The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Fall of the Cuban Economy

1447 Words3 Pages

In the 1980’s, the Soviet Union was coming to realize what they needed to be successful, whether it is economically, socially, or politically. The Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was trying to reform the Soviet Union itself focusing more on the economic side of things, not the actual system itself. He introduced two different policies, Glasnost and Perestroika. These reforms helped the citizens of the Soviet Union, but caused other issues within the nation. When the nation could no longer benefit from those policies, it started to fall and ironically leaving many of the citizens to perish. This was a domino effect for all the other countries within the Soviet Union trading system, most importantly Cuba.

The plan of investigation for this essay is to determine the implication of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how it affected Cuba’s economy. The investigation will assess how the Soviet Union fell and the repercussions that followed for Cuba, and how Cuba internally changed. This investigation will answer my question; “To what extent did the fall of the Soviet Union affect Cuba’s Economy in 1991?”

The Soviet Union was benefitting from their resources and became one of the most prospering countries of that time. They were the largest country in the world with the largest landmasses and were called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, more popularly known as the USSR. They had a huge impact on other countries and played a significant role of the timeline of history, i.e., they had one of the biggest military thus making them the strongest. (Odom, William) When Mikhail S. Gorbachev was the leader of the socialist Soviet Union (Strayer, Robert), he created two policies trying to create reform within the...

... middle of paper ...

...in W., and Sarah H. Levinson. "Cuba since 1991." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

Loss, Jacqueline, and González José Manuel Prieto. "Introduction: Pg. 1-5." Caviar with Rum: Cuba-USSR and the Post-Soviet Experience. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. N. pag. Print.

Odom, William E. The Collapse of the Soviet Military. Connecticut: Yale University,1998. Print.

Roger Chapman. Review of Strayer, Robert, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding Historical Change. H-Russia, H-Net Reviews. July, 1999

Strayer, Robert W.. "Defining the Soviet Collapse." In Why did the Soviet Union collapse? understanding historical change. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. 4.

The Fall and Recovery of the Cuban Economy in the 1990s: Mirage Or Reality?, Issues 2001-2048 http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3286

Open Document