Q.What were the factors that forced Gorbachev to initiate the reforms in the USSR?
You're viewing a preview — the full solution, concept, methods & PYQ mapping are locked.
Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Gorbachev was forced to initiate reforms in the USSR because the Soviet economy was stagnating, the costly arms race with the US was unsustainable, and the political system had become rigid and corrupt, making change unavoidable.
The Soviet Union in the early 1980s was a superpower in name only. Beneath its military might, the system was creaking. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he inherited a country that was economically stagnant, politically brittle, and internationally overstretched. The reforms he launched — perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) — were not born from a sudden desire for democracy; they were a desperate attempt to save the Soviet system from collapse.
The most immediate pressure was economic. The Soviet economy had been in steady decline since the 1970s. The old model of central planning, which had worked for rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, had become a bureaucratic nightmare. Factories produced goods nobody wanted, while basic consumer items were perpetually in short supply. People stood in long queues for bread, soap, and shoes. Meanwhile, the vast sums spent on the military and the space programme starved the civilian economy of investment. By the mid-1980s, the growth rate had fallen to near zero. Gorbachev understood that without radical economic reform, the USSR would slide into irreversible decay.
A key symptom of this decay was the fall in global oil prices in the mid-1980s. The Soviet Union relied heavily on oil exports for hard currency. When prices crashed, the state could no longer afford to import grain and consumer goods, exposing the fragility of the entire system.
A second factor was the crushing burden of the arms race with the United States. Under President Ronald Reagan, the US had launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a costly new missile defence system. The Soviet leadership knew they could not match this technologically or financially. The USSR was already spending an estimated 20–25% of its GDP on the military — far more than the US. Continuing the arms race would bankrupt the state. Gorbachev realised that the only way to reduce military spending was to negotiate with the West, and that required a change in the USSR's image. He needed to appear reasonable, not threatening. This meant ending the war in Afghanistan, reducing troop levels in Eastern Europe, and allowing more political freedom at home.
Third, the political system itself had become a barrier to progress. The Communist Party was riddled with corruption, nepotism, and inertia. Elderly leaders like Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko had presided over a system where no one dared to innovate. The bureaucracy was so entrenched that even simple decisions took months. Gorbachev believed that to fix the economy, he had to break the power of the party apparatchiks. This is why glasnost was so important: it allowed criticism of officials and exposed the scale of the problems. Without political openness, economic restructuring would be blocked at every turn. …
Unlock everything free for 14 days
- Full step-by-step solutions
- Concept-first explanations
- Methods, shortcuts & mistakes
- PYQ mapping + timed mock tests
Full access for 14 days. No credit card required.