Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse?

To begin, Catherine successfully led Russia through two wars which greatly benefited the state, “Early in the century … Peter the Great established Russia as a Baltic Sea power at the expense of Sweden, and by the end of the century, after two wars, Catherine II had elevated the empire into a Black Sea power at the expense of the Ottoman Empire” (Dmytryshyn 107). Another idea of Peter’s that Catherine II reinstated was the law code, “For decades the government had been aware of the confused state of Russian law, based on … Peter’s legislation … Catherine saw the opportunity to carry out a thorough review and revision and to establish some general principles” (Bushkovitch 119). Catherine was also one of the few rulers after Peter who valued education. To further explain, “she continued to support the university, the academics, and the schools with money and encouragement” (Bushkovitch 126).

Empress Catherine the Great ruled Russia for approximately thirty years from 1762 to 1796 when she died. She was known throughout the world as an unusual ruler, having taken over the throne after the brutal death of her husband Peter the third. There she was made Empress of all Russia, this was unusual because instead of being made regent for her son they circumnavigated the rules and she was made Empress Regnant. During her time on the throne she made many radical and life changing decisions. She was a voracious reader and writer, often helping to translate others works into Russian. She herself was inspired by Voltaire, Diderot, and Montesquieu. All of which culminated in her greatest work “Great Instruction”, which was the beginning of basically all her future endeavors. Catherine the Great was an enlightened ruler who tried to bring about a new way of life in Russia, by allowing certain freedoms and educating the public.

By corresponding with Enlightenment Philosopher’s, she was able to implement several of the ideas of the Enlightenment into reforms for Russia and its people. Catherine became the sovereign ruler of Russia on the 9th July 1762, where she began a 34-year reign. Catherine implemented reforms that were of political, social, educational, economical and cultural nature and followed the principles of the Enlightenment. Her improvements allowed religious practices as well as abolishing torture and capital punishment. Catherine was also instrumental in the amassing of land for Russia, where she expanded Russia’s boarders to the black sea and into central Europe. Catherine also had great military success as she conquered the Ottoman Empire on two separate occasions. Through education improvements, Catherine allowed Russian’s to learn and become more knowledgeable, also giving them the opportunity to have jobs that required a higher level of education. Her introduction of social and cultural reforms allowed the people of Russia to become westernised, experiencing art and literature associated with the Enlightenment. Without her correspondence with the Philosophers, Voltaire, Diderot and d’Almebert, Catherine would not have had such a comprehensive knowledge of the Enlightenment as she did. This meant she would have not been likely have had the ability to shape Russian society into

She ruled with absolute authority but also desired to reform Russia. In 1767 Catherine formed a commission to review Russia’s laws. She presented with a brilliant proposal for reforms based on the ideas of Montesquieu and Beccaria, and Catherine recommended allowing religious toleration and to abolish torture and capital punishment; however, she never accomplished any of these worthy goals. She began as an enlightened absolutist and she strengthened noble rights and wanted to give rights to serfs and tie serfs to nobles instead of the land they worked on. Catherine previously favored to end serfdom; however, Pugachev's Rebellion would eventually convince her that she needed the support of the nobles in order to keep her power over the serfs.

One of Catherine’s greatest contributions to Russia was the improvement of her economy. As Anthony P. Johnson discusses in his book The Original Diva: The Life and Times of Catherine II the Great, Catherine implemented a variety of policies to stimulate economic growth: First, she established the Free Economic Society (1765) to encourage the modernization of agriculture and industry. Second, she encouraged foreign investment in economically underdeveloped areas. Third, Catherine relaxed the censorship law and encouraged education for the nobles and middle class. (Johnson,

Catherine the Great In the midst of the Enlightenment of the 1700s emerged one of the greatest rulers in European history: Catherine the Great. Before her reign, Russia was a sluggish country and deemed behind in modernization compared to Western Europe. However, during Catherine’s lifetime from 1729 to 1796, this empress of Russia integrated new ideas that expanded her country in both scope and size (“Catherine the Great”). As a strong supporter of the arts and education, Catherine innovated Russia with Enlightenment teachings that allowed immense social progress and elevated the standing of her country among European powers.

