Burton's Global Page

To begin with, the Soviet Union nearly went broke as a result of the Cold War weapons race. Their system could not produce enough ordinary goods, such as clothing or cars in which the Soviet people had given up hope of a better life ahead. This was a very sad thing and was thought to be the end of the world for the Soviets. But In the mid-1980s, a new leader came to power in the Soviet Union. And his name is Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was determined to improve life in Russia. And In the process, he helped bring the Cold War to an end.
He was known to be the person who called for more freedom for his people. And He and U.S. president Ronald Reagan agreed to destroy many of the weapons their countries had built. Gorbachev encouraged change in Eastern Europe, and he said that Soviet troops would no longer keep communist governments in power there.
I believe that Gorbachev is a person that the Soviet people were really thankful for because without him, communism wouldn't end.
To elaborate more on what he did, he loosen up the Soviet Union's communism political system, which eventually made it a better and improved system by allowing people to suggest and think on how to improve their nation.
One great example of this development was when he advised the owners of the factory to keep producing or make more products in order for the people to buy more or unlimited goods.
By the way, Glasnost was one of his policy of openness where he improved the government's accountability, openness, discussion, and etc. This allowed to improve their economic reorganization.
I believe this is a really good thing for the Soviets because through change and improvement in their economy, a hope of a better life will be given for those people who were suffering and are in need of change in their lifestyle.
Another great policy of Gorbachev was called Perestroika. Perestroika was a Soviet reform policy that allowed the political and economic "restructuring" in the former Soviet Union.
This developments happened in 1986. Meanwhile, Gorbachev's goal on this was to reorganize (decentralize) control of the Soviet's industry and agriculture and some private ownership.
This was the beginning of the time where he tried to let the people speak of what they wanted to speak or to protest on what they would like to protest so that the government can do something about it and might as well fix it for the sake of the country.
And the greatest development soon happened when Russia has finally inched toward democracy. The government no longer tries to control every aspect of Russian life, as it once did. And thankfully a good elected president now leads the country. Factories also have been sold to private companies. And most of all, land has been given to private citizens and businesses.
I believe Mikhail Gorbachev had done a great job. And without his ideas and perspective of improvement and development, the Soviets wouldn't have independence and couldn't have a better life.

Posted by Burton at 5:07 AM | Permalink | Comments

The collapse or the fall down of Communism occurred because of several things. It was more than a political event because it changed a lot of things because the whole world was affected as well. The powerful bond between economics and politics created a situation that was different for the ''successor'' states of the Soviet Union. The communist regime was like the whole idea of the life of the Soviets. And Karl Marx ideas were great but sooner his ideas affected every aspect of the Soviet's life negatively that people in Russia were left with little democratic belief or feelings.
Well first of all, there was no clear idea how it started but some historians say that it started with the people during the Cold War. The Russians saw how the Americans could buy and own lots of cool and nice things that the Russians couldn't because of communism, which prevents them from getting anything they want because everything is equal and all property and wealth is owned in a classless society by all the members of that society.
And the Russians couldn't also have very beautiful houses than the other person because all should have an equal value of what they own. This caused a lot of the soviets to get jealous where everyone started to think deeper on what's going on. The Soviets were also striving to get big income because they we're proving that they were a superpower nation. So they build atomic weapons, which happened because of the nuclear arms race against the U.S.
The space race also created a big impact in their economy that money was declining in their nation.
After days and days went by, people wanted to get rich or increase their income because they thought they were getting behind or were certainly affected by their political system, which is communism.
This are the times were things got really uncertain, difficult, and painful for the Russians or Soviets that they soon faced the seemingly impossible task of a new change in their political system.
And if there would be a new administration then that administration must address human rights issues such as living conditions and the supply of staple goods or other things in this new form of administration. But this makes the expectation of a full democratic switch impossible because the Russians are already having a hard time during those times because of low income.
Another few reasons of the collapse was that, capitalism began to spread into some parts of Russia. And the U.S. supported that country. As a result, Russia was separated in half where the other one is of capitalism and other is of communism. The ones who were in capitalism could eventually look for higher jobs with higher income. But the problem here was that the communist got jealous about this and felt bad that they couldn't have higher jobs with good salary. So eventually the people in the communist side was really mad at this because they thought it's very unfair that they work so hard but still were given the same amount of money with the other person who doesn't work hard.
Lately, large statues were shattered that even people in both countries believed that through doing this, it would be possible that there might be a missiles attack on each other. This however became just a theory of a missile war, called MAD, which is known as mutually assured destruction. Although it is a good thing that this didn't happen because if this happened then everyone might think that this not-so-legitimate-reason led to an utter destruction.
Well to make this event shorter, the countries of Eastern Europe sooner got rid of their communist leaders. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. And Europe was no longer divided. Finally, parts of the Soviet Union declared their independence.
And thankfully The Cold War ended with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Posted by Burton at 5:13 AM | Permalink | Comments