Neo,
Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet Union. His inflammatory statements promoted support for the hardliners, and made Gorbachev's job of dismantling more difficult.
Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War
By Dave Pollack
"The world today is one in which a struggle is underway between reason and madness, morality and savagery, life and death. We have determined our place in
this struggle definitely and irreversibly. We are on the side of reason, morality and life." -Mikhail S. Gorbachev, November 1986(Doder 218)
I. Introduction
There have been two great revolutions in Russia this century. The first began in 1917 and ended after much bloodshed with the emergence of a Communist Soviet
Union in 1921. The second began in 1985 after the death of General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko precipitated the
rise to power of one of the greatest reformers in the history of the world. That reformer’s name is Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. Between 1985 and 1990, the Soviet Union went through its
most dramatic change since the March and November Revolutions and subsequent civil war that occurred immediately after the first World War. By 1990 Communism in the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics(USSR) was no more, and General Secretary Gorbachev had been elected President Gorbachev. One of the major results of this turn of events
was that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was finally over. Defining the Cold War
"The Cold War" refers to a period between 1945 and 1990 during which the United States and the USSR were involved in a high-stakes game of
brinksmanship. After the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1946, the fear of an all-out nuclear war between the two
superpowers rose to an unprecedented height, especially between the years of 1947 and 1953. During this period, there was an extreme nuclear arms build-up on both
sides and a large lack of negotiation between the nations. April F. Carter, a member of the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, compares the early Reagan years to this time period. According to Carter, the unprecedented arms build-up in the United States between 1981-85 was in
direct contrast to the spirit of detante established by Nixon and Kissinger during the early Seventies(Carter 20).
It was during this period that President Ronald Reagan declared a formal end to detante and began an arms race that in many ways resembled that which occurred
between the end of World War II and Stalin’s death in 1953. This arms race included the revival of the MX missile
and the B-1 bomber programs, as well as Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative(SDI), more commonly known as the Star Wars defense program. Reagan hoped that these build-ups
would force the Kremlin to choose between "economic collapse at home or acknowledging a
resurgent American military superiority in the world at large"(Gaddis 324). In other words, Reagan hoped that a show of military supremacy would scare the Soviets
into conceding to Western, and primarily American, demands where the Cold War was concerned.
How, then, could such a Cold War be won? According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, a Western victory
could be defined as a Soviet accommodation of a "somewhat benign Soviet sphere of influence in central Europe," as
well as a Russian respecting of American roles in both extremes of Eastern and Western Europe, as well as in Japan and South Korea(Brzezinski 11). A Soviet victory, says Brzezinski, "would
have entailed the submissive neutralization of both Western Europe...and Japan" as well as a total withdrawal of US political and military influence in both East
Asia and Eurasia(ibid. 12). In accepting these definitions, one should keep in mind that Brzezinski was a Polish emigre and
vehemently anti-Communist. According to his definitions, a decisive Western victory was won; if not by America and other Western nations, then at the very least by
the triumph of Western thought over the then-dominant Socialist-Leninist ideology of the Soviet Union. It is this latter
sort of victory that the pro-Gorbachev point of view claims to be more valid. In the eyes of non-Reaganist thinkers, the end of the Cold War was more of a triumph
for Western ideology than one of the Western over the Eastern world.
This essay seeks to examine and analyze these two major schools of thought in order to determine the most likely motivation behind the dramatic reforms of the
Gorbachev era. The Reaganist viewpoint suggests that Ronald Reagan’s major arms build-up in the early Eighties
forced a major reevaluation of Soviet thought within the USSR. According to this viewpoint, Reagan "won" the Cold War in this way; this school of thought holds that
Gorbachev’s hand was forced where both domestic and foreign policy were concerned. The pro-Gorbachev viewpoint
asserts that Gorbachev’s policies of internal reform and openness - known as perestroika and glasnost - were enacted not in response to Reagan’s military
shenanigans, but rather in response to the dire straits Russia found herself in economically in the post-Brezhnev era. According to
this school of thought, Gorbachev ended the Cold War and, in a manner of speaking, both sides emerged victorious.
