ia_2010_harry_d

=D. Analysis (500-650 words) Tips]=

Gorbachev is historically significant because of the road he took Russia down. His policies and ideologies led to a transformation in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the West. He is controversial now because of his differing views to Putin; who is taking Russia backwards in terms of international relations.

Gorbachev's policy of perestroika was ultimately a failure in regard to Russia. It seems that the general consensus from both Freeze and Volkogonov is that Gorbachev valued principles over pragmatism and thus the policy floundered. Gorbachev wanted “democratic socialism" [2] which was his way of defining democratic modernisation while maintaining socialist principles. It’s easy to say that Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika was a failure as it ended with the party's collapse. It is also clear that Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika failed when one looks at the consequences of his rapid succession of reforms at party plenums and party congresses; it became difficult to defend Lenin and Leninism in public. The continual promises of the reform's results led to public unrest when they ultimately fell through. Public Resistance was mounting and Gorbachev tried to create a socialist society with a human face rather than show he coud fulfill his promises.
 * This is gibberish at the moment - random sentences strung together. The reference to Stalin is utterly irrelevant. Start with a clear explanation of G's signficance THEN, and why he remains controversial NOW - e.g. he continues to be vocal in his political pronouncements re. Putin and so on (find examples)**
 * PERESTROIKA**[1]


 * (more quotes / footnotes needed here). This is just description. You don't really assess SUCCESS then FAILURE here in any meaningful way.**

Glasnost was also fairly detrimental for Russia. Freeze points out that Glasnost gave people freedom of speech but also that the idea of Glasnost split the party apart. Glasnost was unsuccessful in that it had seriously destructive effects upon the party itself The party split into moderate reformers and radical reformers. On top of this Glasnost failed because of the vagueness of it. Gorbachev never clearly specified the limit of freedom that Glasnost offered and, after the oppressive nature that the people of Russia were used to, this resulted in a mix of opinion and lack of movements. In fact, Freeze states that Glasnost resulted in "uniting all those opposed to Moscow's rule"[4] and "aggressive movements"[5] against the General Secretary. However, it seems that after Chernobyl Glasnost was successful in the long term. After Chernobyl the ‘green’ party emerged and it drove the regime to become "much more open"[6]
 * GLASNOST**[3]


 * Slightly better, but once again very poorly substantiated. Your "however..." section contains no PROOF (in the form of quotes, statistics, footnotes, appendices) and as such is largely useless.**

A combination of these two policies led to the disintegration of the party. It seems that the emergence of informal groups and movements, a consequence of Glasnost, led to a disput with the 1977 Constitution. Article 6 guaranteed the party a leading role in society. However, the reformers believed that a nation wide organisation would be the most effective way to change. Gorbachev's failure to produce results led to a stirred debate within the party. Both radicals and conservatives were suspicious yet a month later he persuaded a quarter of the Central Committee to retire and then introduced twenty four new members. The cracks created by Glasnost led to an inter regional group that opposed Gorbachev. This group was led by Sakharov who had been freed and Yeltsin who had originally backed Gorbachev. These democratic reformist ideas simply could not work in the socialist state with a leader who wanted to return to the Leninist roots. The Twenty Eighth Party Congress epitomizes why Gorbachev’s policies failed. It was here that he announced a more reformist program that was backed by Lenin’s slogan “all power to the Soviets” [7].


 * Again this is just more description to a large extent - a narrative rounding off.**

[1] Definition - Literally: Reconstruction [2] Dmitri Volkogonov; edited and translated by Harold Shukmam (1998). //The rise and fall of the Soviet empire//. London: HarperCollins (ISBN: 0006388183). [3] Definition - Literally: Openess [4] edited by Gregory L. Freeze (1997). //Russia//. Oxford; Oxford University Press (ISBN: 0192158996). [5] ibid. [6] ibid. [7] ibid.