The Soviet Union Toward The Underlying Causes Of The Decline And Disintegration Of The New Exploration

The unanticipated and drastic change that the Soviet Union underwent from a decline to disintegration is a significant subject that deserves careful study. This dissertation makes profound explorations of the subject by analyzing the external strategy and objectives of the Soviet Union and their impact on its internal development strategy. The author argues that after the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union orientated itself as a replacement for capitalism, and formulated its external strategy from this starting point. To achieve the strategic objectives, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union invariably concentrated on strengthening armament and heavy industry (actually, military industry), and maintained a highly centralized political system so as to keep national stability and ideological unity, which deviated from the socialist basic aim for the well-being of the people. Guided by the strategic objectives, the diplomacy of the Soviet Union involved dual features, which made it fail to establish a relationship of mutual benefit and trust with the outside world. The external tension in turn held back the domestic reform and development of the Soviet Union, and to a further extent reinforced its highly centralized political and economic system and its militarized economy as well. All this led to its decline and as a result the socialism system of the Soviet Union lost its appeal to the people. The reforms launched by Gorbachev accelerated the process of drastic change. The dissertation consists of four parts, which are divided into eleven chapters. Part I of the dissertation (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3) expounds how Lenin and Stalin defined the external strategic objectives for the first socialist country and designed its external strategies and policies for the sake of the objectives when the Soviet Union, as the sole socialist country, was encircled by the capitalist world. In addition, the author discusses the impact of the strategies and policies on its internal development strategies (mainly, its economic and military strategies). The author believes that around the October Revolution, Lenin抯 aim was to carry out a world revolution and establish a Soviet Republic across the world, and to resolve the difficult question of how the Soviet Union would build up socialism with a less 4 developed background. On entering the peaceful period, Lenin converted his theory of the world revolution to peaceful coexistence. Taking the prevailing economic ties in the world into account, he laid down the strategy that the Soviet Union should exert its influence on the world revolution through its achievements of New Economic Policy. In conformity with the line, the internal strategies were changed to develop civilian economy and improve the people抯 life. Accordingly, the Soviet Union adopted the economic policy that permitted diverse ownership to coexist and reduced its armed troops by a big margin. As a matter of fact, Lenin made a limited change in his external strategies, and didn抰 change his long-term strategic objectives fundamentally. During the reign of Stalin, he combined the strategic p.. objectives of the world revolution with the ensuring of the Soviet existence and development instead of developing Lenin抯 correct thoughts. Led by Stalin since the end of 1 920s, the Soviet Union government started forming a...