How Did Lenin Improve The Economy

LENIN

Vladimir Lenin was the founder and first leader of the Soviet Union. He adopted a state that was in dire need of economic help and Lenin was in hopes of creating a better more social economy. Rebuilding the economy was a hardship for Lenin as effects of the revolution miscarried the economy into a downward spiral. During his time as leader he experienced reestablishing the economic policy twice both of which were due to the fact the union was recovering from war.

In 1921, the Soviet Union was suffering from the effects of the War Communism, which was meant to be placed during the Civil War, however it was implemented prior to the war, during and after up until 1921. In 1917 Lenin was looking for an improposition to be placed on the economy that would be appropriate to its current state of suffering from

social challenges (Glaza). War Communism changed everything it could, it took away private property from capitalists. “Lenin made the mistake of taking what was the current government and its people and diving right into full-blown Communism” (Glaza). This jump caused unemployment to skyrocket, and that added to the worsening effects of the economy. Later on the effects of War Communism left the economy in an unfortunate state and Lenin at the time was concerned. He wanted to improve this poor economy that he had adopted so he came up with the New Economic Policy, new in regard to replacing the old one. This policy was made to bring socialism in the state, however at the time the economy was so weak it was unable to achieve that. In order for the social economy to be successful capitalism was placed in the economy until it became strong enough to be social. It was the foundation of a socialist economy. Bringing capital into the state may have gone to far with free-market concepts and had caused some socialists to believe that the new policy led the Soviet Union into a permanent capitalistic economy.

Lenin played part in the destruction of the Soviet Union through his ill formed responses to the poor economy, although his intentions were hopeful the results led to further communistic ideals. The next leader, Stalin, enhanced the communistic ways and in the future of the Soviet Union in 1985 made it almost impossible for Gorbachev to implement any socialists type ways upon the people.

ECONOMY

Spending cuts also led to the economic downturn of the union. With the inflation caused from the perestroika reform in addition to the previous stagnate economy created by Stalin the government was forced into spending cuts. When the Soviet Union could no longer afford the competition, its leaders decided to end the Cold War. “A modified version of this argument holds that the American military buildup simply worsened the Soviet economic quandary; it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Neither the strong nor the weak version of the proposition that American defense spending bankrupted the Soviet economy and forced an end to the Cold War is sustained by the evidence” (Lebow). Some economist blame it on America for ruining the Soviet economy, since the Soviet Union had lost they had to dismantle their previously very large military-industrial sector. This led to a massive jump in unemployment, left with millions jobless. With so much unemployment the reforms were placed in hopes to improve the conditions of the Soviets, considering the recession was greater than the Great Depression. However the recover of the economy was close to impossible and the reforms that Gorbachev placed did not help, in fact it only sped up the process of deterioration of the Soviet Union because of the uproar caused by the reforms to the people.

RONALD REAGAN

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States and victor of the Cold War. While Reagan was president Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and started making changes to the fragile economic system of the Soviet Union. Reagan knew Gorbachev was different and he was impressed with such revolutionary developmental ideas for the Soviet Union. Gorbachev “was determined to take the Soviet Union in a radically different direction—away from the Big Lie (through his policy of glasnost), away from a command economy (through perestroika) and away from zero-sum competition with the West” (Talbott). Reagan knew that if he helped Gorbachev benefits would come along to the United States as well. Evidently there were benefits, the U.S. had won the Cold War in 1991.

The arms race was primarily between the U.S and the Soviet Union as its prominent competitors, and it was race to have the superior military system along with greater armies, weapons and more advanced technology. The Soviet economy was no match for the United States in the rampant arms race. In both countries the goal of the arms race was to win and when Reagan took an aggressive defense against the union to exceed their military regime by his famous words of calling the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’ people began blaming the Soviets economic problems on Reagan because he supposedly ‘pressured the union into spending too much money’ However to disagree the union wanted to win that race just as badly as the americans and the state that happened to end on top just happened to have the better economy. When the Soviet Union lost the arms race it ultimately led to the economic system reaching its breaking point and most desperate need for reform, and that is when Gorbachev stepped in with Perestroika and Glasnost.

Some could blame Reagan for the fall of the Soviet Union saying he “obligated the Soviet Union to increase its military spending to the limits of insupportability" (Lebow). Others could say he formidably ‘broke the wall of Berlin’ by declaring to Gorbachev ‘tear down this wall!’ and it subsequently fell down months later and following that the fall of the Soviet Union, therefore all being the fault of Reagan. However, to argue that, Reagan was not the leader of the Soviet Union he did not force the Soviets into spending money that they could not afford to spend, it was called the arms race for a reason, it was competition. Both the USSR and the United States in “Forty years of arms competition, so the argument goes, brought the Soviet economy to the brink of collapse” (Lebow). The union’s economy staggered and fell under pressure of the arms race. The Union simply could not compete at the level that the U.S. could with its poor economic conditions. Reagan’s participation in the fall was slim, with this in mind it is almost impossible to believe that Reagan’s participation in the arms race had any effect on the outcome of the Soviet Union. In fact, with reasons like this it is hard to blame Reagan for any part in the downfall of the union. Even though Reagan did not participate greatly in the fall of the Soviet Union still does not mean that the fall was all Gorbachev’s fault. Reagan was only a small factor against many competitors like Stalin and Lenin along with previous economic issues.

CONCLUSION
Gorbachev and his reforms that were placed during his time of period both helped and dissolved the Soviet Union as a whole.

Perestroika allotted freedom of speech in order to form a more perfect union with the opinion of the people, however this backfired with people criticizing Gorbachev instead. Glasnost had the same problem it opened the government up to the public and the people had criticised the nation even more. With so much revolt against the reforms it was wonders why the people were not participating correctly and that conclusion can be drawn from the previous leaders and reforms that were placed on the Soviet Union. Stalin created a union with communistic ideals and strict rules, so when the rules are lifted and freedom is provided the people got out of hand. Lenin created economic problems and provoked Stalin into adopting the communists ideals. The Soviet Union was set for failure after losing the Cold War against the United State. Not only did it relieve the world of bipolar rulers to unipolar rulers, the U.S., but it also create an inescapable wormhole for a stagnant economy by having an unruly amount of unemployment and lost

hope.