II. Determining an Ender In most wars, decisive battles are fought and, in the end, a victor is found. Even in the
first World War, which ended in armistice, the victor was clearly determined at the peacemaking tables. However, in the case of the Cold War, a victor cannot be truly
determined by either point of view. In both Reaganist and pro-Gorbachev eyes, the true victor was democracy. The Soviet
peoples received an option for democracy, open elections, and sovereignty. The United States was no longer threatened by the Communist "Evil Empire." In light of
these facts, an educated historian must make a conscious choice not to look for a victor, but rather an ender to the Cold
War. Questions to be answered include that of who was majorly responsible for the end of the Cold War and that of what impact, if any, Reagan’s arms build-up had
upon Gorbachev’s reform policies and the subsequent collapse of Communism. This section will examine both sides’
contributions to the end of the conflict. Ronald Reagan vs. The "Evil Empire"
The first argument in this debate holds that US President Ronald Reagan made a
significant contribution towards the reforms of 1985-89. After being sworn into office in 1981, Reagan and his administration openly proclaimed the end of detante and the beginning of
increased military spending. This attitude was partly due to right-wing conservative pressure on the part of Reagan supporters during the late Seventies. Reagan felt
compelled to get tough with the Soviet Union because of its recent invasion of Afghanistan. This invasion had, in many
Americans’ eyes, increased the Soviet threat to the rest of the world. In any case, Reagan stepped up military spending, as well as harsh rhetoric towards the
Soviet Union, to whom he referred as the "Evil Empire." It can be well argued that Reagan’s new policies concerning arms
control forced the Kremlin to undergo a major reevaluation of its policies, as well as a thorough examination of its own internal problems. Indeed, then-General
Secretary Leonid Brezhnev stated in 1982 that he was well aware of America’s "political, economic, and ideological
offensive" against the USSR(Holloway 68). The arms race is often cited as a major point of influence in Gorbachev’s policies
because, due to the current economic and scientific standpoint of post-Brezhnev Russia, the USSR could not hope to compete with the United States technologically.
In order to contest the arms build-up, as well as the perceived impact that SDI would have upon America’s geopolitical
influence, the USSR would have had to call on resources, both monetary and technological, that it simply did not have. Because of its severe closedness towards
information from the West, for example, only a few of the yearly graduates of Soviet engineering institutions could compete
with American engineers, who are much less specialized and much more well-educated. Although the USSR produced twice as much steel as the United States, the
poor quality of the steel and the waste involved in steel usage caused chronic shortages of steel within the Soviet
Union(Bialer 242). Due to their Stalinist emphasis on quantity rather than quality of goods produced, the USSR had fallen severely behind the US technologically
between 1972 and 1985. In this way, one could argue that Reagan forced Gorbachev’s hand regarding Soviet policy.
This view of forcible reform can be seen in the actions of Mikhail Gorbachev after he came to power in 1985. In 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan met in Reykjavik,
Iceland to discuss arms limitations. The two leaders agreed that, within the next fifteen years, both nations would
drastically reduce their nuclear weapons supplies and would immediately begin reduction of strategic arms. This agreement was made legitimate at the Intermediate
Nuclear Forces(INF) negotiations the following year. The USSR agreed at INF to "accept detailed on-site verification
and larger cuts" in its nuclear arms than were required of the US(Carter 23). According to the Reaganist point of view, these agreements were concessions to the United States, made as a
result of the knowledge that the United States was technologically superior to the Soviet Union. Gorbachev vs. the Military-Industrial Complex
The major flaw in this viewpoint lies in the theory that Reagan’s actions in the early Eighties forced Gorbachev to institute the reforms that he did. This
would imply that Gorbachev had no choice but to implement change, that anyone would have had to have done the same if
placed in his position. In other words, the upper echelons of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union(CPSU) would have been nearly unanimous in their visions of the
course that Mother Russia was to take. However, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Gorbachev faced
significant opposition within the CPSU. The General Secretary in fact faced opposition not only from the Politburo, but from the military as well. Both Politburo
member Grigory Romanov and Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov were highly opposed to arms reduction. In fact, the latter
pushed for higher military expenditure during 1985 and 1986(Carter 27). It was only after Romanov’s ouster in 1985 and Gorbachev’s quasi-purge of the military in
1986-1987 that he was able to push through the most radical of his reforms. Therefore, it is not valid to assume that
Russia was necessarily forced to enact Gorbachev’s reforms by the Reagan administration.
Perhaps, then, it is more valid to examine the possibility that Gorbachev instituted reform in the USSR due to the failure of Stalinist economics under Brezhnev and due to the futility of
pursuing further military brinksmanship with the United States. The most prominent examples of this pro-Gorbachev theory are in the policies that he instituted upon
entering office and in the rapidity with which he enacted them. One of his first moves as General Secretary was to suggest
the removal of Russian troops from Afghanistan, a country in which the Soviet Union had maintained a strong military presence since 1979. He suggested this
move in a speech before the Soviet military in 1986 and implied that he had understood it to be necessary since just before
Leonid Brezhnev’s death in 1982(Sheehy 181). In the same speech, Gorbachev talked of removing troops from Mongolia and from along the Sino-Soviet border,
citing China as "a great socialist country"(ibid. 182). In June of that year he began publicly proposing a conversion of
several military industries into those which would produce consumer goods, and in October he made the conscious decision to attend the aforementioned Reykjavik
summit on nuclear arms. This evidence points toward the theory that Gorbachev had planned, even before coming
to power, to disassemble the military-industrial complex that existed in the Soviet Union and break the monopoly that the Soviet armed forces held over its finances.
