Mikhail Gorbachev: The Decline Of The Soviet Union

Introduction
The Soviet Union, or the USSR, has had its fair share of leaders since its conception on November 7th, 1927. Throughout the Cold War alone there was a total of seven leaders. Arguably, one of the most famous of the seven leaders was Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was the last head of the USSR, and many believe he was to blame for its ultimate downfall and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. There are a variety of viewpoints when it comes to the leadership of Gorbachev. Two of the most popular are that he intended to bring an end to communism within the Soviet’s sphere of influence and the other is that he intended to make a positive change ,to restore the Soviet Union to its former glory, but the state of the Soviet Union …show more content…
The Economy guaranteed the people would have work no matter their skill level or education. Thus education was not required nor was any skill. This definitely reflected soviet society, at the time the Soviet Union Ranked 40th in global population with higher education and 50th in university students. When the economy was no longer in control by the Soviet Union and the demand for competent and educated workers increased caused difficulties in the new economy, wages were increased for the higher educated and skilled workers favoring management level jobs.Unskilled workers were left in the past making almost nothing, if they had the opportunity to work. The new rise in unemployment and low-waged jobs was in part due to the fast and large shift in the control of the economy. This is something Gorbachev did not expect in a series of papers called the New Soviet Labor Market “16 to 18 million workers were expected to be released from material production,” and shift new forms of employment. This, however, did not work out, the percentage of people living in poverty increased and continued to rise after the fall of the Soviet Union, it caused massive inflation and the same happened to the Soviet Satellite States that accepted the changes of …show more content…
The development of the two party system, which was caused by the change in political openness, that was not Gorbachev 's intention, continued to cause problems throughout the political system of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev tried to put these problems behind him and started his reinventing of the communist party. In June 1988 Gorbachev and his supporters began their reforms to reduce the power of the communist party and surrounding Governments. This time he called for multi-candidate local and regional elections. Many of the more conservative members of the Soviet Union really discouraged Gorbachev. He was still able to gain the elections through the support of high-ranking Soviet officials who were able to enforce the new policies. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was also disbanded and in its place the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union was formed. This would be the new legislative branch of the Soviet Union. It would be made up of 2,250 seats to assure that that it was primarily communist Gorbachev reserved one-third of the seats for the CSPU. The group would be eighty-three percent CSPU members. The reformists won only 300