Arguments for

We live in a continuously developing world where major historical events have had their influence on people involved for decades. Take the 20th century, for instance. It is interspersed with globally important events like the two World Wars or periods of dictatorships expanded all over the world. That is why I consider that studying the phenomena that have taken place is very important, as it makes us aware of what happened in different periods and develops our analytical sense. This is beneficial for me as a student of this Faculty, because I want to become a prepared specialist in Law and thus, being able to tackle recent-history events and their consequences would be an advantage. I believe that the Communist domination from the 20th century is a delicate issue worth considering, and that is why I chose to write about the one that has caused the collapse of the Communist empire: Mihail Gorbaciov. I also chose this theme because I consider that the other ones related to the subjects I usually learn about, like the strictly administrative and juristic ones, are the ones I must focus on in order to become good jurists. An English project should be, to my way of thinking, not only a work in which one should handle the topic with as much information as possible, but also something the student expresses his opinions as well. Therefore, the study about a famous political personality like Mihail Gorbaciov would be a more interesting thing to realize, due to the fact that it also enlarges my general knowledge. The most important historical event from the last forty years was definitely the disintegrating of the Soviet Union and the collapsing of the communism. The movement that has been mincing to envelop the whole world for decades has disintegrated itself with an amazing velocity, and now it seems to be heading to the garbage can of the history. There is one central figure that marks this stunning decline: Mihail Gorbaciov, the man that led the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991. Gorbaciov was born in 1931, in the village of Privolnoe, from the region of Stavropol, in the south of Russia. His childhood coincides with the bloodiest period of the dictatorship exerted by Iosif Stalin. Mihails own grandfather, Andrei, spent nine years in Stalins concentration camps and was not released until 1941, a few months before Germany invaded Russia. Mihail was too young to fight in the Second World War, but his father was enrolled, and his older brother died in the battle. The German occupation lasted almost eight years in the village of Privolnoe. However, nothing was a hindrance to Gorbaciovs career. He used to have excellent results at school; at fifteen he enlisted himself in the Komsomol (the Union of the Communist Youth) and afterwards he worked on a combine-harvester in agriculture for four years. In 1950 he entered the State University in Moscow, where he studied Law 1

theme

choosing this

School and got his diploma in 1955. In 1952, during college years, Mihail became a member of the Communist Party and met his future wife, Raisa Maximova Titorenko. They got married immediately after Gorbaciov got his diploma and had only one girl, Irina. After graduating, Gorbaciov came back to Stavropol and began his gradual ascension through the Communist Party. In 1970he became the Prime-Secretary of the regional party committee, and in the following year he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He got promoted in 1978, when he moved to Moscow, as a secretary of the Central Committee regarding agricultural problems. In 1979, Gorbaciov became a surrogate member of the Political Office (that represented the leading organ of the Soviet Union), and in 1980 he became a full member. All these promotions were undertaken between 1964 and 1982, when the Soviet Union was being led by Leonid Brejnev. After his death, the leadership was assumed by the Andropov (1982 1984) and Cernenko (1984 1985), at this date Gorbaciov being an important member of the Political Office. Cernenko died on the 11th of March 1985 and Gorbaciov was elected General Secretary the next day. The voting of the Political Office was secret, but it was rumored that Gorbaciov won at a very tight score before Victor Griin, a firm conservatory. Can you imagine how different could it have been if two or three persons would have voted differently? Unlike most of the Soviet leaders, Gorbaciov had traveled abroad (France, 1986; Italy, 1967, Canada, 1983; England, 1984), before he became the leader of the Communist Party. That is why, when he was elected, many occidentals hoped that Gorbaciov would be a liberal and more modern leader that his predecessors. Their hopes have turn out to be entitled, but no one anticipated the speed and the amplitude of his reforms. The Soviet Union was facing serious issues the moment that Gorbaciov took over the leadership, but all of them were exacerbated by the enormous quantum of expanses for the race or arming. In the hope of putting an end to this race, Gorbaciov accepted immediately the proposal of American President Ronald Reagan, who invited him to a summit. The two state leaders have met four times: in Geneva (1985), in Reykijavik (1986), in Washington (1987) and in Moscow (1988). The most spectacular result was constituted by the treaty concerning the limitation of the arming, signed in December 1987. it was the first treaty the practically reduced the number of nuclear weapons detained by the great powers. As a result, a whole category of middle range rackets was eliminated.
Gorbaciov and Reagan during a meeting

Another action that has contributed to the reducing of the tension of the international atmosphere was put across through Gorbaciovs decision of withdrawing the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, during Brejnevs leadership, and in the beginning, it was a successful military operation. However, after Reagan had disposed the arming of the Afghani guerillas with Stinger 2

rackets (that counteracted in a great measure the efficiency of the Soviet air force), the force rapport changed and the Soviets saw themselves caught in a long, prospectless war. The international public opinion had criticized form the beginning the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and from the point of view of the Soviet Union, the war was unpopular and costly. Still Brejnev, Andropov, Cernenko and even Gorbaciov had initially refused to put it to an end, by fear of losing their prestige. Lastly, Gorbaciov signed in the beginning of the year 1988 an agreement that stipulated the withdrawing of all Soviet forces. (This withdrawal was accomplished at the fixed date, in February 1989.).
The cover of the Time magazine from January 1988, which designed Gorbaciov as man of the year.

