All of these years, I’ve been taught that it was the sainted Ronald Reagan who single handedly brought the Russian Bear to his knees in spite of the Democratic Congress, communist sympathizers, one and all. Now I come across this article by Yegor Gaidar that suggests it was something more mundane: grain and oil.
Basically, Mr. Gaidar argues that grain production was stagnant due to limitations associated with forced collectivization of agriculture. The Soviets had to eat, so they had to import grain. Having no real industrial exports to offer, they relied on raw commodities, mainly oil and gas, to purchase their grain. When oil prices collapsed in the 80s, the Soviets were in a bind. They needed money to eat. The only money available was from Western governments. Their money came with strings attached. One string, for example, was a prohibition on crushing democratic initiatives in Socialist bloc countries. And, while there was no direct support of independence movements inside the Soviet Union, home grown ones were assisted by a realization that the Soviet Union would not get its grain loans if it used military force to crush such movements.
Of course, the West was still careful about directly supporting independence movements inside the Soviet Union. When the Lithuanian authorities approached the American embassy in Moscow to ask whether the United States would lend support to the independence of Lithuania, the immediate response was negative. When the Soviet Union tried to use force to reestablish control in Baltic states in January 1991, however, the reaction from the West–including from the United States–was fairly straightforward: “Do as you wish, this is your country. You can choose any solution, but please forget about the $100 billion credit.”
What were Gorbachev’s options at the time? He could not easily dissolve the Soviet empire; the conservative elements inside the Soviet leadership were strongly against this notion. Yet he could not prevent the dissolution of the empire without a massive use of force. But if force was employed, the Soviet state would not get the necessary funds from the West, without which Gorbachev had no chance of staying in power.
This conundrum was the source of Gorbachev’s dilemma, forcing him to strike a deal with both the military and Boris Yeltsin. Hardliners from the KGB and the army who perceived that Gorbachev was simply too weak of a leader staged a coup in August 1991 under the banner of the State Committee for a State of Emergency (GKChP).
Within three days it was clear, however, that the plot had failed because its leaders did not know how to deal with the situation. Even if they found one division able to crush all the people who demonstrated against the GKChP, would the grain appear? Where would they find the food necessary to feed the larger cities? Would the West rapidly give the $100 billion? Their case, like the Soviet state itself, was entirely lost.
On August 22, 1991, the story of the Soviet Union came to an end. A state that does not control its borders or military forces and has no revenue simply cannot exist. The document which effectively concluded the history of the Soviet Union was a letter from the Vneshekonombank in November 1991 to the Soviet leadership, informing them that the Soviet state had not a cent in its coffers.[11]
I’m a bit of a Russophile so I’ll have to take a closer look at that article sometime. But as a general rule, it’s always irksome that Reagan gets so much credit for singlehandedly crushing the “evil empire” & ending the Cold War, as if Gorbachev (realizing the USSR could not continue as it had been) had nothing to do with what transpired–not to mention lots of complicated economic issues like the ones this article describes. Reagan escalated the Cold War & probably would have continued doing so, had not someone like Gorbachev come to power.
The Soviet Union never really had a chance.
The disparity between Soviet and American power (technological, military, and economic) was vast at the start of the Cold War. For example, the only missile gap that ever existed was between vast American superiority and Soviet quantitative and qualitative inferiority.
This disparity narrowed in the 1960s and the 1970s, thanks to the tar baby of Vietnam, the SALT agreements, and the weakness in the American political system brought on by the departure from South Vietnam and Watergate (which led in turn to Jimmy Carter).
In the late 1970s, under Brezhnev, the Soviets were trumpeting that they had achieved “military parity” with the West. They were quite proud of themselves, but they were only able to do it because the United States was distracted by Vietnam and weakened by internal unrest (for lack of a better catchword for everything that happened domestically in that period).
When Reagan came on the scene, and the United States started to assert itself again in the competition with the Soviet Union, Moscow didn’t have a prayer of staying competitive in a renewed arms race. They only had a chance because the West gave them one in the 1970s.
What is exceptional about Reagan is not that he defeated the Soviet Union, but the manner in which that defeat took place. Right-wing ideologues like to make much of Ronald Reagan’s dogmatic stands, but Reagan was shockingly flexible. He adapted to circumstance and to opportunity in a way that others likely would not have done.
Reagan, unlike a certain current chief executive, reasoned himself into every position he took. And, as (I think it was) Burke once put it, a man cannot reason himself out of a position he did not use reason to reach.
Conservatives like to point to Reagan calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, but the real mark of who and what Reagan was came years later. I recall watching CNN’s old “Cold War” documentaries, and Reagan standing next to Gorbachev in Red Square in 1988, surrounded by a group of curious Soviet students (which was itself not exactly someplace American presidents tended to go).
The students asked him about his evil empire remark made years earlier. Reagan’s response was that he was right about the Soviet Union then, but he would be wrong to say that today, because things change and things in the Soviet Union had changed.
