The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991 spans the period from the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's death until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, and complex systemic problems in the command economy, Soviet output stagnated. Failed attempts at reform, a standstill economy, and the success of the proxies of the United States against the Soviet Union's forces in the war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially in the Soviet-occupied Baltic countries and Eastern Europe.
A planned economy is a type of economic system where the distribution of goods and services or the investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economic plans that are either economy-wide or limited to a category of goods and services. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, participatory or Soviet-type forms of economic planning. The level of centralization or decentralization in decision-making and participation depends on the specific type of planning mechanism employed.
Glasnost is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissibility of hushing up problems. In Russian the word 'гласность' has long been used to mean "openness" and "transparency". In the mid-1980s, it was popularised by Mikhail Gorbachev as a political slogan for increased government transparency in the Soviet Union within the framework of perestroika, and the calque of the word entered into English in the latter meaning.
Perestroika was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political and economic systems of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The country was a successor state to the Russian Empire; it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR, but in practice both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was a flagship communist state.
Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether they involved participation in free labor unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The citizens' freedom of movement was limited both inside and outside the country.
Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov is a former Soviet, and later Russian, politician. He served as the last Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Responsible for the cultural and economic administration of the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era, Ryzhkov was succeeded as premier by Valentin Pavlov in 1991. The same year, he lost his seat on the Presidential Council, going on to become Boris Yeltsin's leading opponent in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) 1991 presidential election. He is also the last surviving Premier of the Soviet Union, following the death of Ivan Silayev on 8 February 2023.
The "Era of Stagnation" is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Union that began during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982) and continued under Yuri Andropov (1982–1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–1985). It is sometimes called the "Brezhnevian Stagnation" in English.
Sociolismo ("partner-ism"), also known as amiguismo ("friend-ism"), is the informal term used in Cuba to describe the reciprocal exchange of favors by individuals, usually relating to circumventing bureaucratic restrictions or obtaining hard-to-find goods.
Aron Iosifovich Katsenelinboigen was a founder of predispositioning theory, a subject in decision theory and systems theory that models development in the context of uncertainty.
In Russian, blat is a form of corruption comprising a system of informal agreements, exchanges of services, connections, Party contacts, or black market deals to achieve results or get ahead.
Indicative planning is a form of economic planning implemented by a state in an effort to solve the problem of imperfect information in market economies by coordination of private and public investment through forecasts and output targets. The resulting plans aim to supply economically valuable information as a public good that the market by itself cannot disseminate, or where forward markets are nonexistent. However, indicative planning takes only endogenous market uncertainty into account, plans the economy accordingly, and does not look into exogenous uncertainty like technology, foreign trade, etc. Indicative plans serve to complement and enhance the market, as opposed to replace the market mechanism, hence they are adopted in market-based and mixed economies and were most widely practiced in France and Japan before the 1980s. When utilizing indicative planning, the state employs "influence, subsidies, grants, and taxes [to affect the economy], but does not compel". Indicative planning is contrasted with directive or mandatory planning, where a state sets quotas and mandatory output requirements. Planning by inducement is often referred to as indicative planning.
The drug policy of the Soviet Union changed little throughout the existence of the state, other than slowly becoming more repressive, although some differences in penalties existed in the different Union Republics. However, the prevalence of drug addiction remained reportedly low as first claimed by Soviet authorities which later acknowledged a much larger problem; at least to drugs other than alcohol or tobacco; however, the rates of addiction increased in post-Soviet states.
The Ninth Five-Year Plan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a set of economic goals designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1971 and 1975. There was a marked slowdown in nearly all sectors of the Soviet economy by the time it ended. The plan was presented by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin at the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1971.
The full understanding of the history of the late Soviet Union and of its successor, the Russian Federation, requires the assessment of the legacy of Leonid Brezhnev, the third General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Leonid Brezhnev was the leader of the CPSU from 1964 until his death in 1982, whose eighteen-year tenure was recognized as the time of social and economic stagnation in the late Soviet Union.
The history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (USSR) reflects a period of change for both Russia and the world. Though the terms "Soviet Russia" and "Soviet Union" often are synonymous in everyday speech, when referring to the foundations of the Soviet Union, "Soviet Russia" often specifically refers to brief period between the October Revolution of 1917 and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was characterized by state control of investment, prices, a dependence on natural resources, lack of consumer goods, little foreign trade, public ownership of industrial assets, macroeconomic stability, low unemployment and high job security.
Alena Valeryevna Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London (UCL). She is known for her studies of blat, corruption and informal practices in Russia.
Soviet-type economic planning (STP) is the specific model of centralized planning employed by Marxist–Leninist socialist states modeled on the economy of the Soviet Union (USSR).
Gregory Grossman was late professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, an authority on the economy of the Soviet Union. He is credited with the introduction of the terms "second economy" and "command economy".
