Predictions of Soviet collapse
Encyclopedia
There were people who predicted that the Soviet Union
would eventually be dissolved
before the process of dissolution began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Authors often credited with having predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union include Andrei Amalrik
in Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (1970), French
academic Emmanuel Todd
in La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: An essay on the decomposition of the Soviet sphere) (1976), economist Ravi Batra
in his 1978 book The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse
. Additionally, Walter Laqueur
notes that "Various articles that appeared in professional journals such as Problems of Communism
and Survey dealt with the decay and the possible downfall of the Soviet regime." In the United States
, chiefly among conservatives
, the politician most credited with predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Union is President
Ronald Reagan
.
Many of the predictions made before 1980 about the fall of the Soviet Union were considered by those who uttered them as a somewhat remote possibility rather than a probability. However, for some (such as Amalrik and Todd) the idea was much more than a passing thought. Whether any particular prediction was correct is still a matter of debate, since the reasons for the Soviet Union's actual collapse may be different from the reasons given by the various authors in their predictions.
academic specialists, and had little impact on mainstream Sovietology
. For example, Amalrik's book "was welcomed as a piece of brilliant literature in the West" but "virtually no one tended to take it at face value as a piece of political prediction." Up to about 1980 the strength of the Soviet Union was widely overrated by critics and revisionists alike.
In 1983, Princeton University
professor Stephen Cohen described the Soviet system
as remarkably stable.
In a symposium launched to review Michel Garder
's French book: L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique (The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia), which also predicted the collapse of the USSR, Yale
Professor Frederick C. Barghoorn dismissed Garder's book as "the latest in a long line of apocalyptic predictions of the collapse of communism." He warns that "great revolutions are most infrequent and that successful political system
s are tenacious and adaptive." In addition, the reviewer of the book, Michael Tatu, disapproved of the "apocalyptic character" of such a forecast and is almost apologetic for treating it seriously.
predicted the unsustainability and eventual collapse of the Soviet system in his 1921 book Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, published months before Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy
reintroducing partial property rights. His analysis was based on the economic calculation problem
, a critique of central planning first outlined in 1920 journal articles.
and reinstate working class rule
as the first step to socialism
. In 1936 he made the following prediction:
of Nazi Germany
decided to attack the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa
); he reportedly said to his generals, "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down." In June 1941 the German Wehrmacht
invaded Soviet controlled territories
, and the Red Army
retreated.
Military observers around the world watched closely. It appears that most of them shared Hitler's opinion, expecting Germany to win, destroy the Soviet system, and establish its New Order
in Europe. Very few American experts thought the Soviet Union would survive. British
analysts also shared this view. Negative predictions had an important impact on Franklin D. Roosevelt
; while the United States was not at the time at war, he favored the Allies (Britain and the Soviet Union), and decided to try to avert the collapse of the USSR by supplying them with munitions through Lend-Lease
, and also to pressure Japan
not to attack while the USSR was so vulnerable. The Red Army
held the line
at the outskirts of Moscow
and predictions changed to "uncertain."
, author of Animal Farm
and Nineteen Eighty-Four
, wrote in 1946 that "the Russian regime will either democratize itself or it will perish". He was regarded by US historian Robert Conquest
as one of the first people who made such a prediction. According to a Conquest article published in 1969, "In time, the Communist world is faced with a fundamental crisis. We can not say for certain that it will democratize itself. But every indication is that it will, as Orwell said, either democratize itself or perish...We must also, though, be prepared to cope with cataclysmic changes, for the death throes of the more backward apparatus may be destructive and dangerous".
George F. Kennan
proposed his famous containment
theory in 1946-47, arguing that, if the Soviet Union were not allowed to expand, it would soon collapse. In the X Article
he wrote:
The United States would have to undertake this containment alone and unilaterally
, but if it could do so without undermining its own economic health and political stability, the Soviet party
structure would undergo a period of immense strain eventually resulting in "either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power."
Kennan later regretted the manner in which his theory was received and implemented, but it nevertheless became a core element of American strategy, which consisted of building a series of military alliances around the USSR.
, National Security Advisor
to Jimmy Carter
, predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union on several occasions. In a 2006 interview, Brzezinski stated that in his 1950 master's
thesis
(which has not been published) he argued that "the Soviet Union was pretending to be a single state
but in fact it was a multinational
empire
in the age of nationalism
. So the Soviet Union would break up."
As an academic at Columbia University
, Brzezinski wrote numerous books and articles that "took seriously the option of collapse", including Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics (1969) and Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era (1970).
Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics contained fourteen articles dealing with the future of the Soviet Union. Six of them, by Brzezinski himself, Robert Conquest
, Merle Fainsod
, Eugene Lyons
, Giorgio Galli, and Isaac Don Levine
, considered "collapse as a serious possibility although not immediately."
