Gorbachev's Hidden Agenda - a Perspective on the Fall of the Soviet Union

Gorbachev’s Hidden Agenda:

A Perspective on the Fall of the Soviet Union

Cyrus Azad

American University of Beirut

Introduction

The final years of the Soviet Union were perhaps the most significant, under the leadership of the revolutionary Mikhail Gorbachev. However, although he presented himself as a progressive, liberal-minded, revisionist of the existing Communist system, his intent was in fact quite different. Thus, it can be said that Gorbachev was not trying to reform Communism, but was instead acting according to his own hidden agenda, attempting to replace the existing system with a capitalist, democratic one. In other words, he wanted to get rid of the Soviet Union as it was altogether and begin anew. To do this, he began slowly and cautiously (i.e. nothing sudden or rash), not revealing his intentions for several years until he had the public on his side.

Gorbachev’s Beginning & The Hidden Agenda

There are a few events which led to Gorbachev’s reign, beginning the fall of Communism before he even reached the position of Secretary General. First of all, the Soviet Union began to experience heavy strain in the 1970s and early 1980s with the war in Afghanistan, a war which Gorbachev’s predecessor Brezhnev started to assert the dominance of Communism, which almost bankrupted the Soviet Union (Beck, 2003). At the same time, Poland began to see the formation of anti-Soviet propaganda, in the form of trade unions. The anti-Soviet and anti-Communist ideas spread to the country by the Pope during his visits in the 1970s. Gorbachev recognized the unions in Poland immediately when he took power, and declared he would be putting an end to the war in Afghanistan and Brezhnev’s ideas. This was significant because trade unions were a capitalist idea (illegal in the USSR), and ending the Afghan war proved he did not want to defend Communism on the world stage anymore (Beck, 2003). Thus, it was the first indicator of his intentions to reform and alter the Soviet Union’s government and economy completely. But this was just a hint of what he intended to do to his country.

Chernobyl and Glasnost

The first proper sign of Gorbachev’s agenda came in 1986, with the Chernobyl disaster. The nuclear power plant in Chernobyl had experienced a meltdown due to lack of proper oversight from the Soviet authorities. Thousands were killed instantly and the radiation damage to the region has remained to this day. The Soviet government however, did not acknowledge this error, and poorly attempted to cover it up (Gatrell, 2006). Thus, when Gorbachev took power, rather than take responsibility for this event, he used it to his advantage, blaming the incompetent Soviet authority for mismanaging Chernobyl before, during, and after the disaster. This had the effect of furthering his agenda, as the public began to see a drop in confidence in the Soviet system.

In fact, Chernobyl was the perfect storm for Mikhail Gorbachev, as he began carefully converting the Soviet people to his ideas. In his speeches, he began to discuss his idea of Glasnost (Russian for “Openness”), an ideal where there was more freedom of information and less repression. This began with the release of information on Chernobyl, but it did not end there. He released different political prisoners, reduced censorship on the media, and made the public more aware of several key facts. One of these facts was the rampant corruption of high level Soviet officials, and once their corruption was made public, the people started to become dissatisfied with the Soviet system. They began to open their minds and realize how they had been living in a repressive, corrupt system that had been exploiting them for decades. Thus, with Glasnost he moved one step closer to his goal of a democratic, capitalist society by beginning to gain support from his people.

Perestroika and Other Reforms

An analysis of Glasnost is usually followed closely by Perestroika (Russian for “reform/restructure”), which formed the foundation of his speeches after Glasnost. Simply, he began to reform existing political and economic systems in the Soviet Union. For example, he gave workers the right to democratically choose who managed them (by voting), and increased transparency and democracy in many party elections (Beck, 2003). These rights were previously unheard of in the Soviet Union, and would not have been accepted under normal circumstances. However, with public support for the existing system falling apart after Chernobyl and Glasnost, Gorbachev was able to institute this restructuring. Meanwhile, he was careful to remain moderate, not supporting or rejecting these reforms publicly for fear of revealing his agenda too early (Gatrell, 2006). However, his plan worked, as these changes brought back nationalism in many Soviet-controlled countries where it had previously been repressed, once again moving the Soviet Union away from authoritarian socialism towards democratic capitalism. In short, by maneuvering cleverly, Gorbachev was able to “strike while the iron was hot”, acting on the chance opened up by Chernobyl and Glasnost.