History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991) facts for kids

The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1991 covers the time from the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev until the country broke apart. During these years, the Soviet Union faced many problems. It had spent too much money on its military and not enough on improving life for its people. The economy, which was controlled by the government, stopped growing.

Attempts to fix things didn't work. The economy was stuck, and the Soviet army was struggling in the Soviet–Afghan War. This made many people unhappy, especially in countries like the Baltic states and Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union controlled.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, brought in more political and social freedoms. This led to people openly criticizing the government. He also introduced perestroika, which meant "restructuring" the economy. A big drop in oil prices in 1985 and 1986 also made the Soviet Union's problems worse.

Eventually, different parts of the Soviet Union started to resist central control. More freedom also weakened the main government. The Soviet Union finally broke up in 1991. This happened after a failed attempt to overthrow Gorbachev, and Boris Yeltsin took power.

Changing Leaders in the Soviet Union

By 1982, it was clear that the Soviet economy was not doing well. The country had to buy grain from the U.S. because it couldn't grow enough food. The system was so old and rigid that it seemed impossible to change. A huge amount of money was spent on defense. The period after Brezhnev and before Gorbachev was still very much like the old ways, but some ideas for change started to appear in 1983.

Andropov Takes Charge

Brezhnev died on November 10, 1982. After a short power struggle, Yuri Andropov became the new leader. He had strong connections from his time leading the KGB (the Soviet secret police). He also got support from the military by promising not to cut defense spending. Andropov was 68, the oldest person to become General Secretary.

Andropov started to clean up the government and party. He replaced many older officials with younger, more energetic ones. However, his own age and poor health limited how much he could change.

Andropov's Domestic Policies

Andropov wanted to bring back discipline and order to Soviet society. He didn't make big political or economic changes. Instead, he allowed a little more openness in politics and tried small economic experiments. He also started a campaign against corruption, reaching high up into the government. Unlike Brezhnev, who lived a very fancy life, Andropov lived simply. He saw that the Soviet economy was too big to be controlled only from the top. In 1982, the economy had barely grown at all.

Andropov's Foreign Policies

A photograph of Korean Air Lines HL7442, the airliner shot down by Soviet aircraft during KAL 007 Flight.

Andropov faced many challenges with other countries. The Soviet army was stuck in Afghanistan. There was also tension with Poland and China. The biggest challenge was the "Second Cold War" started by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and used America's economic strength to spend a lot more on the Cold War. The Soviet Union responded by spending even more on its military. Andropov's main goal was to avoid an open war.

The war in Afghanistan continued, even though Andropov thought the invasion was a mistake. Relations with the United States got worse. In March 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a program to develop missile defense. Andropov called this "insane."

In August 1983, Andropov said the Soviet Union would stop all work on space weapons. But by the end of the year, the Soviets had stopped all talks about arms control with the U.S.

A big problem happened in September 1983 when Soviet fighters shot down a civilian plane, Korean Air Lines Flight 007. It had flown into Soviet airspace by mistake. All 269 people on board died. The Soviet government said it was a brave act against a Western attack. This event, along with their poor handling of the Chernobyl disaster later, showed that the Soviet government was bad at dealing with public relations.

Relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union got much worse after Reagan's "evil empire" speech. The Soviet news agency accused Reagan of wanting conflict. Reagan also placed nuclear missiles in Western Europe. In places like Afghanistan and Nicaragua, the U.S. started helping groups fighting against Soviet-supported governments.

Many Europeans were worried about a war and felt the U.S. was being too aggressive. Andropov's health got worse quickly in 1983. He died in February 1984. His most important legacy was discovering and promoting Mikhail Gorbachev.

Chernenko's Short Time in Power

At 73, Konstantin Chernenko was very sick when he became leader after Andropov. He suffered from emphysema and couldn't be very active in making decisions. However, his short time in office did bring some changes. The investigations into corruption that Andropov started came to an end. Chernenko wanted to invest more in everyday goods and services for people, and in farming. He also wanted the Communist Party to control the economy less. But the KGB (secret police) increased its crackdown on people who disagreed with the government.

Chernenko wanted to improve relations with the West, but not much progress was made. The Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. This was in response to the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Fighting in Afghanistan also got worse. However, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to restart arms control talks in early 1985.