On the other hand, in 1976 Brzezinski predicted that the politics of the Soviet Union
would be practically unchanged for several more generations to come:
In 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet power
throughout Eastern Europe
, Brzezinski published The Grand Failure: The Birth and Decay of Communism in the Twentieth Century. In that work he wrote:
Brzezinski went on to explain that communism "failed to take into account the basic human craving for individual
freedom." He argued there were five possibilities for USSR:
Option #5 in fact took place three years later, but at the time he wrote that collapse was "at this stage a much more remote possibility" than alternative #3: renewed stagnation. He also predicted chances of some form of communism existing in Soviet in 2017 was a little more than 50%. Finally when the end did come in a few more decades, Brzezinski wrote, it would be "most likely turbulent."
to the Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik
, foretold the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, and even they saw it as likely to happen as a result of disastrous wars with China
or pressures from the Islamic
Soviet states of Central Asia
."
On 23 November 1959, in a speech in Strasbourg
, de Gaulle announced his vision for Europe: Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde. ("Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic
to the Urals
, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world.") This phrase has been interpreted in various ways—on the one hand, as offering détente
to the USSR, on the other, as predicting the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe.
has been cited predicting the reunification of Germany
as early as the 1950s, but according to Hans-Peter Schwarz, in the last few years of Adenauer's life he repeatedly said that Soviet power would last a long time.
In 1966, at the Christian Democrats
' party conference
, Adenauer stated his hopes that some day the Soviets might allow the reunification of Germany. Some analysts say it might be considered a prediction:
Whittaker Chambers
predicted an eventual Soviet collapse beginning with a "satellite
revolution" in Eastern Europe. This revolution would then result in the transformation of the Soviet dictatorship
.
was a French author who predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the book L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique (The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia) (1965). He set the date of the collapse for 1970.
, predicted that "[t]he centrally planned economy eventually would meet its demise, because of its demonstrably growing ineffectiveness as a system for managing a modernizing economy in a rapidly changing world."
, Robert Conquest
in his section, "Immobilism and decay", saw "the USSR as a country where the political system is radically and dangerously inappropriate to its social and economic dynamics. This is a formula for change - change which may be sudden and catastrophic."
Conquest also predicted the fall in his book, The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (1970).
, founder of the Unification Church
repeatedly predicted that Communism was inherently flawed and would inevitably collapse sometime in the late 1980s. In a speech to followers in Paris in April 1972, he stated:
"Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the borderline and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it."
wrote in his book Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?:
Amalrik predicted the collapse of the regime would occur between 1980 and 1985. The year in the title was after the novel of the same name
.
Soviet authorities were skeptical. Natan Sharansky
explained that "in 1984 KGB
officials, on coming to me in prison" when Amalrik's prediction was mentioned "laughed at this prediction. Amalrik is long dead, they said, but we are still very much present."
"gave a lecture titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime' at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University
. The same lecture was delivered at Cambridge University in England
in 1971 and 1979. The text of the lecture (titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime: a Study in American Sovietology, by a Historian') was published in Studies in Soviet Thought. In 1980, he "updated this study and delivered it as a paper at the International Slavic Congress at Garmish
; titled 'The Future of Soviet Russia,' it was published in Coexistence: An International Journal (Glasgow 1982)."
attracted attention in 1976 when he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union
, based on indicators such as increasing infant mortality
rates: La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: an Essay on the Disintegration of the Soviet Sphere).
drew attention in 1992 to his prophetic article originally published in The Times
in September 1977, in which an uncannily accurate prediction of the appearance of new faces in the Politburo
was made, resulting in radical but peaceful political change.
Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
in a series of articles and interviews from 1975 onward discussed the possibility, indeed likelihood, of the breakup of the Soviet Empire. But Moynihan also expressed the view that liberal democracy
, too, faced an uncertain future. He argued in January 1975 that the Soviet Union was so weak economically, and so divided ethnically, that it could not long survive. However he said it "might have considerable time left before ethnicity breaks it up." By 1984 he argued "the Soviet idea is spent.
History is moving away from it at astounding speed." Some of his essays were published as Secrecy: The American Experience in 1999.
in the early 1970s were on similar lines, some quite specifically predicting the end of the Soviet Union.
, wrote that the Soviet "system is sinking deeper into crisis". In 1976 he entitled an article: "The USSR: the Beginning of the End?". In 1978 he predicted that the Soviet Union
would "break asunder and develop either to capitalism or to socialism". And in 1983 he wrote that "the system is drawing to a close". (For a summary of Ticktin's approach, see Wikipedia's Stalinism
entry.)
wrote of Raymond Aron
's prediction,
predicted the collapse of the USSR in his 1978 book The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
.
presented his paper "The future decline of the Russian empire" at the University of South Florida
and at Columbia University
and published his predictions in the book "Weberian sociological theory" (1986).
.
within the immediate future for about 1990, based on the analysis of economical statistics and trends.
