutions, culture, and most of all the importance of functioning state institutions, are all now given more attention by chastened economists. Russia's recent success is built around a stronger state that actually collects taxes and a high oil price. However this has been accompanied by a reduction in media diversity and dubious political practices aimed at reducing political challenges to the government. Democracy in Russia is much reduced.
One outcome of this reduction of democracy is that social welfare is poor and arguably getting worse, corruption continues and the levels of inequality are extreme. The market on its own won’t remedy this, indeed it will exacerbate it. Without social institutions to speak up for issues of equity the field is left to vested economic interests and the concerns of the government. The latter has some concerns, including getting votes, that might lead to improvements but for a very large percentage of the population life is bleaker than it should be. However the poverty rate has come down from the highs of over 30% of the population in the 1990s.
Of the population old enough to remember survey literature indicates about 50% have some nostalgia for the Soviet period, of the overall population about 25-30% consistently vote Communist and clearly would support a return to Soviet days. However this group is biased towards the old (who were the biggest losers from the changes) and is unlikely to grow larger. Anyway, the current government shows no signs of permitting contests where this might happen.
apparatchnik - and the ironies of History
Michael de Angelos: "The few of course are many but still just a tiny minority and were previously in positions of power so able to take advantage of the rampant corruption which, despite what you both claim was never as bad as it now is."
Michael, can you see the irony there? The apparatchniks could take advantage of the rampant corrupt precisely because they were "a tiny minority and were previously in positions of power."
They were the products of the very system they helped destroy.
Now, what was it Marx said about the class system, "containing within itself the seeds of its own destruction"?
Don't worry. It's Cuba next.
It failed because it was just too successful I suppose.
Michael de Angelos: "You need to speak to the thousands of Russians being turfed out of their state apartments in the best parts of Moscow or St Petersburgh, which are now in the hands of private landlords."
Michael's comments put me in mind of an incident that happened to me years ago at what is now the University of Technology, Sydney.
Hedrick Smith's prize winning book The Russians was circulating then, giving that esteemed journalist's account of his years as a correspondent in Russia, the book filled with many, many insightful personal observations about the USSR and the experiences of ordinary Russian people.
Needless to say, this prescient book, which more or less predicted the collapse of the creaking, repressive Soviet system, was very controversial at the time.
"Intellectuals" hated it, because it lacked "theory" and filled its pages instead with "so called facts".
Sekai Hollander, a pro-Soviet Zimbabwean activist living in exile in the West (of course) saw me reading the book in the student canteen.
Snatching it from my hand, she threw it in a nearby waste bin.
"If you want to know about the Russians, ask the Russians and not some Yankee propagandist," she announced.
That Smith had done precisely that over a number of years was, naturally, of no account. And I'm not aware Sekai had ever vsisted Russia.
I haven't seen Sekai since Mugabe came to power in Zimbawe.
I wonder if she's enjoying the fruits of the revolution there, too?
The Soviet system failed, Michael.
Nobody in Russia is in any hurry to get it back.
Syd & C.Parsons
You need to speak to the thousands of Russians being turfed out of their state apartments in the best parts of Moscow or St Petersburgh ,which are now in the hands of private landlords.
I visited the glorious new Russia last year and it is a fascinating place but the "new" Russia is in the hands of a few and the general population are missing out in their new democracy. That's what they told me but it's fairly obvious when you travel around the cities.
The few of course are many but still just a tiny minority and were previously in positions of power so able to take advantage of the rampant corruption which, despite what you both claim was never as bad as it now is. Nor were there the criminal gangs who virtually run everything that involves money.
Say what you want about Communism and the old USSR, it was a great improvement on what was there before it.
Yes I know, Stalin was a horror.
Living in cookoo land
Michael de Angelos: "....rampant corruption of State assets, property speculation, wide-spread prostitution, powerful mafia gangs and a decline in the standards of living of the majority of Russians despite a boost for a new middle class."
So, was that before or after the USSR collapsed?
There used to be a fantastic joke about Brezhnev.
Brezhnev finally nudges Kosygin aside and has Kruschev put under house arrest. Now his power is completely unopposed. The next day, he moves into his new office. Excited by his success, he rings his mother in the Ukraine:
"Babuska, you won't believe what's happened! I'm now Premier of the entire Soviet Union. Your son, Leonid. In charge of the lot. Aren't you proud?"
"I'm sending a plane to Kamenskoye to bring you immediately to Moscow."
The next day, Brezhnev's mother arrives at Moscow aerodrome. A Zil limousine with a motorcycle escort whisks her from the plane to the Kremlin where she meets her son.
"Look at this office, Babuska. Fantastic, no?," says Brezhnev proudly.
"It's magnificent, Leonid," says Mrs Brezhnev.
"How about the limousine ride? Did you like that?"
"I've never seen such a beautiful car," exclaims the old lady.
"Some wine, Babuska?," says Brezhnev proffering a glass. "This is champagne - from France."
"Why thank you, Leonid, yes," says the old lady taking the glass.
"Mmmm, delicious."
Brezhnev throws back a curtain overlooking the river outside the Kremiln.
"See that pleasure cruiser tied to the dock? Mine, now! Impressed?"
"I certainly am, Leonid."
"Step through here," says Leonid, pressing a button on top of his desk.
A panel in the wall behind him slides open revealing his sumptuous private apartments adjoining the office.
"My goodness," exclaims the old lady, "What a beautiful apartment"
Leonid shows her around the flat.
"Deep pile carpets. Italian furniture. Look, paintings borrowed from the Hermitage."
Rembrandt's 'Saints Peter and Paul' loomed majestically from the living room wall above a marble mantlepiece.
"A Rembrandt, Babuska! Who would have thought your Leonid would one day have an apartment like this in Moscow - with a Rembrandt on the walls."
Amazed, the old lady continues to gaze about her son's luxurious new apartment, scarcely able to take in the magnificence of it all.
"Velvet drapes?" she inquires.
"Yup. And the chandelier once belonged to Tsar Alexander."
"And there's a holiday house on the Black Sea - and a dacha in Leningrad. And a helicopter!"
Babuska was by now gaping at him in disbelief, shaking her head slowly.
After a few moments she spoke again.
"Leonid. I'm so proud of you. So proud of my little boy. Of all you have achieved. You richly deserve all this. But one thing really worries me, son."
Slightly surprised, Breznhev says: "Really? What's that, Babuska?"
The old lady takes his hand, looks about cautiously, her brow deeply furrowed, and then looks him squarely in the eyes. In a whisper she says:
"I'm worried, Leonid, what's gonna happen to us now if the Communists ever come back?"
Michael de Angelos "Sadly
Michael de Angelos: "Sadly Gorbochev introduced Russia to all the joys of the West"
A bit like all the things you are lucky enough to enjoy. Why is it the only supporters of hardline socialism/communism come from rich western nations?
A western communist - is there a more pitiful sight?
he meant well
Sadly Gorbochev introduced Russia to all the joys of the West - rampant corruption of State assets, property speculation, wide-spread prostitution, powerful mafia gangs and a decline in the standards of living of the majority of Russians despite a boost for a new middle class.