Mikhail Gorbachev's Failure Of The Soviet Union

Gorbachev’s downfall History is rife with governments that failed due to their own inner workings. A tragic example of a failing government would be the Soviet Union, a Eurasian state that had begun running in 1922. By the year of 1985, the Soviet Union was a struggling country that was still suffering from the actions of former rulers. A new ruler, president Mikhail Gorbachev, had been set by this time. Mikhail was a man who knew the issues the Soviet Union faced, had set out to change its own government in order to make the country a better place, and tried everything in his power to improve it. Yet, despite his efforts, the Soviet Union had fallen in 1991. When Mikhail had risen to presidency within the Soviet Union in 1985,
Of the many struggles Mikhail faced as president of the Soviet Union, he found that the damage dealt by the United States had been crippling. The US had closed Russia off from the rest of the world during the Cold War of the late eighties, crippling the economy. Oil prices were driven up, and the overall market value was inflated due to the national isolation (Norwitch 3). National defense had played its role as well. Weapons programs were invested in by the Soviet government in order to keep up with the ever-growing US’s arsenal of weaponry, depleting even more currency from the nation (Norwitch 3). This, in conjunction with the market failure that was perestroika, other failures such as glasnost, and other detrimental policies enacted by Mikhail had ravaged the Soviet Union’s infrastructure and had rendered the government and weakened the positions of any and all political members in power at the
Mikhail’s attempts at creating a more democratic system for the Soviet government in order to create a more free-thinking society (Dilemma 3) had ended in failure. Policies centered around a communistic country with the intent on introducing democratic and capitalist ideals did not mesh with the very foundation of that government. The people had rejected all of Mikhail’s solutions, and the very structure of government Mikhail was president of could not adhere to his policies (Dilemma 8). Despite this, Mikhail had tried to use different policies to solve problems that were only increasing due to his actions as president in the effort of making a better Soviet Union. The failure of these policies had weakened the Union with each one added, and, by the time he resigned from the Soviet Union presidency in 1991, the Union was already falling apart due to Gorbachev’s failures. It was not long after Mikhail resigned until the Soviet Union collapsed in his