Gorbachev Becomes Leader

Besides the struggling economy, the long war in Afghanistan made people even more unhappy with the Communist government. The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 also pushed Gorbachev to make his glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) reforms. These changes eventually grew beyond control and led to the collapse of the Soviet system.

After years of no real change, new ideas from younger Communist officials started to appear. When Konstantin Chernenko died, the Politburo (the main ruling committee) chose Mikhail Gorbachev as the new leader in March 1985. At 54, Gorbachev was the youngest leader since Joseph Stalin. He was also the first Soviet leader born after the 1917 revolution.

Gorbachev immediately started appointing younger people to important positions. He replaced many older officials with new faces. This included replacing the 75-year-old Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko with the less experienced Eduard Shevardnadze.

Gorbachev started very well in his first months. He seemed young and energetic compared to the old leaders. He often walked in the streets, talking to ordinary people. He was the first leader to speak directly with the Soviet people. When he gave speeches, he showed he wanted new ideas, not just old slogans.

Gorbachev's Foreign Policy

The most important foreign policy issue was relations with the United States. These remained tense through 1985. In October, Gorbachev visited France, his first trip to a non-communist country. He was warmly welcomed. People thought the younger Soviet leader would have an advantage over President Reagan, who was 20 years older.

Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time in Geneva in November. They built a good relationship, which was positive for the future. They both agreed that a nuclear war could not be won and must never happen. They also planned two more meetings.

Before Gorbachev, U.S. President Jimmy Carter had ended friendly relations with the Soviet Union. He helped the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, which led to the Soviet invasion. Tensions grew, and Carter placed trade bans on the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev's Economic Challenges

Tensions between East and West increased during U.S. President Ronald Reagan's first term (1981–85). Reagan increased U.S. military spending a lot. To keep up, the Soviet Union also greatly increased its military spending. This meant they froze the production of everyday goods at 1980 levels, causing a sharp decline in their already struggling economy.

The U.S. helped train fighters in Afghanistan. This eventually led to the fall of the Soviet-supported government there. The Soviet Union started looking for a way to leave Afghanistan. In 1988, the Geneva Accords were signed, and Soviet troops began to withdraw. After they left, the Afghan government collapsed.

President Reagan also tried to stop the Soviet Union from selling natural gas to Europe. He worked to keep gas prices low, which hurt the Soviet Union's income from oil. This strategy aimed to weaken the Soviet economy.

By the time Gorbachev started his economic reforms, called uskoreniye (speed-up) and perestroika (restructuring) in 1986, the Soviet economy was in bad shape. There was hidden inflation and constant shortages of goods. A growing black market also hurt the official economy. The cost of being a superpower, with its military, space program, and aid to other countries, was too much for the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union needed Western technology and money to catch up.

Gorbachev's Reforms

Soviet Union administrative divisions, 1989

The Law on Cooperatives in May 1988 was a big economic reform. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy, this law allowed private businesses in services, manufacturing, and foreign trade. This meant cooperative restaurants, shops, and factories started to appear.

Glasnost meant more freedom of speech. The press became much less controlled. Thousands of political prisoners and people who disagreed with the government were released. Soviet social scientists could now study and publish on topics that were once forbidden, like public opinion. Government archives became more open, and secret statistics on things like income differences and crime were released.

In January 1987, Gorbachev called for more democracy. He wanted to add democratic elements, like elections where people could choose from multiple candidates. In June 1988, Gorbachev launched major reforms to reduce the Communist Party's control over the government. On December 1, 1988, the Soviet constitution was changed to create a new main law-making body called the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union.

Elections for this new Congress were held in March and April 1989. Gorbachev wanted to make his power stronger, so he created a new position: President of the Soviet Union. This position was separate from the Communist Party. On March 15, 1990, Gorbachev was elected as the first executive president. At the same time, a part of the constitution was changed to end the Communist Party's total control over politics.

Unexpected Results of Reforms

Gorbachev's efforts to improve the Communist system seemed promising, but they became uncontrollable. They led to a series of events that ended with the Soviet Union breaking up. Perestroika and glasnost, meant to help the economy, actually led to unexpected problems.

