IB History Growth of Opposition Notes

Opposition to Gorbachev Grew From Three Directions at Once

Why opposition expanded after 1985

1. Gorbachev reduced censorship, competitive barriers, and fear faster than he created stable rules for political conflict. Grievances that had remained private could now become organizations.
2. Economic decline gave opposition a daily audience. Shortages, inflation, strikes, and falling confidence made official promises less persuasive.
3. Competitive elections created politicians with mandates independent of party appointment. These leaders could challenge the union center through legislatures rather than only protest.
4. The republics gained elected institutions able to claim sovereignty. National movements moved from cultural campaigns into contests over law, taxes, land, and security.
5. The Communist Party divided between conservatives, reform Communists, and members who left for new democratic organizations. Discipline weakened as policy direction changed.
6. Gorbachev tried to balance groups rather than commit fully to one coalition. Each compromise convinced conservatives that reform had gone too far and radicals that it moved too slowly.
7. Opposition did not come from one social class or ideology. Officials defending the union, workers demanding supply, nationalists seeking independence, and democrats seeking elections could all oppose the same leader.
8. The result was fragmentation rather than a simple government versus opposition divide. Several centers claimed legitimate authority at the same time.

Conservative resistance inside the system

1. Senior party, military, security, and ministerial officials feared loss of office, property control, union unity, and strategic power. Reform threatened both ideology and institutional interest.
2. Yegor Ligachev became associated with caution inside the Politburo. He supported reform in principle but opposed rapid political and market change.
3. Conservative deputies organized through groups such as Soyuz in the union legislature. They demanded stronger action against separatism and defense of Soviet institutions.
4. The armed forces faced withdrawal from Eastern Europe, budget pressure, criticism of Afghanistan, and declining prestige. Officers worried that political leaders were abandoning strategic gains.
5. The KGB adapted to glasnost but retained concern about national movements and foreign influence. Its leadership later played a direct role in the August 1991 coup.
6. Party officials lost appointment power as elections and republican governments grew stronger. Repeal of Article 6 in March 1990 removed their constitutional monopoly.
7. Conservatives could block policy through bureaucracy even before open confrontation. Delayed orders, selective information, and administrative resistance weakened implementation.
8. Their opposition gained urgency when Gorbachev negotiated a new Union Treaty. They feared the planned transfer of power to republics would dissolve the state in practice.

Yeltsin and radical democratic opposition

1. Boris Yeltsin built support by attacking elite privilege and Gorbachev's compromises. His dismissal from the Moscow party leadership strengthened his image as an outsider.
2. He won a Moscow seat in the 1989 union elections with overwhelming support. Televised debate gave him a national audience.
3. The Interregional Deputies Group brought together democratic reformers, national activists, and advocates of deeper constitutional change. It challenged the organized power of Communist deputies.
4. Yeltsin shifted his main arena to the Russian republic. In May 1990 he became chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet.
5. Russia declared state sovereignty on 12 June 1990. The declaration asserted the priority of Russian laws over union law.
6. This war of laws weakened taxation, regulation, police authority, enterprise control, and resource allocation. Other republics followed with their own sovereignty declarations.
7. Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party in July 1990. He could now claim a clearer break with the old system than Gorbachev.
8. In June 1991 Russian voters elected Yeltsin president. Direct election gave him stronger democratic legitimacy than Gorbachev's indirect union presidency.

Workers and the miners' movement

1. Coal miners held a strategic position because energy shortages could disrupt industry and transport. Their official image as leading workers also gave protest symbolic power.
2. Strikes began in the Kuzbass in July 1989 and spread to Donbass, Vorkuta, Karaganda, and other coalfields. Local grievances quickly became coordinated demands.
3. Miners complained about wages, dangerous conditions, poor housing, lack of soap and food, and unresponsive management. Shortage made basic workplace issues politically explosive.
4. Strike committees organized meetings, negotiations, supply, and communication. They formed independent institutions outside party controlled trade unions.
5. The government accepted many immediate economic demands because it feared production loss. Compliance showed that collective action could force concessions.
6. By 1990 and 1991 parts of the movement demanded government resignation, market reform, and transfer of mines to republican control. Yeltsin gained support among some committees.
7. Strikes exposed the weakness of the planned social contract. Full employment and official worker rule meant little when workers lacked goods, voice, and safe conditions.
8. The miners did not form one permanent national opposition party. Their action still demonstrated that organized labor could operate independently and undermine union authority.

