Why It failed?:The Soviet Union

Hello everybody. Now you know that I have covered many nations' histories in my wiki and blog pages, particularly the USA and Japan. I have also made pages about the Cold War, and thus the USSR. Now, you've been wondering why.

Well, here is a bit about myself to tell you why.

I was born on a freezing morning in February 1983; my father even remembers driving in a huge snowstorm to see me up in the hospital.

By the time I was born (though people didn't know it at the time), the sun was beginning to set on the Cold War Era, and thus the Soviet Union.

As we know now, as the 80s wore on, the USSR would go through a series of problems that would eventually seal its fate. It's Warsaw Pact members were rising.........again. The Chernobyl Power Plant exploded in 1986, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and finally, the USSR keels over and dies on Christmas Day of 1991, and I was only 8 years old at the time.

So now, we come to the question on this page. Why did the Soviet Union fail? There's a series of reasons too.

As we know already, the Soviet Union was born from the Russian Civil War, which Vladimir Illich Lenin and his Bolsheviks won against the Pro-Imperialist movements. But when the 1980s rolled around, the series of problems mentioned earlier caught up to the USSR, and it died on Christmas Day in 1991.

## Why it failed?

### 1. Poor Leadership

Ever since the USSR's inception during the Russian Civil War in 1922, he ruled with (somewhat) an iron hand as he would order purges and even use the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) to silence any opposition, no matter how trivial the reason may be. Lenin has always been known to be \*extremely\* opinionated and would go as far as having people that would be deathly loyal to him (in this case, it's the Bolsheviks).

But as Lenin's health began to fail, he wrote a letter to his Bolshevik party, though Joseph Stalin was a part of this party, but Lenin knew Stalin's personality and also knew that Stalin couldn't be trusted. Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks could do anything about it as (ironically) Lenin gave Stalin the job of "Secretary."

Now, the job of "Secretary" in the Bolshevik party wasn't a "prestigious" position, but it was important nevertheless. In secret, Stalin would use his position to become too powerful to remove. As Lenin died in 1924, a huge Power Vacuum opened up (We'll get to that next).

When Stalin became the leader, he initiated the USSR's 5-year plans to have the USSR industrialize to compete with the USA, Europe, and Japan. He would also order collectivization from peasants and farmers in the nation and even develop a personality cult. Everybody had to look up to Stalin as if he's their savior. He would also continue Lenin's purges in the 1930s. If you didn't worship Stalin, you were sent to a Gulag in Siberia or executed straight away.

### 2. Power Vacuums

Power Vacuums in Russian politics have been plaguing Russia for centuries, and this didn't change with the USSR. After Lenin died in 1924, a huge power vacuum opened up to see who would be the USSR's next ruler. In the end, Stalin (who was very powerful politically at this point) would have the rest of the Bolsheviks (including Lenin's right-hand man, Leon Trotsky) either executed or exiled.

Another power vacuum would open up when Stalin died in 1953. However, other members of the Soviet Politburo, such as Serenity Beria, would seize power for s short amount of time until Soviet hardliners led by Nikita Khrushchev would oust all Stalinists from power.

### 3. Reforms were too little, too late

When Nikita Khrushchev became General Secretary in 1953, we would begin to reform the Soviet Union in an effort called "De-Stalinization" where Stalin's policies became null and void, his Cult of Personality was denounced. The effort to close the Gulags all went into effect, plus Stalin statues and other monuments honoring Stalin were also taken down.

But that's not to say that Khrushchev was a saint; he had no qualms in putting down rebellions, hard. He did so in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

Though things did get "a little" better when Leonid Brezhnev took charge in 1964, its relations with the west were still quite bad.

So, when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary in 1985 and allowed some \*real\* reforms in the Soviet Government, it was too little, too late, and the disasters such as the rebellions in the Warsaw Pact member states and the Chernobyl Disaster only made things in the USSR worse. When Hardline Soviets kidnapped Gorbachev in 1991, he was rescued by his political opponent Boris Yeltsin. When the USSR members (such as Lithuania) seceded from the country later that year, Gorbachev would attempt a (futile) method to keep the USSR alive.

### 4. Irreparable damage.

In World War 2, the Nazis and the Soviets would sign a pact not to attack each other after both factions invaded P. Poland. This would change in July of 1941, where the Nazis would initiate Operation Barbarossa. The surprised and ill-prepared Soviet Army suffered massive losses and were sent back to Leningrad and Moscow's major cities. It wouldn't be until 1942 where the Soviets would turn the tables on the Nazis as they were better equipped for winter warfare, and the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 cemented the Soviets' hold on the eastern front.

Though the USSR would help the Allies win the European theater of the war, the price was too high to pay for the USSR. Not only did 25 Million People in the USSR die in the war, but it also drained many of the USSR's resources; in fact, the Soviets' monumental building project (the Palace of the Soviets) had to be permanently abandoned due to the war.

Just remember that the USSR did everything it had to do to defeat the Nazis, and one of the biggest reasons why D-Day and other operations after that was a success, the USSR was like a giant "sponge," which absorbed a lot of the manpower and firepower the Nazis had.

### 5. Social Problems

By the time of Brezhnev's time as the USSR's General Secretary, the USSR took more of a..........." conservative" stance. In this case, it's about the gap of classes of wealth. Any member of the Soviet Politburo or even a high ranking Soviet Officer would live the high life, as in living in fancy houses/apartments, drive around in luxury cars, enjoy high dining, go on vacations to exotic locales (you get the point), where the middle class (in some cases) struggle to make ends meet. Some peasants were lucky to get a decent meal; some even had no choice but to starve to death.

It also didn't help that a lot of the USSR's money was on the military and not the people. Plus, with its hatred for the west, the USSR also shunned anything that even resembles "capitalism" or "westernism," which meant the people didn't have the good quality stuff as the west did.

Well, that'll do it for this page. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis too. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.