United States President
Ronald Reagan
made conflicting predictions of Soviet power. Throughout his 1980 election campaign and first term in office his public view was that the Soviet Union had been growing in power relative to the United States. In 1981 he stated that "the Soviet Union has been engaged in the greatest military buildup in the history of man." and the next year stated that "on balance the Soviet Union does have a definite margin of superiority" compared to the U.S. military. The Reagan administration used the perceived strength of the Soviet Union to justify a significant expansion of military spending. David Arbel and Ran Edelist in their study Western Intelligence and the dissolution of the Soviet Union argue it was this position by the Reagan administration that prevented the American intelligence agencies from predicting the demise of the USSR. CIA analysts were encouraged to present any information exaggerating the Soviet threat and justifying the military build up, while contrary evidence of Soviet weakness was ignored and those presenting it sidelined.
At the same time Reagan expressed a long range view that the Soviet Union could eventually be defeated. On March 3, 1983, United States President
Ronald Reagan
told the National Association of Evangelicals
in Orlando
, Florida
: "I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last — last pages even now are being written."
In his June 1982 address to the British Parliament
he stated:
Analyst Jeffrey W. Knopf has explained why Reagan went beyond everyone else:
, an important KGB defector published the book New Lies For Old, wherein he predicted the collapse of the communist bloc orchestrated from above.
He warned this collapse was part of a long-term deception
strategy designed to lull the West into a false sense of security, abolish all containment policies, and in time finally economically cripple and diplomatically isolate the United States
.
Among other things, Golitsyn stated:
Collaborating opinions can be found in the archive of classified documents, collected by Vladimir Bukovsky
, a defector also.
Seymour Martin Lipset
and György Bence
write:
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
would eventually be dissolved
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
before the process of dissolution began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Authors often credited with having predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union include Andrei Amalrik
Andrei Amalrik
Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik , alternatively spelled Andrei or Andrey, was a Russian writer and dissident....
in Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (1970), French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
academic Emmanuel Todd
Emmanuel Todd
Emmanuel Todd is a French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist at the National Institute of Demographic Studies , in Paris...
in La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: An essay on the decomposition of the Soviet sphere) (1976), economist Ravi Batra
Ravi Batra
Raveendra Nath "Ravi" Batra is an Indian-American economist, author, and professor at Southern Methodist University. Batra is the author of six international bestsellers, two of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list...
in his 1978 book The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism is a major work by Ravi Batra in the field of historical evolution, published in 1978. The book's full title is The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism: A New Study of History...
and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse is the permanent secretary of the Académie Française and a historian specializing in Russian history....
. Additionally, Walter Laqueur
Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
notes that "Various articles that appeared in professional journals such as Problems of Communism
Problems of Communism (journal)
Problems of Post-Communism is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering economic, political, security, and international developments in post-communist countries. Until 1992 it was known as Problems of Communism and predicted the collapse of the USSR.. It was originally published by the...
and Survey dealt with the decay and the possible downfall of the Soviet regime." In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, chiefly among conservatives
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
, the politician most credited with predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Union is President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
Many of the predictions made before 1980 about the fall of the Soviet Union were considered by those who uttered them as a somewhat remote possibility rather than a probability. However, for some (such as Amalrik and Todd) the idea was much more than a passing thought. Whether any particular prediction was correct is still a matter of debate, since the reasons for the Soviet Union's actual collapse may be different from the reasons given by the various authors in their predictions.
U.S. analysts
Predictions of the Soviet Union's impending demise were discounted by many, if not most, WesternWestern world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
academic specialists, and had little impact on mainstream Sovietology
Kremlinology
Kremlinology is the study and analysis of Soviet politics and policies based on efforts to understand the inner workings of an opaque central government. The term is named after the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian/Soviet government. Kremlinologist refers to academic, media, and commentary experts...
. For example, Amalrik's book "was welcomed as a piece of brilliant literature in the West" but "virtually no one tended to take it at face value as a piece of political prediction." Up to about 1980 the strength of the Soviet Union was widely overrated by critics and revisionists alike.
In 1983, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
professor Stephen Cohen described the Soviet system
Politics of the Soviet Union
The political system of the Soviet Union was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , the only party permitted by Constitution.For information about the government, see Government of the Soviet Union-Background:...
as remarkably stable.
In a symposium launched to review Michel Garder
Michel Garder
Michel Garder was a French author and military man who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in the book L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique ...
's French book: L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique (The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia), which also predicted the collapse of the USSR, Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
Professor Frederick C. Barghoorn dismissed Garder's book as "the latest in a long line of apocalyptic predictions of the collapse of communism." He warns that "great revolutions are most infrequent and that successful political system
Political system
A political system is a system of politics and government. It is usually compared to the legal system, economic system, cultural system, and other social systems...
s are tenacious and adaptive." In addition, the reviewer of the book, Michael Tatu, disapproved of the "apocalyptic character" of such a forecast and is almost apologetic for treating it seriously.
