3-GORBACHEV+Bickham,+Jordan

=Impact of Gorbachev's Policies on COMECON and International Trade =

What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?
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 * =====COMECON or Council for Mutual Economic Assistance as well as the Organization for International Economic =====
 * ===== Cooperation was a group established shortly after the conclusion of WWII in January of 1949. It was created in response to Western Europe’s Committee of European Eco =====
 * =====nomic Cooperation from 1948. The goal of the organization was to facilitate and coordinate economic development of the eastern European nations tha =====
 * =====t were within the Soviet bloc or realm of influence. WWII had a major negative impact on the economy of the nations involved, and, in response, the U =====
 * =====SSR created COMECON. The original members of the organization included the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. There were also many countries who joined later on such as Albania who joined in 1949 (they left in 1961), the German Democratic Party who join =====
 * =====ed in 1950, the Mongolian People’s Republic who joined in 1962, Yugoslavia who joined in 1964, Cuba who joined in 1972 and Vietnam who joined in 1978. =====
 * =====In the beginning of the organization, the goal of the group’s activities was for credit agreements among member countries and economic development as a unit but in 1953, the goal of the organization started promoting industrial specialization. This meant that each country involved in the organization specialized in a certain industry in order to reduce redundant production. But, even in the late 1950’s when COMECON took more intense efforts towards industrialization, it was still met with limited success. =====
 * =====One major success that was met through COMECON was the creation of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation in 1963 =====
 * =====; which was utilized to finance investment projects that were created amongst members of COMECON. Some other successes included the creation of the railroad grid, the electric power grid and the “Friendship” oil pipeline. =====
 * Even so, there was also many problems with the organization such as the incompatibility of the price systems that were used in the number of countries involved in the group. They had different price standards and economic systems which greatly hurt their ability to work as a unit. In addition, COMECON was something that was very much optional to participate in causing many member nations to not get involved in many of the agreements or goals. Lastly, by having each nation industrial specialized, they were weakened in many areas, causing the members to all be dependent on each other for various products.

**How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it? **
The policies that Gorbachev implemented during his reign as Premier beginning in 1985 included:
 * Glasnost (Openness):
 * This policy was a way for Gorbachev to alter Soviet society on a major social level by creating openness where people could freely express their opinions. With this new policy, citizens were no longer frightened of being turned in for saying something that could be considered criticism of the government. Now, they no longer had to fear arrest or exile when they voiced negative opinions about the leaders. It was a way for the Soviet people to become a more unified nation. This policy got rid of censorship in the media, a leader’s dictator-like image, and tension between Soviet citizens. In an interview in 1989, he was quoted as saying, “I detest lies,” showing his reasoning for this policy.
 * Through this policy, history was questioned and reexamined for what it truly was. Previously beloved leaders were seen for who they actually were such as Stalin, Brezhnev, and Cherenko. Before this policy, they had been seen as great leaders, but were now seen as brutal, oppressive murderers. Many textbooks were edited in order to teach the truth and media was given more freedom than ever before.
 * Perestroika (Restructuring)
 * Perestroika was another policy implemented by Gorbachev in the mid-1980s with the goal of restructuring the Soviet Union’s economic and political policy. The overarching aim of the policy was to bring the Soviet Union up to speed economically with the capitalist countries of Germany, Japan and the United States. This was not to end the command economy of the Soviet Union, but to make socialism more efficient. To do this, Gorbachev decentralized economic controls and encouraged enterprises to become self-financing in order to increase their economic stability.
 * The Soviet Union’s economic bureaucracy who feared that this program would lead to the loss of their power and privilege originally obstructed much of this program. In response to this, Gorbachev proposed reducing the Communist Party’s involvement in the governance of the country. Instead, they would increase the local governments’ authority.
 * The implementation of perestroika is largely cited as a major catalyst to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
 * Through this, he also created more freedom for the Soviet citizens by allowing the publication of previously banned books such as Animal Farm as well as ceasing religious persecution. While, like glasnost, it failed greatly, it also changed the international community’s perception of Russia in a positive way.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Uskoreniye (Economic acceleration)
 * This was one of the three policies (glasnost and democratization were the others) that were announced by Gorbachev in a speech in 1985 in which he admitted to the slowing down of economic development and the inadequacy of living standards in the Soviet Union (this was the first time a Soviet Union leader had publicly acknowledged this). This word comes from the English word “to uproot” which is what Gorbachev planned on doing with the stagnated Soviet economy. He had hoped to accelerate the growth of the economy through government investment into heavy industry, but because of the pre-existing problems in Soviet industrialization, this policy was later replaced with perestroika in 1987.
 * The policy was also to be completed through technical and scientific progress, revamping heavy industry, increasing labor discipline, and taking the “human factor” into account. This was done through heavy investment, which ended up destabilizing the economy even more, and bringing an enormous disparity between cash money and virtual money that was utilized in different exchanges.
 * The politics of “mere acceleration” was finally acknowledged as a failure in 1987 where it was tossed for the more ambitious perestroika policy.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Democratizatsiya (Democratization)
 * Gorbachev implemented this in January of 1987 as he wanted to infuse democratic elements into the Soviet Union’s government. The Soviet Union’s government only contained one party and through this policy, they introduced multi-candidate elections for the local Communist Party (CPSU) and Soviets. Through this, he hoped for the election of progressive candidates that would assist in carrying out his innovative policies. The implementation of the policy created an international image of him being “the reformer” of the Soviet Union.
 * In 1988, at the CPSU’s Nineteenth Party Conference, Gorbachev and his supporters launched radical reforms in order to reduce the party’s control of the government. He called for multicandidate elections for regional and local legislatures. He also insisted on the separation of the government apparatus from party bodies.
 * In 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approved the creation of the Congress of People’s Deputies which helped to establish as the new legislative body and which led to the Supreme Soviet dissolving. March 1989 marked the first election in which voters of the Soviet Union chose the membership of a national legislative body. Even so, around 80% contained CPSU as Gorbachev had reserved 1/3 of the seats for them (still had to keep them prominent due to their power) while true reformers only gained around 300 seats out of around 2,250.
 * While this policy still allowed for the majority of the controlling party to be made up of CPSU, this policy allowed for the idea of something different and gave the people a chance to show what they thought.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects? **

