International Relations

The causes of the fall of the Soviet Union were many and included ethnic conflict, a lack of support for the idea of communism and economic troubles caused by a focus on arms. Despite reform efforts by Mikhail Gorbachev, the then leader of the Soviet Union, the country was never able to reorganize and rebuild. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the Soviet Union seemed to be one of the most stable political units in the world. In international politics the Soviet Union was very strong and seemed only to be getting stronger. It was, for example, securing political client states in Africa. The Western powers believed this image was valid. But in the Soviet Union few things were really what they seemed to be. There were many economic problems for the Soviet Stalinist system. One very general problem was the lack of incentives for productivity. As anonymous Soviet citizen said. They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. The Russian economist, Grigory Yavlinsky, who ultimately became an important advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, became convinced to the need for reform when he investigated the low productivity in the Soviet mines. He found the miners were not working because they had no incentives to work. Said Yavlinsky