Predictions of Soviet collapse
Other analysts, organizations and politicians who predicted the Soviet Union's collapse included:Ludwig von Mises
The Austrian economist Ludwig von MisesLudwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
predicted the unsustainability and eventual collapse of the Soviet system in his 1921 book Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, published months before Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
reintroducing partial property rights. His analysis was based on the economic calculation problem
Economic calculation problem
The economic calculation problem is a criticism of central economic planning. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in 1920 and later expounded by Friedrich Hayek. The problem referred to is that of how to distribute resources rationally in an economy...
, a critique of central planning first outlined in 1920 journal articles.
We may admit that in its initial period a socialist regime could to some extent rely upon of the preceding age of capitalism. But what is to be done later, as conditions change more and more? Of what use could the prices of 1900 be for the director in 1949? And what use can the director in 1989 derive from the knowledge of the prices of 1949?
Leon Trotsky
One of the founders of the USSR, later expelled by Stalin, Trotsky devoted much of his time in exile to the question of the Soviet Union's future. In time, he came to believe that a new revolution was necessary to depose the nomenklaturaNomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
and reinstate working class rule
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
as the first step to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. In 1936 he made the following prediction:
World War II
In 1941 Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
decided to attack the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
); he reportedly said to his generals, "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down." In June 1941 the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
invaded Soviet controlled territories
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, and the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
retreated.
Military observers around the world watched closely. It appears that most of them shared Hitler's opinion, expecting Germany to win, destroy the Soviet system, and establish its New Order
New Order (political system)
The New Order or the New Order of Europe was the political order which the Nazis wanted to impose on Europe, and eventually the rest of the world, during their reign over Germany from 1933 to 1945...
in Europe. Very few American experts thought the Soviet Union would survive. British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
analysts also shared this view. Negative predictions had an important impact on Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
; while the United States was not at the time at war, he favored the Allies (Britain and the Soviet Union), and decided to try to avert the collapse of the USSR by supplying them with munitions through Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease was the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of war in Europe in...
, and also to pressure Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
not to attack while the USSR was so vulnerable. The Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
held the line
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...
at the outskirts of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and predictions changed to "uncertain."
George Orwell
George OrwellGeorge Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, author of Animal Farm
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II...
and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
, wrote in 1946 that "the Russian regime will either democratize itself or it will perish". He was regarded by US historian Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
as one of the first people who made such a prediction. According to a Conquest article published in 1969, "In time, the Communist world is faced with a fundamental crisis. We can not say for certain that it will democratize itself. But every indication is that it will, as Orwell said, either democratize itself or perish...We must also, though, be prepared to cope with cataclysmic changes, for the death throes of the more backward apparatus may be destructive and dangerous".
George Kennan
American diplomatForeign relations of the United States
The United States has formal diplomatic relations with most nations. The United States federal statutes relating to foreign relations can be found in Title 22 of the United States Code.-Pacific:-Americas:-Caribbean:...
George F. Kennan
George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan was an American adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War...
proposed his famous containment
Containment
Containment was a United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to stall the spread of communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and prevent a "domino effect". A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet...
theory in 1946-47, arguing that, if the Soviet Union were not allowed to expand, it would soon collapse. In the X Article
X Article
The X Article, formally titled The Sources of Soviet Conduct, was published in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1947. The article was written by George F. Kennan, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to the USSR, from 1944 to 1946, under ambassador W. Averell Harriman.-Background:G. F....
he wrote:
The United States would have to undertake this containment alone and unilaterally
Unilateralism
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find agreeable...
, but if it could do so without undermining its own economic health and political stability, the Soviet party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
structure would undergo a period of immense strain eventually resulting in "either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power."
Kennan later regretted the manner in which his theory was received and implemented, but it nevertheless became a core element of American strategy, which consisted of building a series of military alliances around the USSR.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
to Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union on several occasions. In a 2006 interview, Brzezinski stated that in his 1950 master's
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
(which has not been published) he argued that "the Soviet Union was pretending to be a single state
Unitary state
A unitary state is a state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions exercise only powers that their central government chooses to delegate...
but in fact it was a multinational
Federation
A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...
empire
Soviet Empire
During the Cold War, the informal term "Soviet Empire" referred to the Soviet Union's influence over a number of smaller nations who were nominally independent but subject to direct military force if they tried to leave the Soviet system; see Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Prague Spring.Though...
in the age of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. So the Soviet Union would break up."
As an academic at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Brzezinski wrote numerous books and articles that "took seriously the option of collapse", including Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics (1969) and Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era (1970).
Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics contained fourteen articles dealing with the future of the Soviet Union. Six of them, by Brzezinski himself, Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
, Merle Fainsod
Merle Fainsod
Merle Fainsod was an American political scientist best known for his work on public administration and as a scholar of the Soviet Union...
, Eugene Lyons
Eugene Lyons
Eugene Lyons was an American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of the Communist Party in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union after having lived there for several years as a correspondent of United Press International...
, Giorgio Galli, and Isaac Don Levine
Isaac Don Levine
Isaac Don Levine was a Russian-born American journalist and writer.-Biography:Born in Mozyr, Russia, Levine came to the United States in 1911. He finished high school in Missouri, and found work with The Kansas City Star and later The New York Herald Tribune, for which he covered the revolution of...
