Adam Gordon on perestroika

Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:52:41 -0500
From: Adam Gordon 

Perestroika and US-Soviet Relations During the Reagan Presidency
   	by Adam Gordon

	In the late-70s early 80s, US-Soviet relations were at a low point. 
Both nations were spending exorbitant sums of money on the arms race and
defense buildup.  Intermediate range nuclear missiles were being set up
throughout Western and Eastern Europe.  Communication between President
Reagan and a senile Brezhnev (and later his two successors, Andropov and
Chernenko) was virtually non-existent.  Tension increased first in
December 1981, with the Soviet suppression of the Solidarity Labor
movement in Poland and then in September of 1983, with the destruction
of an off-course civilian airliner( Korean Airlines Flight 007) by a
Soviet jet fighter.  On March 23, 1983, Reagan initiated the
extraordinarily expensive Strategic Defense Initiative(SDI), in order to
explore advanced technologies, such as lasers and high-power
projectiles, as a means to defend against intercontinental ballistic
missiles.  This controversial program, though scientists questioned its
scientific feasibility and economists warned against its gargantuan
expense, went ahead regardless.  Reagan refused to yield against the
Soviet Union, or "evil empire," as he called it.
	When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in March of 1985, the Cold War
tensions between the US and Russia was as bleak as in the 50s and the
Soviet economy was in crisis.  Gorbachev, a leader at only 54, launched
a sweeping system of economic restructuring, entitled perestroika, in
order to combat the tremendous economic stagnation afflicting the
country.  Central to perestroika was the creation of a competitive
free-market economy in the Soviet Union.  A massive decentralization of
the economic planning infrastructure was initiated as well as incentives
for the privatization of industry and agriculture.  Gorbachev believed
that industry and agriculture needed independence in order to increase
productivity and encourage creativity to a point where it could compete
with foreign economic powers such as Germany, Japan, and the United
States.  Though perestroika dismantled a centrally controlled economic
system that had been in place since Stalin, and marked the beginning of
an unprecedented liberalization of Soviet society, it was intended as a
means to save the communist system.  This paradoxical situation is
similar to what FDR's New Deal reforms attempted to do when they
established a social welfare system in order to save the capitalist
American system during the economic crisis of the 1930s.  
        The economic restructuring of perestroika proved only to be the
beginning of the liberalizing transformation that was to sweep through
the Soviet Union.  The reforming spirit gathered momentum, spreading
into the political and social arenas.  Gorbachev initiated another
program, entitled glasnost( "openness") which stressed the right to
voice a need for change and the freedom to criticize the existing
system.  The press opened up, Stalin's past crimes were revealed and
denounced, Jews were permitted to emigrate, and scientists and business
managers were encouraged to go abroad in order to learn more modern
modes of technology and industry.  Everywhere, the totalitarian controls
were letting up.  Internationally, Gorbachev stepped up to initiate a
profound détente in the Cold War tensions.  Reagan and Gorbachev held
four summit meetings over the next two and a half years. Yet throughout
this thaw, the USSR continually showed more commitment towards a
resolution of tensions than did the United States. Gorbachev pushed
through treaties by a willingness to assume the mass of the disarmament
responsibilities.  Soviets were willing to destroy four times as many
missiles as the US.  In Washington, on December of 1987, the two leaders
agreed to remove intermediate range missiles that had been amassed
throughout Western and Eastern Europe.  Amazingly, Gorbachev even
allowed on-site verification of the destruction of missiles, something
that the US refused to do.  Gorbachev, traveling all over the world,
took on the role of diplomat and statesman, changed Russia's image away
from that of a hostile military power and center of antidemocratic
activity.  Gorbachev was the driving force of a détente that brought the
Cold War to near end; a conclusion that was confirmed by the collapse of
communism and the Soviet Union in 1991.  
	While the US witnessed a period of profound conservatism under Reagan's
administration, the Soviet Union experienced sweeping reforms that not
only dismantled much of the totalitarian system of control that had
existed in Russia since Lenin and Stalin, but also transformed the image
of Russia internationally away from that of an "evil empire."  In a
sense, the Cold War ended because of bankruptcy.  The Soviet Union was
in an economic crisis and could no longer afford to participate in the
costly arms race.  By halting massive defense spending and by setting up
a competitive free-market economy, Gorbachev hoped to raise Russian
technology and production to a level that could compete with foreign
economic powers.  Gorbachev opened up Soviet society more than it had
seen in a hundred years in an attempt to save the communist system from
utter collapse.  In the process, he also played a huge role in bringing
the Cold War to an end.  It is an irony that the Soviet Union
experienced such liberalizing reforms, while at the same time, across
the globe, the United States sat under the specter of one the most
conservative, reactionary, president's in the country's history.