Baltic movements and the path to independence

1. Popular fronts in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania first supported perestroika while defending language, environment, and historical truth. Mass participation soon pushed them toward independence.
2. Republican legislatures declared sovereignty and challenged the legality of Soviet annexation. The secret protocols of the 1939 pact supplied a central historical argument.
3. The Baltic Way in August 1989 demonstrated disciplined mobilization across three republics. Its scale showed that nationalism extended beyond small dissident groups.
4. Lithuania declared restored independence in March 1990 under Vytautas Landsbergis. Moscow demanded reversal and imposed an economic blockade.
5. Negotiation failed to settle the constitutional conflict. Gorbachev rejected immediate secession but resisted sustained force that would destroy his reform image.
6. Soviet troops killed civilians in Vilnius in January 1991 after seizing strategic buildings. The violence strengthened international sympathy and Baltic determination.
7. Latvia also faced deadly confrontation in Riga. Responsibility for orders remained disputed, which further showed the fragmentation of command.
8. After the August coup failed, the union government recognized Baltic independence. Events there provided a model and warning for other republican movements.

National conflict in the Caucasus

1. Nagorno-Karabakh had an Armenian majority inside Soviet Azerbaijan. Its autonomous status preserved a territorial dispute without resolving competing national claims.
2. In February 1988 the regional soviet requested transfer to Armenia. Mass demonstrations in Yerevan and Baku turned an institutional appeal into popular mobilization.
3. Violence against Armenians in Sumgait caused deaths and displacement. Fear and revenge hardened community boundaries.
4. Armenians and Azerbaijanis fled or were expelled from areas where they had lived as minorities. Refugee movement changed the social basis for compromise.
5. Moscow alternated negotiation, direct rule, police measures, and military deployment. No policy restored trust in neutral union authority.
6. Other Caucasian conflicts grew in Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and elsewhere. Each involved distinct histories and should not be reduced to one general nationalism.
7. Soviet forces killed demonstrators in Tbilisi in April 1989. The event accelerated Georgian opposition to Moscow.
8. National conflict exposed a central dilemma. Restraint allowed rival armed and political movements to grow, while force discredited reform and encouraged demands for separation.

Ukraine and the sovereignty cascade

1. Glasnost opened discussion of the Holodomor, repression, language policy, religious restriction, and Chernobyl. These issues connected national memory with current institutional failure.
2. Rukh formed as a popular movement in 1989 and promoted democratization, cultural rights, and increasing sovereignty. Its demands evolved with the political crisis.
3. Ukraine declared state sovereignty in July 1990. The declaration asserted authority over resources, law, military service, and foreign relations.
4. Industrial eastern regions and western nationalist areas had different political priorities. Independence gained wider appeal as the union economy and government weakened.
5. Belarus, Moldova, Central Asian republics, and others also made sovereignty claims. Motives ranged from national aspiration to elite protection and bargaining power.
6. The Russian declaration was decisive because it encouraged republics to claim rights against a union centered on Russia itself. It removed the assumption that Moscow represented one unified Russian interest.
7. Each declaration reduced central revenue and enforcement. The union could not implement economic reform while republics controlled more enterprises and taxes.
8. The sovereignty cascade transformed opposition into state building. Republican leaders created ministries, symbols, laws, and security claims before formal dissolution.

Gorbachev between rival coalitions

1. Gorbachev remained committed to a reformed union, socialist choice, political pluralism, and gradual economic transition. No major opposition camp accepted that full combination by 1991.
2. He shifted toward conservatives during parts of 1990 as disorder increased. Reform allies left his government and accused him of retreat.
3. He later renewed negotiation with republican leaders through the Novo-Ogaryovo process. The proposed Union Treaty would grant extensive sovereignty while retaining common structures.
4. Conservatives viewed the treaty as surrender. Independence movements viewed it as an attempt to preserve unwanted central authority.
5. Yeltsin used Russian institutions to take control of revenue, media, enterprises, and political loyalty. Cooperation with Gorbachev remained temporary and issue specific.
6. Gorbachev created the Soviet presidency to strengthen executive power, but indirect election limited his public mandate. He relied on institutions already losing authority.
7. He avoided systematic mass repression for moral and political reasons. Zubok emphasizes that restraint allowed rival centers to grow beyond union control.
8. Brown interprets pluralism as an achievement even when it weakened government. The historical judgement depends on whether democratic freedom or state preservation receives greater weight.

Effectiveness and historical significance

1. Conservative opposition slowed reform and eventually attempted the August coup. Its actions damaged the institutions it claimed to defend.
2. Democratic opposition gained elected office and dismantled the party monopoly. It offered political choice but often used republican sovereignty as the route to power.
3. National movements restored suppressed identities and achieved independence. Some also intensified disputes over minorities and borders.
4. Worker protest won concessions and discredited the claim that the party represented labor. Its organizational effect varied after the immediate strike waves.
5. Stephen Kotkin emphasizes the absence of mechanisms for loyal opposition. Once political competition gained state institutions, losing control meant losing command of territory and resources.
6. Existing tensions mattered before Gorbachev, including economic decline, national grievances, elite privilege, and social frustration. Reforms changed their ability to organize.
7. Gorbachev's policy was a cause through authorization rather than invention. Glasnost, elections, and reduced coercion converted latent grievances into rival authority.
8. The strongest judgement is that opposition grew because reform opened political space during institutional and economic crisis. The union lacked accepted rules for resolving the resulting conflict.