, considered "collapse as a serious possibility although not immediately."
On the other hand, in 1976 Brzezinski predicted that the politics of the Soviet Union
Politics of the Soviet Union
The political system of the Soviet Union was characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , the only party permitted by Constitution.For information about the government, see Government of the Soviet Union-Background:...
would be practically unchanged for several more generations to come:
- "A central question, however, is whether such social changeSocial changeSocial change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
[ modernizationModernizationIn the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...] is capable of altering, or has in fact already altered in a significant fashion, the underlying character of Soviet politics. That character, as I have argued, has been shaped largely by political traditions derived from the specifics of RussianHistory of RussiaThe history of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The state of Garðaríki , which was centered in Novgorod and included the entire areas inhabited by Ilmen Slavs, Veps and Votes, was established by the Varangian chieftain Rurik in 862...
/ Soviet historyHistory of the Soviet UnionThe history of the Soviet Union has roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, emerged as the main political force in the capital of the former Russian Empire, though they had to fight a long and brutal civil war against the Mensheviks, or Whites...
, and it is deeply embedded in the operational style and institutions of the existing Soviet system. The ability of that system to resist de-Stalinization seems to indicate a considerable degree of resilience on the part of the dominant mode of politics in the Soviet context. It suggests, at the very least, that political changes are produced very slowly through social change, and that one must wait for at least several generations before social change begins to be significantly reflected in the political sphere."
In 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet power
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
throughout Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, Brzezinski published The Grand Failure: The Birth and Decay of Communism in the Twentieth Century. In that work he wrote:
- "Marxist-Leninism is an alien doctrine imposed on the region by an imperial power whose rule is culturally repugnant to the dominated peoples. As a result, a process of organic rejection of communism by Eastern European societies – a phenomenon similar to the human bodyHuman anatomyHuman anatomy is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the human body. Anatomy is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by the naked eye...
's rejectionTransplant rejectionTransplant rejection occurs when transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between donor and recipient and by use of immunosuppressant drugs after...
of a transplanted organOrgan transplantOrgan transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
– is underway."
Brzezinski went on to explain that communism "failed to take into account the basic human craving for individual
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
freedom." He argued there were five possibilities for USSR:
- Successful pluralization,
- Protracted crisis,
- Renewed stagnationBrezhnev stagnationThe Era of Stagnation, also known as Brezhnev stagnation or the Stagnation Period, refers to a period of economic stagnation under the rules of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko in the history of the Soviet Union which started in the mid-1970s.-Terminology:Various authors...
, - Coup (KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, Military), and - The explicit collapse of the Communist regimeCommunist stateA communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
.
Option #5 in fact took place three years later, but at the time he wrote that collapse was "at this stage a much more remote possibility" than alternative #3: renewed stagnation. He also predicted chances of some form of communism existing in Soviet in 2017 was a little more than 50%. Finally when the end did come in a few more decades, Brzezinski wrote, it would be "most likely turbulent."
Charles de Gaulle
Only a handful of thinkers, ranging from Charles de GaulleCharles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
to the Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik
Andrei Amalrik
Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik , alternatively spelled Andrei or Andrey, was a Russian writer and dissident....
, foretold the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, and even they saw it as likely to happen as a result of disastrous wars with China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
or pressures from the Islamic
Islam in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was a state comprising fifteen communist republics which existed from 1922 until its dissolution into a series of separate nation states in 1991. Of these fifteen republics, six had a Muslim majority, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan...
Soviet states of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
."
On 23 November 1959, in a speech in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, de Gaulle announced his vision for Europe: Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde. ("Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
to the Urals
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world.") This phrase has been interpreted in various ways—on the one hand, as offering détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
to the USSR, on the other, as predicting the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe.
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad AdenauerKonrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
has been cited predicting the reunification of Germany
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
as early as the 1950s, but according to Hans-Peter Schwarz, in the last few years of Adenauer's life he repeatedly said that Soviet power would last a long time.
In 1966, at the Christian Democrats
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
' party conference
Party conference
The terms party conference , political convention , and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party membership...
, Adenauer stated his hopes that some day the Soviets might allow the reunification of Germany. Some analysts say it might be considered a prediction:
- "I have not given up hope. One day Soviet Russia will recognize that the division of Germany, and with it the division of Europe, is not to its advantage. We must be watchful for when the moment comes... we must not let it go unexploited."
Whittaker Chambers
In a posthumously published 1964 book entitled Cold Friday, Communist defectorDefection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
predicted an eventual Soviet collapse beginning with a "satellite
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
revolution" in Eastern Europe. This revolution would then result in the transformation of the Soviet dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
.
Michel Garder
Michel GarderMichel Garder
Michel Garder was a French author and military man who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in the book L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique ...
was a French author who predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the book L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique (The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia) (1965). He set the date of the collapse for 1970.