While operating drastic changes in the external politics, Gorbaciov was also preoccupied with handling internal issues. Since the very beginning he realized the necessity of implementing a program sustained by the perestroika, (restructuring), in order to enlarge the performances of the Soviet economy. This restructuring would contribute to the massive reducing of the power of the Communist Party (that had been exerting an absolute control over the Soviet government until then). From an economical standpoint, the restructuring meant the legalization of the private initiative in certain domains. On the other hand, Gorbaciov has always considered himself a loyal adept of the Marxism-Leninism, deeply devoted to the cause of the socialism. His declared purpose was to reform the communist system, in order to achieve a better functioning. Perhaps the most revolutionary of his reforms was the glasnost, or the opening, instituted by Gorbaciov in 1986. This reform implied, among other things, transparency from the government regarding its activities and the one of public interest events. Another aspect of the glasnost was constituted by the fact that it was allowed for one person to discuss about political problems openly. The freedom to overtly express a point of view, which, only a few years before, would have generated someones deportation in gulags (or even the capital punishment, when Stalin ruled the country), became a regular thing thanks to the glasnost. The Soviet newspapers were able to criticize the governmental politics, the communist Party and even Gorbaciov himself! Another important step in democratizing the Soviet Union was made in 1989, when there were popular elections for the new Soviet Parliament, the Council of the Peoples Deputies. Of course, these ones were not free elections in the meaning of the ones from the West, under the circumstances that 90% of the candidates were members of the Communist Party and it was not allowed the existence of other political parties. Yet these elections have offered the population the occasion of choosing their own candidates, and the numbering of the votes was performed correctly. These elections have certainly been the closest to the Western model ones, from the moment the Communists took over the power in 1917. These elections were very close to generating in the measure accepted by the effectual laws a distrust vote inside the Communist Party. Many members of the old party (including a few of them that had stand without opposites) were obliged to leave the political scene, and in their place there were elected declared dissidents.

Regardless of these radical reforms that have been adopted in the U.S.S.R., nobody ever anticipated the fundamental changes that were made in the Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1990. That area had been entirely occupied by the Russian troops at the end of the Second World War and, in the 1940s, the Communists regimes subdued to the Soviet Union were installed in six countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany. These regimes were extremely unpopular, but their leaders, sustained by the secret police and the army, have lasted for more that forty years. Even when a popular riot managed to chase away one of the Communist tyrants the case of Hungary in 1956 the Soviet troops have immediately installed communists to the leadership. That is why, despite communists lack of popularity, in September 1989 everyone believed that the communist regime and the Russian domination were unstoppable. However, to the end of the year, the whole system collapses like a sandcastle, blown away by a typhoon. And all these thanks to an important political personality that has influenced, through his deeds, the history of mankind for decades after: Mihail Gorbaciov. In order to understand his contribution to the collapsing of the Communist domination, we must be aware of the general atmosphere in those years, and of how everything developed. The flusters began in the Eastern Germany. Since the building up of the horrendous Wall of Berlin in 1961, many eastern-Germans willing to run away in the West have been shot while futilely trying to swarm it up. For many years, the Wall has represented a sinister symbol that suggested that the Eastern Germany as, by the ay, all the other countries under communist regimes was a huge concentration camp. The eastern-Germans could not flee in the West through any other customs house, as their government had surrounded the entire frontier with barbed-wire, alarm systems, military patrols and mined fields. Still, between 1988 and 1989, many eastern-Germans have managed to escape by going firstly to another eastern European country (it was allowed) and from there to the West. In October 1989, Erich Honeker the Communist leader that had been leading Eastern Germany for many years tried to block up this alternative route, too. In just a few days, great demonstrations have burst out in the Eastern Berlin, as a result of this measure. Gorbaciov visited Berlin, advised Honeker to initiate a reform program and drew his attention not to repress the demonstrations by using force, by telling him very clearly that the Soviet troops (380000 in the Eastern Germany at that time) would not use the weapons against the eastern-German population. Through his attitude, Gorbaciov stopped the eastern-German police and army to repress the demonstrations bloodily and inspired confidence to the protesters. In just a few weeks, Honeker was forced to resign. However, because his surrogate (Egon Krenz) was also a communist and the frontiers were still closed, the demonstrations kept on. Finally, on the 9th of November, Krenz announced that the Wall of Berlin would be pulled down and that the eastern-Germans would be allowed to travel to the West freely. A few decisions have ever aroused such enthusiasm and have ever had such profound consequences. In just a few days, millions of east-Germans have passed the frontier in order to see how their western brothers lived. They have had the opportunity to get convinced that during the forty-four years, the communism had deprived of their freedom as well as of their prosperity. The population of the Eastern Europe reacted towards the pulling down of the Wall of Berlin about the same way the French did two

