Glastnost And Cold War

After the Second World War, the USSR and the USA became the two major super power of the world. The USA still carries on this power but the USSR weren’t able to. However, the Soviet Union succeeded in many ways and led the world in industrial and technological development for many years. The Soviet Union was one of the most ethnically varied countries, and this ethnic diversity sometimes caused disagreement among different ethnicities in the USSR. When Gorbachev took leadership of the USSR in 1985, he intended to change the structure of Soviet communism and began two campaigns of Glasnost and Perestroika. The purpose of Gorbachev in applying these programs are fixing the inability to develop economy and so much armament that the economy couldn’t handle. By Glasnost and Perestroika, Gorbachev tried to gain the trust of people which was decreased after Chernobyl disaster. Glasnost was providing openness in economy and the goal of Perestroika was “restructuring” economy which had strict procedures that constrain minorities. Moreover, hesitations of minorities to express their problems were removed with the advent of freedom of speech that was supported by Glasnost. As a result of these programs, dissolutions began in the Soviet state. Although no one even imagined fragmentation until a short period of time when it happens, Soviet Union collapsed eventually. The Soviet leaders had ruled many nationalities under one state with Russian dominance. However, compelling manner of Soviet State began to cause economic and cultural crisis. Therefore, Gorbachev decided to reform structure of communism in order to recover crisis which led to unexpected consequences.

Even though Russians were dominating in cultural, economic and political means in the USSR, solidarity of the Soviet Union were preserved for many years through the sophisticated strategies applied by the Soviet leaders. According to Beissinger, “Despite their widespread practice of coercion as a solution to the challenges presented by multiethnicity, Soviet rulers consistently attempted to create a civic for of political and cultural allegiance, a sense of patriotism, and shared political identity among their Russian and non-Russian citizens.” Soviet leaders created a “national vision” among “multicultural population” coercively to camouflage their empire-like structure. (2001, p. 50). The strategies of the Soviet State were based on suppressing nationalism. Beissinger stated that “Expressions of national pride by minorities were strongly discouraged throughout the Stalin era and in the late Stalin era were harshly repressed” (2001, p. 52). If minorities hold their own national identity, the common “national vision” which was tried to be created carefully by Soviet leaders wasn’t regarded anymore. He also implies that “dual language capability (Russian as the language of вЂ?international communication’)” was utilized to eliminate the connections between non-Russian and their ethnicity. According to Olcott, the Soviet State had seen nationalism as an “anti-Soviet ideology”. Nationalism was a dangerous concept for the USSR and was threatening the confederation. The Soviet state had compelling strategies to ensure the harmony in the Soviet Union. Beissinger said that the Soviet state struggled to create a common national identity among different ethnic groups to be seen as an “internationalist state”. Nevertheless, as Olcott stated, “The right to secede is permitted, but only with the permission of the republic and all-union government” (2001, p. 399). Therefore, “right to secede” was shown as possible as if any groups that want to break up are free to leave but it was actually unlikely to be happened. After the Second World War, the USSR gained power and loyalty of non-Russians to the Soviet state and to Stalin was deepen (Beissinger, 2001). Rather, this allegiance situation strengthened the solidarity.

Before Gorbachev’s programs, some serious problems took place between the republics belonging different territories of USSR. Nationalities in the Soviet Union differed in cultures, economics, urbanization and educational levels. In some situations when the declines in economics cause the difference between the living standards of major and minor nationalities to increase, compelling policies of the USSR didn’t work. Minorities hadn’t intended to submit to strict rules of Soviet Union anymore because of their lower standard of living. In her article, Green explains the problems:

The redistributive policy came under attack as economic conditions worsened. The more developed republics opposed draining of their resources for the benefit of Central Asia, while the Central Asians were convinced that they were exploited by the center and resented the fact that their standard of living was far below that of the western and northern republics.(1994, p. 147).

These problems were going to cause Gorbachev to make radical reforms. Green stated that a lot of Russians and Ukrainians immigrated to the Baltics and Central Asia, they were more educated and modernized than the “indigenous population” in there and they worked in the higher ranking positions. “Native population” worried about their national identity because Russians and Ukrainians were trying impose their cultures. This situation distracted the minorities and damaged the solidarity of the USSR.

Gorbachev’s

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