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| 3 Real Reasons Why The Soviet Union Could Disband |
The Soviet Union had been the largest country in the world since its founding in 1922 until its final days before collapsing in late 1991 and turning into Russia. At that time, the Soviet Union controlled 22,400,000 sq km of land or one sixth of the world's land mass.
The Soviet Union, which stretched from continental Europe to Asia, was a communist state with a federal system of 15 republics.
At that time, the population in the Soviet Union was more than 290 million with 100 different nationalities, according to Britannica.
The massive political crisis that occurred within the Soviet Union for years triggered dozens of republics that were originally incorporated one by one to start revolting and becoming independent countries.
The split of the Soviet Union has actually been seen since the late 1980s where it peaked when Estonia became the first republic to declare divorce and secede from the Soviet Union in 1988. Since then, dozens of other republics have followed suit, until in December 1991, the three founders declared the Soviet Union was dissolved and no longer exists.
So, what caused this great country to collapse?
The collapse of the Soviet Union began to appear when a number of its republics such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia--which is now a Baltic state--separated and declared independence starting around the late 1980s.
At that time, Mikhail Gorbachev, only a few years had been elected General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party who became the de facto leader of the union state. Gorbachev was elected leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, replacing Konstantin Chernenko, who died at the age of 73.
At the beginning of his leadership, Gorbachev was faced with a difficult situation, especially the economic growth of the Soviet Union which continued to stagnate.
Gorbachev also tried to reform several sectors in order to revive the Soviet Union's economy. One way is to lead to liberalization of the Soviet Union, known as glasnost and perestroika.
The policy sought to make the Soviet Union more open, especially freedom of media and opinion. Gorbachev even proposed that the election of the Soviet Communist Party should offer a number of candidates selected by ballot.
Some experts consider that there were several factors that caused the Soviet Union to collapse in the Gorbachev era.
1. Economic and Political Factors
From the glasnost policy, the public was allowed to criticize the Soviet Union, making the country no longer able to control the media and public sphere.
Meanwhile, in his perestroika policy, Gorbachev chose to relinquish government control of the Soviet economy. He considered that to revive the Soviet economy, individual and corporate innovation was needed.
The rules also allow workers to demonstrate for better working conditions. Gorbachev also opened up foreign investment to Soviet companies. Unfortunately, Gorbachev's policy actually backfired on the leadership and status of the Soviet Union itself.
Strikes, demonstrations, and even the demands of a number of republics wanting to become independent could not be avoided by Gorbachev. Economic growth that continued to plummet and the high crime rate at that time further disrupted the Soviet Union.
The Soviet economy was hit by spiraling inflation. Not only that, falling oil prices made the Soviet economy even worse, as quoted by History.
2. Factors of the Cold War and the Invasion of Afghanistan
Gorbachev believed that in order to get a better economy, the Soviets needed to improve their relations with the rest of the world, especially the United States.
He then announced the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which had invaded the South Asian country since 1979. He also reduced military presence in various countries that were members of the Warsaw Pact.
The Warsaw Pact itself was a defense organization that put the Soviet Union in command of the armed forces of its member states. The pact involved the Soviets, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria.
The Warsaw Pact was established by the Soviets as a rival to the North Atlantic National Defense Alliance (NATO), which consisted of the United States and its allies in Europe and North America. However, the Warsaw Pact did not last long and dissolved in just a few months.
3. Nuclear Factor
On April 26, 1986, the Unit 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Pripyat (now Ukraine), exploded. The explosion released 400 times more radioactive material than the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in World War II.
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| April 26, 1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Suffers Cataclysmic Meltdown |
In response to this disaster, the Gorbachev government tried to cover up the devastation caused by the explosion. The Soviet Union claimed that Western reports of radioactive material spreading through the wind were hearsay. Workers were then able to control the radioactive leak again on May 4.
Gorbachev himself did not give an official statement about the disaster until May 14, 18 days after the explosion occurred. He called the Chernobyl explosion an "accident" and claimed Western media reports about it were "an immoral campaign and lies."
However, the propaganda of the Communist Party is inversely proportional to the lives of people living in contaminated areas. Many of them get physical effects from radiation poisoning. This destroyed public confidence in the Soviet Union.
Decades after the disaster, Gorbachev stated that the Chernobyl disaster "may have been the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later."
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