The End of the Cold War

The 3 main dimensions of the Cold War: Ideological Communism vs. capitalism, revolutionary processes Geopolitical The Soviet Union’s emergence after WWII as the strongest power in Eurasia Military The arms race What changed by the 1980s:

IDEOLOGY Capitalism boomed The information revolution Globalization New dynamism of the market system Decline of the Global Left Deepening crisis of state socialism: growing attractiveness of liberal ideas (markets and democracy) Western social democracy successful and stalled The end of decolonization The rise of the New Right: Thatcher and Reagan Free markets as the universal solution Militant anticommunism Global counteroffensive against the Left The rise of ethnic and religious nationalism

GEOPOLITICS The Soviet Union’s global influence was declining China shifted to a semi-alliance with the US Western Europe was booming, confident, integrating In the Middle East, the US worked both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict; the USSR was marginalized In the Third World, USSR was losing allies, becoming irrelevant Afghanistan became the turning point in Soviet fortunes in the Third World

THE ARMS RACE The economic burden: the Soviet economy increasingly unable to bear it Political futility of the arms race: Do arms buy security? Is major war thinkable? Nuclear weapons as a global threat The momentum of arms control: mutual vulnerability and mutual interest in survival The rise of new antimilitarism

By the mid-1980s, political conditions in the Soviet Union matured enough to produce a major shift in favour of comprehensive systemic reforms. GORBACHEV To enable the Soviet system to adapt to new world realities through political and economic reforms, the Soviet Union needed to get out of the Cold War “New Thinking” in foreign policy was closely integrated with the policies of “perestroika” (restructuring) of the entire Soviet system – a revolution from above

Gorby on need for reform, disarmament http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=595W4JJHa2U

Negotiating an end to the Cold War The threat of nuclear war as the overriding issue The Cold War was undermining the Soviet system The economic burden A militarized state ensured bureaucratic paralysis: society lacked basic freedoms, the state was losing its capacity to govern The atmosphere of confrontation with the West was stifling impulses for necessary reforms, imposing ideological rigidity Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was now seen as an obsolete, counterproductive policy. Lessons of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Poland (1980-81). Reforms in Eastern Europe are necessary for Soviet reform. Solution: New Thinking, a plan to negotiate an end to the Cold War to assure security and free up Soviet and East European potential for reform. “The Sinatra Doctrine”

Options for reform Soviet socialism can only be revived through the creation of a market mechanism and political liberalization (presented as democratization) Linkages between economic and political reforms At first – priority of economic over political Economic reform impossible without political liberalization Political liberalization leads to the emergence of political divisions within the Party and society – rise of pluralism as a natural condition Managing a pluralistic society requires political democracy

Novoye myshlenie (new thinking) – reform of the international system, also used to refer to reformist thinking in the USSR Perestroika (restructuring) – a comprehensive overhaul of the Soviet system, involving all areas of public policy Glasnost – a shift to an open information order Demokratizatsiya (democratization) – building a new Soviet political system

Which forces supported the reform process? The spectrum inside the Party: from anarchists to monarchists The Party-state bureaucracy – mostly conservative, fearful of change – potential loss of power and privilege The managerial class is interested in greater autonomy, limited market freedom The intellectuals: overwhelming support for liberal reform, democratization Rank-and-file Party membership predominantly in favour of Gorbachev’s reforms The ideological legitimacy of democracy The working class Nationalists in non-Russian republics

From reform to collapse 1. 1985-86: negotiating an end to the Cold War. Cautious attempts at reforms, with the main emphasis on the economy 2. 1986-88: End of the Cold War. A more decisive policy of market reforms, accompanied by glasnost, liberalization, and political reform 3. 1989: First democratic election in USSR, emergence of democratic opposition, fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe 4. 1990: Democratic elections in the 15 Soviet republics, push for sovereignty, Gorbachev’s desperate attempts to maintain control 5. 1991: Escalation of conflict between conservatives and democratic reformers. The August coup and the paralysis of the Soviet state. Dissolution of the Soviet Union.

THE SOVIET EMPIRE WAS DISSOLVED IN A SERIES OF POLITICAL DEALS, INITIATED BY MOSCOW ROUND ONE: Gorbachev encourages East European communists to act on their own; USSR loses control over Eastern Europe; Soviet republics get more power ROUND TWO: Yeltsin and leaders of the other 14 republics move to dissolve the USSR ROUND THREE: Yeltsin and leaders of Russia’s regions sign the Federal Treaty to establish the Russian Federation

THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO FALLS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE 20TH CENTURY: The Romanov Empire collapsed as a result of a revolution, the elites were overthrown and replaced by new elites as a result of the civil war The Communist elites moved to divide the empire to recast themselves as leaders of independent nation-states – or of units of the Russian Federation A key reason why the Soviet empire made a relatively quiet exit was because key Soviet elites saw a future for themselves after communism

Having dissolved the empire, the new elites have been engaged in competition and cooperation between themselves to: secure their control, reform their political-economic systems, find new places in the regional and global orders THIS STRUGGLE OVER THE IMPERIAL SPOILS IS THE ESSENCE OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN EURASIA Some of them stick together (RF, CIS, GUUAM) Others, go their own separate ways, look for new partnerships Other states are exploring opportunities to expand their influence in Eurasia