The Fall of the USSR: Andropov to Gorbachev

The End of the USSR: From Andropov to Gorbachev

Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982 and was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who was 69 years old and the head of the KGB. His election highlighted two important factors: firstly, it demonstrated the rigidness of a generation formed in the early years of the Cold War and under Stalinism, often referred to as the Gerontocracy. Secondly, it showed the intensity of the symbiosis between the party and the secret services.

Andropov attempted to clean up the system by forcing senior officials, including ministers, to resign. He even launched a corruption probe against Brezhnev's family. For workers, his only policy was the fight against absenteeism, with a focus on discipline and exemplary punishment. However, Andropov's mandate was marked by two crises in Soviet foreign policy: the Polish crisis and the invasion and war in Afghanistan.

Andropov died in 1984, at the height of these crises, sparking a political debate between the reformist drive of the new generations of Russians and the hard-liners and conservatives in the regime. The latter initially won, imposing Konstantin Chernenko, who was almost 80 years old. Chernenko died in 1985, the year after his election.

Following this, the debate reopened, and advocates of change succeeded in bringing in Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev's entrance marked two substantial changes: firstly, his relative youth (54 years old), and secondly, his direct address to the source of the Communist Party.

Mikhail Gorbachev's Rise to Power

Mikhail Gorbachev was a Marxist who wanted to reform the system. He believed that change must come from within the party cadres, as he considered some people too entrenched and unable to adapt. His political career was brilliant, and he quickly gained a network of support in Moscow and the Kremlin, which led him to become the leader of reform and his subsequent election. He was the candidate of the sectors that realized reforms were necessary for survival. The justification of communism and of themselves could no longer be only ideological; the system could only be justified if it was effective.

Gorbachev's mandate can be divided into two phases. In the first phase (1985-1986), he focused on promoting morality in civil society, launching a major campaign against alcoholism, and opening up some freedom of expression, specifically in reporting corruption cases. However, he did not open up freedom of expression in all fields.

Later, he shifted his policy towards more substantial reforms. Pensions were fostered, and the institutions of the Party were controlled. Some believe that the trigger for this change of course was the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident, the largest nuclear disaster in history, which occurred in a plant lacking security and performance guarantees. This event became known as the turning point for Perestroika.

Perestroika and Glasnost

Gorbachev believed that the opacity of the system favored corruption and a lack of accurate information for leaders. Thus, Glasnost, or transparency, was central to Gorbachev's reforms. He saw it as the air needed for Perestroika. Initially, Perestroika was aimed at improving economic mechanisms, but reality showed that a thorough reform of the political structure was necessary, not in the Western democratic sense but from a socialist democracy perspective.

The essence of political reform was the restoration of the Soviets (peasantry), the support base of the communist organization. The monopoly of decisions would no longer be solely on the Communist Party but in elected assemblies through genuinely free elections. In economics, a law was passed for state enterprises, which sought to decentralize decision-making and management while reserving central planning for more general areas.