RAND corporation
In 1968 Egon Neuberger, of the RAND CorporationRAND
RAND Corporation is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations including the healthcare industry, universities...
, predicted that "[t]he centrally planned economy eventually would meet its demise, because of its demonstrably growing ineffectiveness as a system for managing a modernizing economy in a rapidly changing world."
Robert Conquest
In the book Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics, which was a collection of authors edited by Zbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
in his section, "Immobilism and decay", saw "the USSR as a country where the political system is radically and dangerously inappropriate to its social and economic dynamics. This is a formula for change - change which may be sudden and catastrophic."
Conquest also predicted the fall in his book, The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (1970).
Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung MoonSun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects...
, founder of the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
repeatedly predicted that Communism was inherently flawed and would inevitably collapse sometime in the late 1980s. In a speech to followers in Paris in April 1972, he stated:
"Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the borderline and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it."
Andrei Amalrik
Prominent dissident Andrei AmalrikAndrei Amalrik
Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik , alternatively spelled Andrei or Andrey, was a Russian writer and dissident....
wrote in his book Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?:
- There is another powerful factor which works against the chance of any kind of peaceful reconstruction and which is equally negative for all levels of society: this is the extreme isolation in which the regime has placed both society and itself. This isolation has not only separated the regime from society, and all sectors of society from each other, but also put the country in extreme isolation from the rest of the world. This isolation has created for all—from the bureaucratic elite to the lowest social levels—an almost surrealistic picture of the world and of their place in it. Yet the longer this state of affairs helps to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable.
Amalrik predicted the collapse of the regime would occur between 1980 and 1985. The year in the title was after the novel of the same name
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
.
Soviet authorities were skeptical. Natan Sharansky
Natan Sharansky
Natan Sharansky was born in Stalino, Soviet Union on 20 January 1948 to a Jewish family. He graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against...
explained that "in 1984 KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
officials, on coming to me in prison" when Amalrik's prediction was mentioned "laughed at this prediction. Amalrik is long dead, they said, but we are still very much present."
Marian Kamil Dziewanowski
Historian Marian Kamil DziewanowskiMarian Kamil Dziewanowski
Marian Kamil Dziewanowski was a historian of Poland, Russia and modern Europe.-Life:...
"gave a lecture titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime' at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. The same lecture was delivered at Cambridge University in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1971 and 1979. The text of the lecture (titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime: a Study in American Sovietology, by a Historian') was published in Studies in Soviet Thought. In 1980, he "updated this study and delivered it as a paper at the International Slavic Congress at Garmish
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region, and the district is on the border with Austria...
; titled 'The Future of Soviet Russia,' it was published in Coexistence: An International Journal (Glasgow 1982)."
Emmanuel Todd
Emmanuel ToddEmmanuel Todd
Emmanuel Todd is a French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist at the National Institute of Demographic Studies , in Paris...
attracted attention in 1976 when he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, based on indicators such as increasing infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...
rates: La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: an Essay on the Disintegration of the Soviet Sphere).
Bernard Levin
Bernard LevinBernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
drew attention in 1992 to his prophetic article originally published in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in September 1977, in which an uncannily accurate prediction of the appearance of new faces in the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
was made, resulting in radical but peaceful political change.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times . He declined to run for re-election in 2000...
in a series of articles and interviews from 1975 onward discussed the possibility, indeed likelihood, of the breakup of the Soviet Empire. But Moynihan also expressed the view that liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
, too, faced an uncertain future. He argued in January 1975 that the Soviet Union was so weak economically, and so divided ethnically, that it could not long survive. However he said it "might have considerable time left before ethnicity breaks it up." By 1984 he argued "the Soviet idea is spent.
History is moving away from it at astounding speed." Some of his essays were published as Secrecy: The American Experience in 1999.
Samizdat
Various essays published in samizdatSamizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
in the early 1970s were on similar lines, some quite specifically predicting the end of the Soviet Union.
Hillel Ticktin / Critique
In 1973 the Marxist, Hillel H. TicktinHillel H. Ticktin
Hillel Ticktin is a Marxist theorist. He was born in South Africa in 1937 but had to leave to avoid arrest for political activism. He then lived and studied in the Soviet Union, where his PhD thesis, which was critical of official Communist Parties, was rejected. In 1965 he began teaching at...
, wrote that the Soviet "system is sinking deeper into crisis". In 1976 he entitled an article: "The USSR: the Beginning of the End?". In 1978 he predicted that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
would "break asunder and develop either to capitalism or to socialism". And in 1983 he wrote that "the system is drawing to a close". (For a summary of Ticktin's approach, see Wikipedia's Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
entry.)