centuries ago. From their entire attitude, we could tell that the tyrants began to lessen their power. Turn and turn about, in every country, the people protested against their leaders, by discarding the communist regimes that had oppressed them for so many years. In Bulgaria, Todor Jivkov, who had ruled the country with an iron hand, was force to resign in November 1989. In Czechoslovakia, the communist president was eliminated on the 10th of December, and replaced with a former political prisoner! In Hungary, the government had legalized the opposition parties in October 1989, and at the free elections on the 26th of November, the new parties have peremptory eliminated the communists that have given up the power without blood spare. In Poland, the victorious anticommunists have decided to abolish socialism and to found the market economy starting with the 1st of January 1990. The same thing happened in the Eastern Germany, and in the free elections from December 1989, the communists were definitely defeated. The last redoubt was Romania, where the taught Nicolae Ceausescu was decided not to give up the power. When the demonstrations started in Timisoara, he ordered the army to shoot the crowd. But the angry population was unstoppable. On the 25th of December, Ceausescu was averted from the leadership, caught and executed. This way, the least communist regime disappeared. These extremely significant events determined the retreat of the Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, democratic elections in all the released countries, the reunification of Germany, completed in October 1990) and the abolishing of Marxism in states that used to be satellites of the Soviet Union (e.g. Mongolia and Estonia). Yet the most important of all these changes was the intensification of the nationalist movements inside the U.S.S.R. Despite its name, the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics was never a community of countries that have accepted the unification gladly. It was more like the succession of the old Tsarist Empire: a conglomerate of countries annexed by conquest. Under the leadership of strict rulers like Stalin or his less brutal but the same firm successors, the peoples were forbidden to express their wishes of freedom and independence freely. However, the glasnost of Gorbaciov allowed the expressing of nationalist strivings and, in little time, organized movements were to appear. Riots have been produced in Estonia, Latonia, Moldavia and other Soviet republics; but the tone was given by the small Lithuania. On the 11th of March 1990, after the general elections that approached the secession issue, the Lithuanian Parliament had the dare to declare the independence of the country towards the U.S.S.R. Legally, the Lithuanians were right to adopt such a decision. The Soviet constitution sanctioned the right of every republic to detach itself from the U.S.S.R. However, before Gorbaciov, it was widely known that any attempt of exercising this right would be immediately repressed and would be finished with serious consequences for its initiators. Gorbaciovs reaction was extremely interesting. He denounced immediately the Lithuanian action as illegal, he threatened the Lithuanians with reprisals in case they didnt give up their decision, imposed an embargo and he asked the Soviet troops to parade through the capital, in a horrendous force demonstration. But he didnt use the army to smash the resistance of the secessionist province and he didnt shoot nor arrested the Lithuanian leaders either (as Stalin would have done). Lithuania is a small country and also unimportant for the Soviet Union, both from the economical and the military point of view. Yet the example that Lithuania gave was

