The+Initial+Problems+hojoon

Course: The Early signs of collapse
The gradual degradation of Soviet Union can be dated back to as early as the formation of the Soviet Union. Some even say it was fated to collapse. During the 7 decades that led up to the breakup of one of the largest nations in the world then, Soviet Union had undergone both little and massive changes in their social structure. Throughout the seven decades, however, one thing was clear: people were not fulfilling the dreams of a utopian society that had inspired the Russian Revolution and the formation of a union with Communist ideologies in the first place.

The internal struggles of the Soviet Union first came into light in the Ronald Reagan era. Oleg Gordievsky, a top British spy, reported the unstable Soviet economy. Back then, no one believed it. Who would have imagined that a country with enough missiles and military power to destroy any other country within 30 minutes would not even have enough bread to feed its people? But that was the reality: while being strong from the outside to assert their power, the Soviet Union was actually like any other developing country at that time. During the Cold War, USSR was credited for winning the race to send the moon, building thousands of missiles and of course, equipped with strong military and stable economy. But all these were possible only at the price of freedom and economic stability of the people and the nation. (Commanding Heights video 14:00-23:00)

**Social**
The totalitarian state was weak socially; it did not help to improve the conditions of the people. For example, in the Stalinist era, purges became a matter of frequency, and thousands of innocent lives were taken as a result. Not only were the actions of the corrupt government despicable, the conditions were horrible as well, sometimes to the point of it being intolerable. Because of the corrupt, power-maniac government, the elite few in the Soviet Union were extremely rich, especially government officials, while those of the bottom class were much poorer than they had been before the Russian Revolution.

The Soviet economy was certainly incompetent in handling their finances; the government spent more than 50% of the Soviet Union's GDP on strengthening their military power. During the Cold War period, vast amounts of missiles, tanks and other artillery were purchased. This made the Soviet Union look strong on the outside. But behind its borders, the Soviet Union was ruthlessly tackled by poverty.

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 everyone no matter the quality or quantity of work. This discouraged workers from working hard. Why would you want to work hard when your friend solving Sudoku problems during his working hours got the same amount of income? In short, they needed incentives. Plus, the lack of surveillance and monitoring made it even easier for workers to turn off during the working hours. In other words, work was hardly going on in the USSR. At the same time, inefficiency could also be related. With increasing number of workers but insufficient machinery to speed up their work, production level dropped. This became a great problem.=====

**The Space Race**
During the Cold War period, the Soviet Union and the United States were involved in the Space Race. The development of technology involved a lot of resources and Soviet Union was a victim of it. Having invested heavily on their attempt to send the first man (and they indeed succeeded) to the moon, the Soviet government found that most of the country's savings were gone and this affected the economy badly. The Soviet Union, in other words, had launched space orbiters and maintaining a massive army, but back in their supermarkets, they did not even have pantyhose for women! Can you imagine the outrageous situation the people found themselves in? When Gorbachev came into power, therefore, he came up with an ambitious plan to bring political and economic reform to USSR—**Perestroika**.

**Can you guess it~??**
How did these 2 cartoons reflect on the economic and social problems of the USSR?