Perestroika and Glasnost Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Perestroika and Glasnost - Essay Example : The major factors of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc are interconnected because internal conflict and the reformatory policies (say, Perestroika and Glasnost) of the later leaders hindered the full-fledged development of communism. One can see that internal conflict (say, ideological) and economic burden accelerated the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Within this context, political policies adopted by Joseph Stalin were totally against the people. Besides, the war in Afghanistan proved to be an economic burden to Soviet Union. The communist policies like control over media and single party system resulted in the totalitarian control of communist party over the mainstream society. Moreover, the arms race during the Cold War era affected the economic backbone of Soviet Union. Industrialization helped the military in Soviet Union to be the most powerful tool of the state. The lack of productivity resulted in the economic collapse of Soviet Union in 1980s. The measures adopted by Mikhail Gorbachev, like Perestroika and Glasnost, did not help Soviet Union to save itself from its ultimate collapse. In short, internal conflicts originated from political and economic factors accelerated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the origin of Russia. The most important factor behind the collapse of the Eastern Bloc was the collapse of Stalinism in Soviet Union. Earlier, the fall of German imperialism at the end of the WWII was exploited by the communist leaders in Soviet Union to spread communist ideology in Europe. Perry, Berg and Krukones (2009), state that â€Å"Meanwhile, the Soviet Union created international mechanisms to oversee and exploit the region’s economic production and military resources, so that the phrase â€Å" Eastern Bloc† became entirely fitting† (p.311). For instance, the European nations like Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia etc were under the control of Soviet Union, especially Stalinism.