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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Orcastraiter who wrote (444853)	8/18/2003 11:30:35 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I respectfully disagree. Communism rotted from the inside out. We in the US have a tendency to associate our actions with all major events in the world, and to overinflate the importance of our influence. The following is an excerpt from an interesting article on the fall of Soviet communism: cyberessays.com In this time what was supposed to ultimately be a classless society became classed as bureaucrats were paid for loyalty with material wealth, allowing them a better standard of living, because of this public interests were placed secondary to personal gain. The 1980's saw a dramatic drop in the Soviet citizens already impoverished standard of living. This caused strikes and public outcry against the administration which threatened the stability of the Soviet Union. The people were angry at the fact that the Communist Party had not lived up to what it had promised which was in return for their obedience they would receive employment, free health care, and a level of comfort. March 1985 marks a turning point in the Communist rule of Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev is elevated to the position of General Secretary. He is aware of the current social upheaval occurring and that change must occur if Communism is to survive. He begins a program called "Perestroika" which was the organizational restructuring of the Soviet economy and government apparatus. Gorbachev discovers that this change will depend on other changes, among others a more tolerant and open political environment , more public influence over governmental and military institutions. This called for major long term change of the political system. He began a policy called "Glasnost" which emphasized openness with regard to discussion of social problems and shortcomings. The purpose of these reforms was to elevate the Soviet standard of living in order to reaffirm the citizenry's loyalties to the Communist party and to enable the rebirth of the Soviet economy and ideal. State control was lo! osened and individual initiative encouraged. He expanded the authority of the Soviet presidency and transferred power from the Communist party to popularly elected legislatures in the union republics. In international affairs, he withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan, normalized relations with China, signed a series of arms control agreements with U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. During this period of change strong Nationalistic opinion started in the republics of the Soviet Union causing major upheaval. In 1991, as the Soviet economy deteriorated, Gorbachev faced competing pressures from hard-line Communists, from free-market reformers, and from nationalists and secessionists seeking independence for their republics. The hard-liners, who included many top government officials, staged a coup in August, placing Gorbachev under house arrest, but within three days the reformers had restored Gorbachev to power. He immediately resigned as Communist party general se! cretary, suspended party activities, and placed reformers in charge of the military and KGB. After allowing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to become independent republics. Nationalist forces became stronger in the republics as the year went on. The USSR voted itself out of existence in December 1991, and Gorbachev resigned his position as president of the USSR. Under the Communist Regime there were immense social problems. In the period before Gorbachev all religion was dismissed. Although the citizens were still allowed to practice their religion it was made extremely difficult for them by the government and the official attitude towards religion was that it was a relic of the past and Atheism was encouraged. There was a substantial amount of alcoholism mostly due to the living and working conditions. There was also a substantial amount of crime. There was extreme discrimination against women. There was a strong sexist attitude and women found it hard to find decent employment, and most women were expected to also take care of household duties as well. Women were also very scarce in government. Relations among the different ethic grouped which lived within the Soviet Union were very tense and sometimes openly hostile. The fact that the Russian language was the language in which all political transactions had to occur in and it was encouraged to be learnt, with the purpose of trying to make a single Soviet culture made this tension even stronger. The education system in the Soviet Union also caused tension because it was set up around a motive to teach students to be obedient to the Communist Party and to be Atheist among other things. Also students were assigned jobs when they graduated and this caused considerable stress on them because they had to take the job assigned to them, and if it was an undesirable one it could ruin their chances for advancement in the future. This was such a tense issue that graduates were sometimes prone to commit suicide. The health care system was under funded. Most hospitals were under staffed and the equipment was outdated, medical supplies were also scarce. This lead to the gradual decrease of the life expectancy of a citizen. Poor standards of sanitation and public hygiene lead to an increased annual death rate and a drop in the birth rate. All of these factors in a way, lead to the disintegration of the Communist Regime, taking into account all of the social problems and the years of mismanagement of the countries resources, we can see why the economy slowed and citizen support for the government diminished.