Raymond Aron
David FromkinDavid Fromkin
David Fromkin is a noted author, lawyer, and historian, best known for his historical account on the Middle East, A Peace to End All Peace , in which he recounts the role European powers played between 1914 and 1922 in creating the modern Middle East. The book was a finalist for both the National...
wrote of Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
's prediction,
- "I know of only one person who came close to getting it right: Raymond Aron, the French philosopher and liberalLiberalismLiberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
anti-CommunistAnti-communismAnti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
. In a talk on the Soviet threat that I heard him give in the 1980s at the International Institute for Strategic StudiesInternational Institute for Strategic StudiesThe International Institute for Strategic Studies is a British research institute in the area of international affairs. It describes itself as "the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict"...
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, he reminded the audience of MachiavelliNiccolò MachiavelliNiccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
's observation in The PrinceThe PrinceThe Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus . But the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after...
that 'all armed prophets have conquered and all unarmed ones failed.'
Ravi Batra
The economist Ravi BatraRavi Batra
Raveendra Nath "Ravi" Batra is an Indian-American economist, author, and professor at Southern Methodist University. Batra is the author of six international bestsellers, two of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list...
predicted the collapse of the USSR in his 1978 book The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism is a major work by Ravi Batra in the field of historical evolution, published in 1978. The book's full title is The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism: A New Study of History...
.
Randall Collins
In 1980 the sociologist Randall CollinsRandall Collins
Randall Collins, Ph.D. is the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution & History Journal. He is considered to be one of the leading non-Marxist conflict theorists in the United...
presented his paper "The future decline of the Russian empire" at the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
and at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and published his predictions in the book "Weberian sociological theory" (1986).
Robert M. Cutler
In 1980 the political scientist Robert M. Cutler published an article "Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev" that concluded it was likely that in the generational elite turnover after Brezhnev died (1982) the Soviet regime would seek to increase public participation (Gorbachev's glasnost), foresaw that the Communist Party's rule would be challenged in Central Asia (the 1986 rioting in Kazakhstan before the Baltic republics erupted), and pointed out that Party leaders at the local level would go their own way if the Party did not give them a reason to remain loyal to the Moscow center.Robert Gates
Steward Brand said when introducing the work of Philip Tetlock that Brand's partner had given a talk in the 1980s to top CIA people about the future of the Soviet Union. One scenario he raised was that the Soviet bloc might break up; a sign of this happening would be the rise of unknown Mikhail Gorbachev through the party ranks. A CIA analyst said that the presentation was fine, but there was no way the Soviet Union was going to break up in his lifetime or his children's lifetime. The analyst's name was Robert GatesRobert Gates
Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W....
.
Werner Obst
In 1985 German economist Werner Obst published a book entitled "Der Rote Stern verglüht. Moskaus Abstieg - Deutschlands Chance" (The Red Star is dying away. The decline of Moscow is the chance of Germany), Munich: Wirtschaftsverlag Langen-Müller/Herbig, third edition in 1987, in which he predicted the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the reunification of GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
within the immediate future for about 1990, based on the analysis of economical statistics and trends.
Ronald Reagan
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
made conflicting predictions of Soviet power. Throughout his 1980 election campaign and first term in office his public view was that the Soviet Union had been growing in power relative to the United States. In 1981 he stated that "the Soviet Union has been engaged in the greatest military buildup in the history of man." and the next year stated that "on balance the Soviet Union does have a definite margin of superiority" compared to the U.S. military. The Reagan administration used the perceived strength of the Soviet Union to justify a significant expansion of military spending. David Arbel and Ran Edelist in their study Western Intelligence and the dissolution of the Soviet Union argue it was this position by the Reagan administration that prevented the American intelligence agencies from predicting the demise of the USSR. CIA analysts were encouraged to present any information exaggerating the Soviet threat and justifying the military build up, while contrary evidence of Soviet weakness was ignored and those presenting it sidelined.
At the same time Reagan expressed a long range view that the Soviet Union could eventually be defeated. On March 3, 1983, United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
told the National Association of Evangelicals
National Association of Evangelicals
The National Association of Evangelicals is a fellowship of member denominations, churches, organizations, and individuals. Its goal is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States. Today it works in four main areas: Church & Faith Partners, Government Relations,...
in Orlando
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
: "I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last — last pages even now are being written."
In his June 1982 address to the British Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
he stated:
- It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the national product has been steadily declining since the fifties and is less than half of what it was then. The dimensions of this failure are astounding: A country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the private sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. ...Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resource into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet people. What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones. ...In the Communist world as well, man's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-ruleSelf-governanceSelf-governance is an abstract concept that refers to several scales of organization.It may refer to personal conduct or family units but more commonly refers to larger scale activities, i.e., professions, industry bodies, religions and political units , up to and including autonomous regions and...
– 1953 in East Germany, 1956 in HungaryPeople's Republic of HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
, 1968 in CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, 1981 in PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. But the struggle continues in PolandPeople's Republic of PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
. And we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soviet Union itself. ...What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term – the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of historyAsh heap of historyThe ash heap of history is a figurative place to where objects such as persons, events, artifacts, ideologies, etc...
as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. And that's why we must continue our efforts to strengthen NATO even as we move forward with our Zero-Option initiative in the negotiations on intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a one-third reduction in strategicStrategic bombingStrategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...
ballistic missileBallistic missileA ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
warheadWarheadThe term warhead refers to the explosive material and detonator that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo.- Etymology :During the early development of naval torpedoes, they could be equipped with an inert payload that was intended for use during training, test firing and exercises. This...
s."