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gorbachev’s previously described policies: democratizatsiya, uskoreniye, perestroika and glasnost, had a major impact on the situation of COMECON. Before these policies were put into place COMECON had been moving in a downhill direction. While there were numerous countries in the Eastern bloc involved, many were not engaged in the organization. And, with the goal of policies such as democratizatsiya, perestroika and glasnost, it was important for trade to occur. One of Gorbachev’s orders pertaining to COMECON was to increase trade amongst the member countries in order to create unification within the organization. He recognized the importance in rebuilding trade within COMECON in order to ensure stability within the region. As he stated later in a speech about trade within the Eastern bloc, “our priority is the political stability of the socialist countries.” This was all greatly done through the major economic policy of perestroika (formerly uskoreniye), which focused on economic advancement.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The policy of perestroika focused on restructuring the economic standing of the Soviet Union and was a more progressive, intense version of the former uskoreniye policy (which ended up failing). The goal was to bring the Soviet Union up to speed with major capitalist countries such as the United States. A major component of doing this was improving international trade relations, which also meant an increase in trade between the COMECON members. Through this the organization became more economically stable and unified which led to more countries joining the group in the years after the implementation of this policy. As Gorbachev states in a speech regarding COMECON, “it has become excessively hard for us to conduct business as we have been doing for the last decades” which is why he decided to increase trade as “we [Soviet Union] need the goods from socialist countries and we bear our responsibility for [the future of] socialism.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**What was the significance of Gorbachev's reforms as it pertained to that group/institution?**

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As stated previously, through the implementation of Gorbachev’s policies, specifically perestroika, international trade was increased greatly. The membership of COMECON had increased over the years before and now they were able to function as a unit. This increased economic stability among the member nations and assisted in advancing the economy of the nations involved, especially the Soviet Union who benefited the most from the relationship and the increased foreign trade. Even so, the policy of perestroika had major negative impacts on the economy of the Soviet Union and some of the Eastern bloc as well (as stated above).
 * Gorbachev also created the slogan "New Thinking" for his ideas for foreign relations and trade. Rather than following the tradition of Marxist-Lenin philosophies of the irreconcilable conflict between communist and capitalist countries, he decided to take a more groundbreaking approach. Gorbachev recognized the importance of trade relations between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world and introduced that through these policies. Rather than everything being strictly among COMECON members, trade was now amongst the entire world, helping the Soviet image to other countries as well as boosting the economy through international trade. This was done through policies such as glasnost which focused on openness as well as perestroika which focused on economic integration.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Works Cited **
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dyker, David A. "The Soviet Union Under Gorbachev: Prospects for Reform." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://books.google.com/books?id=LX3dAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT117&dq=gorbachev+and+comecon&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dvsUU-CjBcmdrQGWqoDoAw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=gorbachev%20and%20comecon&f=false>.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mikhail Gorbachev, "Gorbachev Discusses the Impact of Western Goods in the Eastern Bloc." Making the History of 1989, # 152.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Comecon (international Organization)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/399860/Comecon>.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Valenta, Jifi, and Frank Cibulka. "Gorbachev's New Thinking and Third World Conflicts." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://books.google.com/books?id=iyxnKbQnBYkC&pg=PA65&dq=gorbachev%27s+policies&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xvsUU96sAsnYqgHv94CwBQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=gorbachev's%20policies&f=false>.