Any sort of breakdown in the military stronghold in the USSR was a signal of the beginning of the end of the
brinksmanship and tension in which she and the US had been engaged for the previous forty years. Gorbachev’s moves are those of a man who had every intention of bringing about the end
of a conflict, and indeed of bringing an end to a detrimental way of life such as that which existed in the Soviet Union.
This is not, of course, to say that the United States had no influence whatsoever upon Soviet policy. Gorbachev accused Washington via satellite of "using the
arms race to ‘exhaust the Soviet Union economically...[and] impose hardships of all kinds on the Soviet leadership to
foil its plans, including those...for improving our people’s living standards’"(Sheehy 196). He then announced that the Soviet Union would extend its moratorium on
nuclear testing for another six months. Gail Sheehy, political analyst for Vanity Fair magazine and nationally renowned for
her biographies both of Gorbachev and of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had extensive contact with members of the Reagan administration as well as a contact in the Kremlin.
It is her firm belief that, in making this bold move just two months before the Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev deliberately raised the stakes of the wager he and Reagan had laid against each other.
If this is taken as true, then one must logically come to the ironic conclusion that it was Gorbachev who manipulated Reagan, and not vice versa.
Much credence is given to the belief that Gorbachev forced Reagan to make certain decisions by the actions of the Soviet General Secretary. For example,
at the Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev agreed to the above conditions of arms reduction, but insisted on a ten-year
moratorium on the development of SDI, Reagan’s pet project. Sheehy believes that Gorbachev called Reagan’s bluff and put forth a proposal he felt sure the
President would hotly reject. Gorbachev was able to use this fallout at the summit to blame the United States’ military-
industrial complex for Reagan’s unwillingness to accept the SDI condition. Although Gorbachev was later reconciled to accept continuation of "Star Wars" research,
this political maneuver displays the contribution which he made towards nuclear arms and defense reduction and thus,
towards the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev’s Drastic Reforms
There are many instances throughout the late eighties where Mikhail Gorbachev severely reformed Soviet foreign and domestic policy, unprompted by the United
States. In seeming contrast to the Reaganist viewpoint, most of this sweeping reform
occurred during the Bush administration, which according to Michael Mandelbaum maintained a strategy of remaining
"quietly on the sidelines" where the USSR and the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe were
concerned(Carter 25). During this period, Mandelbaum was the Senior Fellow and Director of the Director of the Project on East-West Relations in the Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, as well as the author of many books on US-Soviet relations during the eighties.
His rather credible position that the Bush administration had very little influence upon the momentous events in Russia and Eastern Europe during the late eighties
detracts from the Reaganist theory on the end of the Cold War.
The most major upheavals in Soviet policy came during the Bush administration. In December 1988, just after George Bush’s election, Gorbachev made a
speech before the United Nations in which he promised dramatic and widespread withdrawals of armed forces in East
Germany and the European bloc. The next year, he began endorsing human values and endorsing UN peacekeeping operations. In early 1989, Gorbachev
unilaterally withdrew troops from Afghanistan, ending the ten-year long conflict there. At the end of October of that year the
Brezhnev Doctrine, a revision of pan-Slavism which endorsed the right of the USSR to invade Eastern Europe at any time in order to promote Socialist
internationalism, was formally renounced at the Warsaw Pact in Poland. The Warsaw Pact also emphasized "the right of each
country to go its own way," a move that would lead to the dissolution of the Soviet bloc and eventually of the Soviet Union itself(Carter 24). Finally, on November
9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. This event is one which most historians agree signaled the true end of the Cold War.
III. Conclusion The Reaganist viewpoint cannot be completely believed in its insistence that Reagan’s
policies forced the reform in the USSR that would eventually end the Cold War. This is primarily because, in the observance of history, one must allow for
personal choice and initiative, as well as for what Gorbachev’s own agenda may have been before he assumed the office of
General Secretary. According to Carter and Mandelbaum, both reputed scholars in the study of the Cold War, if the Reagan administration could assume responsibility
for any decisions made, that responsibility could only have been for reforms that Gorbachev instituted inside the Soviet
Union; that is, Gorbachev’s reevaluation of military, ideological, and Third World goals(Carter 24-5). No evidence exists which would suggest that the Reagan or Bush
administrations even undertook to promote dissent within the bloc, let alone planned its breakup. As has been
mentioned, it was the dissolution of this bloc, symbolized by the falling of the Berlin Wall, that truly ended the Cold War.
If the United States had no role in the East Europe breakup, then it cannot assume such solitary responsibility for the end of the Cold War. It is much more
plausible to take a compromise of the two major viewpoints and posit a newer, moderate theory. Reagan’s military
buildup doubtless had a profound impact on Gorbachev’s reevaluation of Soviet policy, especially where the Cold War was concerned. However, it is most likely
that Gorbachev, given the dire economic and ideological straits presented him in a
post-Brezhnev USSR, had an agenda of reform at least as early as 1982, if not earlier. What is most probable that the US military
arms race merely sped up the process of reform which Gorbachev originally saw fit to
implement.
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