Analyst Jeffrey W. Knopf has explained why Reagan went beyond everyone else:
- "Reagan stands out in part because he believed the Soviet Union could be defeated. For most of the Cold War, RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and DemocraticDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
administrations alike had assumed the Soviet Union would prove durable for the foreseeable future. The bipartisan policy of containment aimed to keep the Soviet Union in check while trying to avoid nuclear warNuclear warfareNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
; it did not seek to force the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Ronald Reagan, in contrast, believed that the Soviet economyEconomy of the Soviet UnionThe economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning...
was so weak that increased pressure could bring the Soviet Union to the brink of failure. He therefore periodically expressed confidence that the forces of democracy 'will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history'."
Anatoliy Golitsyn
In 1984, Anatoliy GolitsynAnatoliy Golitsyn
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He was born in Piryatin, Ukrainian SSR...
, an important KGB defector published the book New Lies For Old, wherein he predicted the collapse of the communist bloc orchestrated from above.
He warned this collapse was part of a long-term deception
Deception
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, bad faith, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth . Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment...
strategy designed to lull the West into a false sense of security, abolish all containment policies, and in time finally economically cripple and diplomatically isolate the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Among other things, Golitsyn stated:
- "The 'liberalization' [in the Soviet Union] would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the communist party's role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed."
- "If [liberalization] should be extended to East Germany, demolition of the Berlin WallBerlin WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
might even be contemplated." - "The European ParliamentEuropean ParliamentThe European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
might become an all-European socialist parliament with representation from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 'Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals' would turn out to be a neutral, socialist Europe."
Collaborating opinions can be found in the archive of classified documents, collected by Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
, a defector also.
P.R. Sarkar
The Indian spiritual leader, P.R. Sarkar, predicted in the 1980s that Soviet Communism would fall with "a few blows from the hammer". He cited "inner and external stasis" as major weaknesses of communism.Why were Sovietologists wrong?
According to Kevin Brennan:- "SovietologyKremlinologyKremlinology is the study and analysis of Soviet politics and policies based on efforts to understand the inner workings of an opaque central government. The term is named after the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian/Soviet government. Kremlinologist refers to academic, media, and commentary experts...
failed because it operated in an environment that encouraged failure. Sovietologists of all political stripes were given strong incentives to ignore certain facts and focus their interest in other areas. I don't mean to suggest that there was a giant conspiracy at work; there wasn't. It was just that there were no careers to be had in questioning the conventional wisdom...
- ..There were other kinds of institutional biases as well, such as those that led to the..."Team BTeam BTeam B was a competitive analysis exercise commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s to analyze threats the Soviet Union posed to the security of the United States. Team B, approved by then Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush, was composed of "outside experts" who...
" Report."
Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset was an American political sociologist, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and...
and György Bence
György Bence
György Bence was a university professor, philosopher, dissident and political consultant....
write:
- "Given these judgments of the Soviet future made by political leaders and journalists, the question is why were they right and so many of our Sovietological colleagues wrong. The answer again in part must be ideological. Reagan and Levin came from rightist backgrounds, and Moynihan, much like the leaders of the AFL-CIOAFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
, from a leftistLeft-wing politicsIn politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
anti-StalinistStalinismStalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
social-democraticSocial democracySocial democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
milieu, environments that disposed participants to believe the worst. Most of the Sovietologists, on the other hand, were left-liberal in their politics, an orientation that undermined their capacity to accept the view that economic statism, planning, socialist incentives, would not work. They were also for the most part ignorant of, or ignored, the basic MarxistMarxismMarxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
formulation that it is impossible to build socialism in impoverished societies."
- Brzezinski's 1969 collection, Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics demonstrates this point, of "the fourteen contributors...Two-thirds (four out of six) of those who foresaw a serious possibility of breakdown were, like LevinBernard LevinHenry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
and MoynihanDaniel Patrick MoynihanDaniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times . He declined to run for re-election in 2000...
, nonacademics. Three quarters (six out of eight) of those who could not look beyond system continuity were scholars.
See also
- PrometheismPrometheismPrometheism or Prometheanism was a political project initiated by Poland's Józef Piłsudski. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the...
- History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982)History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982)The history of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, referred to as the Brezhnev Era, covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but ended with a much weaker Soviet Union facing social,...
- History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991)
- Economy of the Soviet UnionEconomy of the Soviet UnionThe economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning...
Further reading
Publisher: Springer Netherlands- Dmitry OrlovDmitry OrlovDmitry Orlov is an engineer and a writer on subjects related to "potential economic, ecological and political decline and collapse in the United States," something he has called “permanent crisis”...
, Reinventing Collapse, New Society Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-86571-606-3