The Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communist Rule Essay -- Politics Po

The Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communist RuleThe declination of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Unionand with it, an entire era. identical the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in rapid succession, with some(prenominal)(prenominal) spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, in that location existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been prove ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative call for system without destroying its real core, and because Gorbachevs democratic socialism was unattainable without abandoning the very notion of Soviet socialism itself. As R. Strayer had pointed out in Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?, the USSR was held together under Communist design with a mixture of ideological illusion and raw coercion (Strayer, 36). The Gorbachev era saw both of these two bases of the party-states power falling apart. By the mid-1980s, urbanization and high education had transformed the Soviet society from a relatively homogenous bingle into one that was considerably diverse with a sizable middle-class. Educated and clear to Western culture, the professionals and the white collars were far more likely to understand the Soviet Unions weaknesses and the systems fallacies than their counterparts decades ago. Coupled with the intelligentsias anti-establishment usance (as embodied by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakhorav), this natural class of economic elect(ip) had ... ... an enormous void in Russian society. The gray party-state machine was demolished, yet no new concrete political system had risen in its place. The old ideology was discredited, yet no newfound conviction could unite the country. After the 1991 coup, even Gorbachev was feeble to steer his Mother Russia. To this day, the old legacy of Communist get hold haunts the nation still. Works CitedAslund, Anders. How Russia Became a Market Economy. Washington, D.C. The Brookings Institution. 1995Brown, Archie. The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford Oxford University Press. 1996.John L. H. Keep. Last of the Empires. New York Oxford University Press. 1995.Strayer, Robert. Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? New York M.E. Sharpe. 1998.Tucker, Robert C. Lenin and Revolution. The Lenin Anthology. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1994. The Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communist Rule Essay -- Politics PoThe Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communist RuleThe December of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Unionand with it, an entire era. Like the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in r apid succession, with both spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, there existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been proven ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative command system without destroying its very core, and because Gorbachevs democratic socialism was unattainable without abandoning the very notion of Soviet socialism itself. As R. Strayer had pointed out in Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?, the USSR was held together under Communist rule with a mixture of ideological illusion and raw coercion (Strayer, 36). The Gorbachev era saw both of these two bases of the party-states power falling apart. By the mid-1980s, urbanization and higher education h ad transformed the Soviet society from a relatively homogenous one into one that was considerably diverse with a sizable middle-class. Educated and exposed to Western culture, the professionals and the white collars were far more likely to understand the Soviet Unions weaknesses and the systems fallacies than their counterparts decades ago. Coupled with the intelligentsias anti-establishment tradition (as embodied by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakhorav), this new class of economic elite had ... ... an enormous void in Russian society. The old party-state machine was demolished, yet no new concrete political system had risen in its place. The old ideology was discredited, yet no newfound conviction could unite the country. After the 1991 coup, even Gorbachev was powerless to steer his Mother Russia. To this day, the old legacy of Communist rule haunts the nation still. Works CitedAslund, Anders. How Russia Became a Market Economy. Washington, D.C. The Brookings Institution. 19 95Brown, Archie. The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford Oxford University Press. 1996.John L. H. Keep. Last of the Empires. New York Oxford University Press. 1995.Strayer, Robert. Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? New York M.E. Sharpe. 1998.Tucker, Robert C. Lenin and Revolution. The Lenin Anthology. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1994.