When the Soviets came to power in Russia following the October Revolution of 1917, they realized the country they controlled had many problems to rectify. At this time the newly formed Soviet Union had a small urban population, a large percentage of its people illiterate, and had a practically nonexistent industrial capacity following World War I and later, the Civil War. The Bolsheviks’ plan to remedy these problems was to construct what they called “Soviet” or “socialist” cities, where the majority of the population would live, be educated, and work in industry. The planners intended for Soviet cities to be different from their capitalist city counterparts, such as London or New York City, with specific fundamental characteristics that

On April of 1961, the Soviet Union successfully launched Yuri Gagarin into space, and they became the first nation to accomplish such a feat. However, just one week after the successful mission was announced, John F. Kennedy sent a letter to his vice president asking him to look into America's space program and to write back what he believed

The collapse of the Soviet Union can ultimately be attributed to three broad, complex, and interconnected issues: The economy, Leadership, and Geography. All three of theses factors are interconnected and each contain several reasons why they contributed to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, also known as the USSR, brought with it a number of downfalls. This was especially true with regard to businesses that had originated or had ties to the country, which had been divided into 15 separate republics then. One of the organizations that suffered dearly with the fall of the Soviet Union was the startup aviation company known as Baltia Air Lines.

Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed taking by surprise therewith not only the international community, but also its own leaders. What brought the superpower down? Its authoritarian and corrupt political system, failure of the planned economy and stagnation, or consistent celebration of national diversity throughout the whole history of the Soviet Union? If the question is why the USSR disintegrated into 15 independent states, then the answer lies in the republican lines which were drawn around ethnicity. In this essay, I argue the primacy of the ethnofederal system and Soviet nation-building policy to the fall of “the last European empire”. First, I will address the main tenets of and motifs behind the Soviet approach to the “nationality question” and how it backfired on the Communist Party and Russian democrats, who strived to preserve the union, seven decades later; then I will discuss political and economic structural flaws of the Soviet system and give reasons for why they could not solely account for the actual break up when examined from a broader perspective; lastly I will analyze mechanisms, predetermined by ethnofederal system and Soviet ethno-cultural policies, that facilitated an avalanche of secessions from the USSR, and sum up my arguments.

An additional justification on agreeing with Gandhi’s quote pertains to the failed economic growth and overall development caused by the tyrannical control of a country, leading to a breakdown of the regime. The term “economic growth” is defined as an increase in a country’s productive capacity as measured by comparing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the respective country per annum. A plethora of categories must be taken into account to determine the degree of economic growth, such as the increase in capital stock, advances in technology, and the improvement of literacy levels. On the other hand, in terms of the essay, the overall development is the overall degree of success, prosperity, and well-being in all aspects of living. To

There is a myriad of factors that accounted for the dissolution of the USSR, and the consolidation of capitalist superiority from 1991 onwards after the fall of an autocracy, and demise of a disunited provisional government. The official declaration of the termination of the Soviet Union was December 26 1991; this collapse was addressed by the west as the defeat of communism, and the end of the Cold War. To understand how and why this previously prosperous nation came to fall it is important to look at the major factors contributing to this disarray. I will examine the economic and ethnic problems the Soviet Union faced, as well as the problems with those in power.

The quick collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 appalled everyone in the West, but that is because no one outside the Soviet Union knew what was going on. The Soviet government’s lies of economic success and superiority over the Western capitalist states had controlled the citizens of Russia to believe that the USSR’s Communist regime was growing for half a decade. It wasn’t until Mikhail Gorbachev that mocked previous leaders like Stalin and Brezhnev for being responsible for not improving the Soviet economy. Gorbachev’s reforms to modernize the USSR created more freedom and openness for Russians, but sprawled uprisings and revolutions in the Central Asia and the Baltic states. The inability to keep up with the United States economically in the 1970s and 1980s along with the later reforms to improve the Soviet economy in Gorbachev’s term led to the downfall of the USSR.

The first five-year plan of the Soviet union was referred to the large-scale and systematic socialist construction of the Soviet communist party, which the government in order to get rid of the backward agricultural country of the Soviet union from 1928 to 1932. The completion of the first five-year plan made the Soviet union began to change from an agricultural country to industrial country. The Soviet union preliminary built independent relatively complete national economic system, laid the material foundation for realizing the socialist industrialization. Since the new economic policies, the Soviet economy basically recovered to its pre-war level in 1925. But the modern industry of the Soviet union is still relatively