With more freedom under glasnost, the Communist Party lost its full control over the media. Soon, the media started to show serious social and economic problems that the Soviet government had hidden for a long time. These problems included bad housing, pollution, old factories, and corruption. The media also exposed crimes committed by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government, like the gulag prison camps and his treaty with Adolf Hitler. The ongoing war in Afghanistan and the poor handling of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster further damaged the government's trust.

The positive image of Soviet life that the government had always shown was quickly disappearing. The negative parts of life in the Soviet Union were now in the spotlight. This made people lose faith in the Soviet system and weakened the Communist Party's power. It threatened the very existence of the Soviet Union.

The countries in the Warsaw Pact (allies of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe) also started to become unstable. By 1989, Gorbachev had changed his policy. He said the Soviet Union would no longer interfere in the internal affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies. This was called the "Sinatra Doctrine" (meaning they could "do it their way"). One by one, the communist governments in these countries fell. Some, like Romania, had violent uprisings. By 1990, the governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, which had been put in place after World War II, were overthrown by revolutions.

The Soviet Union itself also started to experience big changes as the political effects of glasnost spread. Despite efforts to control it, the changes in Eastern Europe spread to the different nationalities within the USSR. In elections for local governments, people who wanted independence or radical reforms won many seats. As Gorbachev weakened the system of control, the central government in Moscow lost its ability to control the different parts of the USSR. Large peaceful protests in the Baltic states, like the Baltic Way, drew international attention. This encouraged independence movements in other regions too.

The rise of nationalism under "freedom of speech" brought back old ethnic tensions in various Soviet republics. This further hurt the idea of a unified Soviet people. For example, in February 1988, the government in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region with mostly Armenian people in Azerbaijan, voted to join Armenia. Violence against local Azerbaijanis was shown on Soviet television, leading to attacks on Armenians in the city of Sumgait.

With the more open atmosphere of glasnost, people were much more open about their unhappiness with the economy. Even though perestroika was a big change for Soviet history, Gorbachev's economic reforms were not strong enough to fix the country's slow economy in the late 1980s. The reforms did allow some decentralization (less control from the center), but Gorbachev kept most of the basic parts of the old system. This included price controls, a currency that couldn't be easily exchanged, no private property ownership, and the government controlling most production.

The Soviet government lost control over the economy. Government spending increased a lot because many businesses needed state support to keep going. Tax money decreased as local governments kept tax revenues for themselves. A campaign against alcohol also reduced tax money. The end of central control over production led to problems because old supply chains broke down, and new ones didn't form. So, instead of making things better, Gorbachev's changes caused new problems in production.

The Soviet Union Breaks Apart

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was a process where the economy, social structure, and political system slowly fell apart. This led to the end of the Soviet Federal Government and the independence of the USSR's republics on December 26, 1991. This process happened because the Soviet government became weaker, leading to its breakup. Many of the Soviet republics declared their independence and became separate countries.

After the Soviet Union: New Russia

To change the Soviet system and move to a market economy, Boris Yeltsin started a "shock program" just days after the Soviet Union broke up. Money given to struggling farms and industries was cut. Price controls were removed, and the Russian ruble currency became more freely traded. This created new chances for Yeltsin's friends and other business people to take over former state property. The old state-owned economy was quickly changed.

After gaining power, many "idealistic" reformers gained huge amounts of state property. They used their government positions to become very rich business owners. This seemed to go against the idea of a new democracy. Old institutions were quickly abandoned before new laws for a market economy were put in place.

Economists who supported free markets believed that ending the old system in Russia would make the economy stronger and improve living standards. They thought it would create new opportunities by ending central planning and replacing it with a market system. They also believed it would fix economic problems and encourage growth through private ownership.

Since the USSR broke up, Russia has faced many problems that free market supporters didn't expect in 1992. For example, a quarter of the population lived in poverty. Life expectancy fell, and birth rates were low. The country's total economic output (GDP) was cut in half. There was a sharp increase in the difference between rich and poor. These problems led to several crises in the 1990s. After the year 2000, Russia's economy started to improve a lot. This was due to major investments, business growth, and high prices for natural resources like oil and gas.

See also

• Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union
• Cold War (1985–91)
• History of the Russian Federation (1991–present)
• Index of Soviet Union-related articles
• Predictions of the dissolution of the Soviet Union
• Reagan Doctrine
• Revolutions of 1989 (Eastern Europe)