extremely important. Seeing that Lithuanias trial was not repressed with blood spare, the nationalists in all Soviet republics got their courage up. In two months, the Parliament of Lithonia also emitted a declaration of independence. After this, on the 12th of June 1990, the Russian Republic (the biggest in the Soviet Union) proclaimed its sovereignty which was not a declaration of independence, but something close to it. Until the end of the year, each of the fifteen republics has proclaimed itself independent or sovereign. Obviously, these enormous changes determined by Gorbaciovs actions (or by his lack of reaction in decisive moments) were not seen beneficial ones for most of the conservatory leaders of the Communist Party not were they for the Soviet army. In August 1991, some of them organized a coup d'tat. Gorbaciov was arrested and it seemed that the initiators of the plot would manage to abolish many of Gorbaciovs reforms. However, other important leaders of the Soviet Union Boris Eln in the first place have opposed to the coup dtat, together with the great mass of the Russian population, and so the attempt miscarried in a few days. After the miscarriage of this attempt, the events have evolved with an amazing velocity. The Communist Party was dismissed from the leadership, was prohibited do undertake any activity and its goods were confiscated. By the end of the year, all republics detached themselves form the U.S.S.R. and the Soviet Union ceased to exist formally. The leaders who wanted only to reform the Communist Party were eliminated immediately by men like Eln that wanted to eliminate this party for ever from the political scene. Gorbaciov himself quitted in December 1991. And here comes the obvious question: to what extent did Gorbaciov contribute to the changes that have happened during his governing? To my opinion, he does not have such a great merit therein. Generally, the reforms were imposed to him by the failure of the Soviet system and they have proved insufficient and too late. In fact, the weak results of the Soviet economy have constituted the main cause of the averting of Gorbaciov. On ht other hand, Gorbaciov was the one who contributed to the freeing of the Eastern Europe. Six countries have detached themselves form the Soviet influence and this change is irreversible. Furthermore, it cannot be denied the personal influence of Gorbaciov in the unreeling of these events. The reformatory actions in the Eastern Europe were stimulated by the liberalization in Russia and by his asserting. He has repeatedly stated his intention of letting the East-European countries to follow their own road. Moreover, in crucial moments like the one in October 1989, when mass demonstrations burst out in Eastern Germany Gorbaciov has intervened personally. In similar situations, the other Soviet leaders had repressed the rebels by using the armed force. In exchange, in October 1989, Gorbaciov drew Honekers attention not to resort to force. We have seen the consequences of his decisions. Nevertheless, Gorbaciovs refusal to use the army in order to smash the Lithuanian insurgence has rushed the detachment of the other Soviet republics in the U.S.S.R. Gorbaciovs contribution to the limitation of the arming and the ending of he Cold War was equally important. Many people suggested that Ronald Reagans merit should not be neglected either. Firstly, by demonstrating that the United States could bare the costs of a race of arming more easily than the Soviet Union, Gorbaciov managed to persuade the Soviet leaders of the necessity of the ending of the Cold War. Another argument is that it took two parts to reach an agreement, so the merit for the limitation of the arming was shared between Gorbaciov and Reagan.

This standpoint would be correct if the Cold War had been generated by the United States and not by the Soviet Union. But this is not true at all. The Cold War started because of Stalins military expansionism and the one of his successors, and the Americans did nothing else but to defend themselves. As long as the communist leaders did not give up their dream of imposing the communism throughout the world, the West did not have a choice. That is why, when a Soviet leader willing to quit this desiderate appeared, the unending Cold War was immediately ended. Gorbaciov also has a greater merit for the political changes that were generated inside the Soviet Union. The weakening of the power of the communist Party, the expansion of the glasnost, the freedom of the press and of speaking, the general democratization of the country, all these measures were unimaginable before Gorbaciov. The glasnost was not imposed by the pressure of the masses nor was it by the insistences of the political Office. It was Gorbaciovs idea, the one he promoted and continued to sustain, despite a bitter opposition of conservatory leaders. Perhaps the glasnost, more than anything, made possible the peremptory eliminating of the Soviet system. And the fact that this revolutionary change has been made without violence in general (at least until now), is very much due to Gorbaciovs politics and attitude. It was objected that Gorbaciov did not have in sight some of the most important of his actions (like the reunification of Germany, the dissipation of the Soviet Union and the eliminating of communism). Perhaps this is how it was, but this fact does not reduce his importance. The influence of political leader in fact the one of any person is determined by the effect of his deeds, and not by his intentions. Of course, many other persons (most of the enthusiastic anticommunists) have contributed to the compromising of the Marxism: ex-communists like Arthur Koestler and Whittaker Chambers, who have drawn the attention of the West to the real face of the communist system; Soviet dissidents, like Andrei Zaharov and Alexandr Soljenin, who have risked their lives by denouncing the totalitarian regime in their country; guerilla fighters, like the rebels in Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua that have resorted to the army, financial resources and the example of American freedom and prosperity to oppose the expansion of communism. Still, despite the efforts of so many people, when Gorbaciov took over the power in 1985, no one anticipated that the collapsing of the communist empire was so close. Truly, if in 1985 a president like Lenin or Stalin had been chosen to rule the Soviet state, the repressive government would have persisted today as well, and the Cold War would have continued. Yet Mihail Gorbaciov came to the leadership of the Soviet Union, not Stalin. And despite the fact that he did not pursue the road of limbing of the Soviet Union, nor the abolishing of the Communist Party that had been governing the country since its beginning, the politics he adopted and the forces that he mobilized generated all these changes. Taking everything into account, the obvious conclusion to be drawn is that regardless of his intentions, Gorbaciov changed our world irrevocably.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

A ranking of the most influential persons in history, Michael H. Hart, Ed. Lider, Bucharest, 2000 English-Romanian Dictionary, Georgeta Nichifor, Ed. Niculescu, Bucureti, 2004 Universal history, Ioan Ciuperca, Ed. Corint, Bucharest, 2002 English Law and Language, Frances Russel, Christine Ioke, MacMillan , London, 1997