Forget Nixon going to China. Reagan going to Red Square is more noteworthy.
The outcome of the Cold War could have been very different if Ronald Reagan hadn’t been willing to reason himself into a new position when circumstances changed.
Good point about Reagan’s flexibility, Scott…& something the current Republican president could learn from. I would also say the outcome of the Cold War could have been different, & possibly bloody & traumatic, if hardliners rather than Gorbachev had been in the Kremlin in the mid- to late-80’s & decided to lash out militarily in desperation when faced with imminent economic collapse & dissolution of the USSR.
My perspective on the Fall of communism comes from visiting East Berlin right after the Fall of Communism and several times since. I do home exchanges so have been able to meet many people over the years..A wide held view is that East Germany was ready to collapse at any time and that includes literally the infrastructure which hadn’t been tended to since WW2.In 1991 East Berlin was literally falling apart and by now street by street,block by block it has risen back from near collapse.Also they are tearing down many of the substandard buildings the Russians built in Germany. The Soviet Union continually raped East Germany for 40 plus years.As stated above they were paranoid about gaining equity militarily with the United states and that in itself seems to have bankrupted them and hastened their collpase.So judging from what I’ve heard from Germans,communism’s collapse may have been more from the sum total of all american presidents and policy that maintained the arms race and containment of the Soviet Union.Reagan was the last one,so he gets the most credit.It may not be worth quibbling about. The Soviets perceived us stronger than we were at times maybe because they were a closed society,and paranoia does color perception.
But the greater story now is the re-establishment of Berlin as a world class city.It has taken approximately 15 years and it’s still not complete.The former west Germans have been buying up east German old dilapidated estates and restoring them,but there are still many scars from Soviet incompetency and lack of concern.
Of all the cities I have visited overseas I would say Berlin is by far the most pro-american city just about anywhere(at least that’s true of the older generations,and those I know,but now Germany is developing a new agenda and a new direction I think)
The character of a lot of the media in Germany has taken a decidely anti-American tinge in recent years, which is sad. Some of that owes to the Bush administration, but some also owes to people in Germany of a mindset where they are just looking for an excuse criticize the United States (and Bush has given them plenty).
The tenor of their last two elections didn’t help much either.
In the 2002 election, there was a government minister that said George Bush was using latent (belligerent) domestic feeling over war to scare domestic voters (to vote Republican) and likened such tactics to Hitler, while that same government was using latent (peacenik) domestic feeling over war to scare domestic voters (to vote Social Democratic).
In their most recent election, the Social Democrats were putting out campaign posters bearing photos of coffins draped in American flags being flown back from Iraq, with the caption “She would have sent troops.” She being the female leader of the Christian Democrat opposition.
Fortunately the SPD (the Social Democrats) lost the election, and defeat seldom inspires political parties (at least parties in their right minds) to do more of the same again next time.
With regard to Reagan, I think there is a very real chance that things could have been terrifyingly different. If Reagan had not adapted–if the Reagan of 1987 was as dogmatic, ideological, and hardline as the Reagan of 1981 despite the Gorbachev opening–the hardliners could have decided to act much sooner than their 1991 coup to stop things from slipping away before they lost their parity or perceived advantage.
It would not have been the first time that an authoritarian regime, facing relative decline or a loss of position, decided to act belligerently (or even go to war) to redress or prevent that slide.
Also now that the secret files are open ,Germans can see who had been spying on them for many years and that the communist regime was into most people’s private lives.Life long ‘friends’were found to be communist party workers whose assignment was making dossiers on seemingly average Germans. Chance first meetings were found to have been intrically staged. True life became a living spy novel for many. ‘Paranoia’ is a very apt term to describe the Honiger regime mindset..So much effort was going into spying that not much was produced.Even those who had been avid communists had become cynical and non-believers in communism,but they maintained the system for their own gain.So little was produced and what was produced of value went to Russia. When the wall fell it fell as kind of an afterthought .Germans could now go to West Germany by going to Hungary and then simply re- entering West Germany,so they just ‘opened the border’ and that was it.No one previously had seen any possibility of the defeat of communism except through war and great bloodshed. It’s incredible how communism fell in Eastern Europe, country by country like dominoes.And they would say they did it all themsleves. That’s true in Poland as well. My greater point is that from the European perspective,it’s a widely held view communism fell of its own accord, from within a rotting system.Interestingly when speaking of communism, it’s often mentioned by former East Germans that the worst thing about communism was not economics but restrictions on travel.It was typical to get a letter in May to tell you where’d you go for vacation and when you’d report. It was the Baltic Coast ( the Baltic Coast is at 52 N latitude, by the way, Gulf stream warming not withstanding)for the average worker. No one needed any money; everything was included including transportation and meals. Those with higher standing in the party got trips to maybe the Crimea,or Hungary.After the wall fell there was an incredible hunger to travel to the west.