How, that is, between and , in the absence of sharply worsening economic, political, demographic, and other structural conditions, did the state and its economic system suddenly begin to be seen as shameful, illegitimate, and intolerable by enough men and women to become doomed? For though economic betterment was their banner, there is little doubt that Gorbachev and his supporters first set out to right moral, rather than economic, wrongs.
Most of what they said publicly in the early days of perestroika now seems no more than an expression of their anguish over the spiritual decline and corrosive effects of the Stalinist past. It was the beginning of a desperate search for answers to the big questions with which every great revolution starts: What is a good, dignified life? What constitutes a just social and economic order? What is a decent and legitimate state? We cannot live like this any longer. Everything must be done in a new way.
We must reconsider our concepts, our approaches, our views of the past and our future. And all of this — from top to bottom and from bottom to top.
It has to be changed. Gorbachev and his group appeared to believe that what was right was also politically manageable. The Soviet model was defeated not only on the economic and social levels; it was defeated on a cultural level.
Our society, our people, the most educated, the most intellectual, rejected that model on the cultural level because it does not respect the man, oppresses him spiritually and politically. But one does not feel like it. Indeed, the expectations that greeted the coming to power of Gorbachev were so strong, and growing, that they shaped his actual policy.
Suddenly, ideas themselves became a material, structural factor in the unfolding revolution. In an instance of Robert K. Already at the end of , the first representative national public opinion survey found overwhelming support for competitive elections and the legalization of parties other than the Soviet Communist Party — after four generations under a one-party dictatorship and with independent parties still illegal.
Another year passed, and the share of the pro-market respondents increased to 64 percent. And so it was in Soviet Russia. To them, a moral resurrection was essential. This meant not merely an overhaul of the Soviet political and economic systems, not merely an upending of social norms, but a revolution on the individual level: a change in the personal character of the Russian subject.
Civil war. Vladimir Lenin was the main player in Bolshevik revolution. Collectivisation and purges. Grandiose buildings, such as the Lomonosov Moscow State University, were a feature of Soviet architecture. But on December 30, , the quartet of British rockers preparing for their fifth-ever gig in the United States were using propane heaters to keep themselves and Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. A fire in the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois, kills more than people on December 30, It was the deadliest theater fire in U.
Blocked fire exits and the lack of a fire-safety plan caused most of the deaths. The Iroquois Theater, designed by Benjamin John Salvi III walks into two separate abortion clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, and shoots workers with a rifle, killing two receptionists and wounding five other employees.
He was captured the next day after firing 23 shots at a Norfolk, Virginia, medical clinic. At home, however, Khrushchev initiated a series of political reforms that made Soviet society less repressive.
During this period, later known as de-Stalinization, Khrushchev criticized Stalin for arresting and deporting opponents, took steps to raise living conditions, freed many political prisoners, loosened artistic censorship, and closed the Gulag labor camps. Members of his own political party removed Khrushchev from office in Many early projects were tied to the Soviet military and kept secret, but by the s, space would become another dramatic arena for competition between dueling world superpowers.
The success of Sputnik made Americans fear that the U. President John F. The U. A longtime Communist Party politician, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in He inherited a stagnant economy and a crumbling political system. He introduced two sets of policies he hoped would reform the political system and help the USSR become a more prosperous, productive nation.
These policies were called glasnost and perestroika. It addressed personal restrictions of the Soviet people. Newspapers could criticize the government, and parties other than the Communist Party could participate in elections.
Under perestroika, the Soviet Union began to move toward a hybrid communist-capitalist system, much like modern China. The policy-making committee of the Communist Party, called the Politburo, would still control the direction of the economy.
Yet the government would allow market forces to dictate some production and development decisions. During the s and s, the Communist Party elite rapidly gained wealth and power while millions of average Soviet citizens faced starvation. Bread lines were common throughout the s and s. Soviet citizens often did not have access to basic needs, such as clothing or shoes. The divide between the extreme wealth of the Politburo and the poverty of Soviet citizens created a backlash from younger people who refused to adopt Communist Party ideology as their parents had.
In the s, the United States under President Ronald Reagan isolated the Soviet economy from the rest of the world and helped drive oil prices to their lowest levels in decades.
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