How far do you agree with the view that collapse of the USSR was fundamentally the result

to contain nationalist pressures F reasons for the collapse of USSR A That it was the failure to contain nationalist pressures which brought about the collapse of the USSR C timeframe:1985-1991physical disintegration of USSR physical disintegration of USSR demise of CPSU rule and communism as ruling ideology

The collapse of USSR was essentially brought about by an interplay of internal and external factors,and was largely caused by a decline in communist ideology and economic failure leading to an inward implosion of the USSR and thereby its collapse.However, external factors like the break away of Eastern European states which inspired nationalist pressures also contributed to the collapse of the USSR. The long term weakness of the soviet economy lay the grounds for the eventual collapse of the USSR as it was on such a premise that Gorbachev had to formulate his policies of Glastnost and Perestroika of which their failure also brought about the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachev had inherited a declining soviet economy in 1985 whereby its faltering economy was due to years of overproduction due to the strain of waging the cold war.The soviet command economy was suffering to a systemic weakness due to productivity problems as under the command economy, production was based on central planning and was bureaucratically controlled leading to lack of innovation and risk taking in turn leading in low efficiency. Also, the lack of competition led to poor quality control and technological stagnation, this under productivity was aggravated by the strain in waging the cold war over the years with the USA in the arms race as well as its proxy conflicts in the third world and its invasion of Afghanistan resulted in an imperial overstretch.The inefficiencies and loan dependent soviet economy led Gorbachev to formulate his new policies and their effects were key to the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachevs implementation of economic reform policy,Perestroika,aggravated the economic problems and the lack of proper pacing and intensity of the policy led to greater hardship and resentment against the government, causing the collapse of the USSR.Under Perestroika, certain sectors of the economy could be privatised under the law of cooperatives, it gave managers more prerogative to decide on management details like wages and working initiatives.However, the policy was acted upon too hurriedly and there were too many complications of the old system which had to be sorted out first,thus Gorbachevs policy backfired as citizens could not adapt to the change and lacked entrepreneurial spirit,resulting in the failings of

many small firms. Perestroika also ignored the agricultural rural economy as a poor storage and transport system meant that a shortage of output would reach the urban shops, therefore shortage led to inflation and higher prices which increased the economic stability.Furthermore, USSR had to import food from overseas,which drained its economy and accumulated more debt when it had been actually been intended to open the country to foreign exchange and technology to the betterment of the economy.The faltering economy generated more discontent against the CPSU and disillusionment against central planning, this forced Gorbachev into taking measures which allowed for greater democratisation.The policy of Perestroika exacerbated the soviet economy,people thence readily threw their support to Boris Yeltsin.However, Perestroika merely stoked peoples discontent and further eroded confidence in the CPSU,It was Glastnost which provided opportunities to undermine and challenge CPSU which eventually culminated in loss of CPSU control and the physical dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The failure of Gorbachevs main political policy, Glastnost in 1987, was a major factor in causing the collapse of the USSR as it allowed uncontrolled political openness and the license to criticise, leading to the undermining of faith in the government .It allowed the relaxation of censorship and media controls allowing intellectuals to debate over the short comings of soviet society and criticise the government for the ineptness of even supplying basic commodities to the people.It also exposed severe social and economic problems of the USSR which had been actively concealed such as the Great Purges committed by Stalin and the mishandling of the Chernobyl nuclear crisis in 1986 which led to a fall out in USSR ,Scandinavia and Europe.It sparked a debate over the indifference and incompetence of the soviet governments response fueling peoples unhappiness.It also called for the reduction of party control and the repudiation of the Breznev Doctrine and was in favour of non-intervention in Eastern European states.This encouraged the appearance of many political dissidents and a major upheaval in its satellite states and the awakening of nationalism, .Gorbachevs venture into partial democritisation was an unprecedented experience, highlighting the negative aspects of the soviet system and the formation of the congress of peoples deputies(CPD) which directly undermined the central authority of the CPSU bringing Yeltsin to power and discrediting Gorbachev and challenging his legitimacy. Glastnost was an important standpoint as it paved the way for the acceptance of democracy,provided the meachanics for the end of the CPSU rule and physical disintegration, ultimately causing the collapse of the USSR. The breakaway of Eastern European states satellites in 1989 effectively marked the end of the cold war as it led to the disappearance of the opposing blocs ,effectively undermining the credibility of the CPSU and communism ideology. Furthermore, this led to the arousal of nationalist movements, In Lithuania-the sanjudis movement won the leadership elections in 1990 and declared independence and the breakaway of Poland in 1989 through the solidarity Movement and subsequently the Prague

Spring Movement in Czechoslovakia, leading to a chain reaction of Eastern European states breaking away from the USSR .It also had the result of encouraging the rise of ethnic nationalism within USSR 1990 when the old restrictions on political activity had disappeared.Religious and ethnic nationalism arose in Azerbaijan between the Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris and also violent muslim demonstrations in Kirgizia, tajkistan and Ubekistan. Separatist content swept across the 3 baltic republics, where in march 1990 Lithuania declared independence, electing a non communist as president while in May 1990 Latvia announced its intention to secede followed by Estonia before it spread also to Georgia and Ukraine.These nationalist pressures forced Gorbachev into signing the union treaty which gave them concessions in the form of greater autonomy for the republics .This angered the old communist leaders and caused the August coup in 1991 undermining Gorbachevs credibility as the coup members were from his government, this led to Yeltsin gaining public acclaim and usurping the powers of the soviet government in Russian republic, Thus the end of CPSU rule was hastened by the conservatives when finally in 21 December 1991 the leaders of the successor states signed the Commonwealth of Independent States.Hence we see that nationalist pressures had indirectly caused the eventual collapse of USSR, yet it played a smaller role than Glastnost as it had actually been made possible only through the implementation and failure of Glastnost in the undermining of the central authority of the CPSU which culminated in the collapse of the USSR. The collapse of USSR was due to a variety of causes and the failure to contain nationalist pressures was but one of the many reasons,whereas the fundamental cause was due to the implementation and failure of glastnost which alongside Perestroika had a cumulative effect as people realised also the systemic weakness of the USSR, undermining the government and the communist ideology ultimately resulting in the physical disintegration of the USSR. John Ho 1T03