political and economic crisis

The USSR is in a deep political and economic crisis, which sharpens at the beginning of the 1980s. The population finds the bad supply situation in the country to be unacceptable. More and more citizens come to believe that the causes lie in the Communist system and that the exploitative bureaucracy of the State and the Party are responsible for the miserable conditions. The Soviet Union has since 1979 been embroiled in a bloody war in Afghanistan. The population is no longer prepared to accept high losses among their own soldiers and restrictions in supply of consumption goods, which are aggravated by the war. The leadership in Moscow on the other hand shows itself to be incapable of any corrective course. It attempts to suppress all criticism of the Soviet system and of the Party leadership. This heightens unrest in the population.

In March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the CPSU. For many citizens his elevation to office offers great hopes. Gorbachev wants to carry out comprehensive political and economic reforms. Two Russian phrases are thereby brought into the international lexicon: glasnost and perestroika. Within some limits, Gorbachev wants to create an "open" society. The rights of free expression and freedom of the press are to be safeguarded. Citizens are to have more rights of co-determination and the decision-making process in the economy and politics is to be more transparent. Gorbachev does not want to abolish the Communist system, but to renew it, in order to forestall the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Soviet foreign policy is not unaffected by these changes. Gorbachev wants to revive the détente between East and West and to gain support for his reforms in the West. The arms race with the US is to be ended, not least in order to ensure a better livelihood for Soviet citizens. The American President Ronald Reagan, who initiated the arms control initiatives, willingly accepts the overtures of the General Secretary. On December 8, 1987 the two statesmen sign the INF Treaty, which provides for the elimination of intermediate range missiles from Europe. For the first time in human history an entire category of weapons is to be eliminated. At the same time the US and USSR open negotiations for a fifty percent reduction in strategic nuclear weapons (START). Shortly afterwards Gorbachev meets the long-standing Western demand for a withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Soviet support for Communist rebellions in Africa and Latin America is radically reduced and eventually terminated. Gorbachev releases the states of the East Bloc from the Soviet stranglehold. These states are henceforth to determine their own road. Thereby the states allied to the USSR are encouraged to carry out economic and social reforms.