(Border agreement opened a new chapter in Sino-Soviet relations)
The dissolution of the Old Guard and Russian factions within the CPSU brought about a change on the Soviet political scene. Following the dismissal of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky and Mikhail Yasnov from their positions, a new leadership in Ukrainian and Russian Socialist Republics was chosen by General Secretary Romanov. Starting with the Ukrainian SSR, a moderate,
Vladimir Ivashko was chosen. One of his utmost priorities was a reversal of the harm done to the Ukrainian population by the campaign of forced Russification, which turned many Ukrainians against the Soviet government. Furthermore, Ivashko promised to focus on the scientific, industrial and cultural progress of the Ukrainian SSR. In Russia, Mikhail Yasnov was replaced by
Vitaly Vorotnikov, very influential member of the conservative wing of the CPSU and a close friend of General Secretary Romanov. During his tenure, Vorotnikov would focus primarily on the agricultural and infrastructural development of Russia. In the meantime,
the 1986 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement was signed in Beijing. The treaty solved most border disputes between China and the Soviet Union. The treaty was a diplomatic achievement, as the border between the USSR and China had long been an issue of contention. The treaty stipulated that China would receive most of the disputed territories along the Amur and Ussuri rivers.
After the real and imagined opponents were removed from the Communist Party by General Secretary Romanov, the further works on modernization and reorganization of the Soviet state were continued. During the first years of Romanov's tenure, a new and more aggressive phase of
anti-religious persecution began, nevertheless, it led to the opposite of what was expected by the Soviet leadership. Hence, the change of tactics—instead of further strengthening the internal opposition by driving religious elements in the Soviet society into their open arms, the Soviet state should turn political enemies into potential allies; therefore, an end to anti-religious policy in the USSR was ordered. The new policy of the Soviet state in regard to religion included:
- end of anti-religious campaign;
- gradual withdrawal of anti-religious regulations;
- end of restrictions on building places of worship;
- separation of the State and Church;
- political alliance with religious leadership in exchange for their total support for the Soviet government and communism;
- promotion of Islamic and Christian communism.
Furthermore, the Soviet government decided to
end the process of forced Russification in areas of politics and culture. The elements of the new policy were as follows:
- end of forced cultural and linguistic minorities in the Russian cultural sphere;
- promotion of national cultures across the Soviet Union;
- promotion of non-Russian nationalities in lower administrative levels of local government, bureaucracy and nomenclature of their Soviet republics;
- minorities in Soviet republics retain the right to participate in governance of said republics based on the percent of their population contribution;
- revival of Esperanto;
- cultural exchange programs across the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, the largest change took place in the agricultural sector, where the Soviet leadership decided to
reform the collective farming system, which was established in the late 1920s and early 1930s under Josef Stalin.
The 1986 Agricultural Reform included:
- push for a complete mechanization of Soviet agriculture;
- introduction of modern agricultural techniques;
- expansion of private land ownership;
- organization of land and collective farms on a contract responsibility system;
- conversion of state farms into regional cooperatives;
- establishment of production teams for mutual assistance;
- established by voluntary private collectives;
- land reform to grant usable plots of land to individual farmers;
- establishment of a common agricultural market in the Eastern Bloc.
The Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986 made the most sweeping changes to the United States Department of Defense since the department was established in the National Security Act of 1947 by reworking the command structure of the U.S. military. It increased the powers of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and implemented some of the suggestions from the Packard Commission, commissioned by President Reagan in 1985. Among other changes, Goldwater–Nichols streamlined the military chain of command, which now runs from the president through the secretary of defense directly to combatant commanders (CCDRs, all four-star generals or admirals), bypassing the service chiefs. The service chiefs were assigned to an advisory role to the president and the secretary of defense, and given the responsibility for training and equipping personnel for the unified combatant commands. Named after Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) and Representative William Flynt "Bill" Nichols (D-Alabama), the bill passed the House of Representatives, 383–27, and the Senate, 95–0. It was signed into law by President Reagan on October 1, 1986. Admiral William J. Crowe was the first chairman to serve under this new legislation.
The Iran–Contra affair, often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by government appropriations had been prohibited by Congress, but the loophole was to use non-appropriated funds. The official justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an operation to free seven US hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The idea to exchange arms for hostages was proposed by Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian arms dealer.Some within the Reagan administration hoped the sales would influence Iran to get Hezbollah to release the hostages.
In late 1985, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council (NSC) diverted a portion of the proceeds from the Iranian weapon sales to fund the Contras, a group of anti-Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) rebels, in their insurgency against the socialist government of Nicaragua. North later claimed that Ghorbanifar had given him the idea for diverting profits from BGM-71 TOW and MIM-23 Hawk missile sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras. While President Ronald Reagan was a vocal supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is disputed as to whether he personally authorized the diversion of funds to the Contras. Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on 7 December 1985 indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, by Israel, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to "moderate elements" within that country. Weinberger wrote that Reagan said "he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages.'"After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the US did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the affair were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. On 4 March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, saying he was taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages".
The affair was investigated by Congress and by the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither investigation found evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs. Additionally, US Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Walsh was appointed Independent Counsel in December 1986 to investigate possible criminal actions by officials involved in the scheme. In the end, several dozen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice president at the time of the affair. Former Independent Counsel Walsh noted that, in issuing the pardons, Bush appeared to have been preempting being implicated himself by evidence that came to light during the Weinberger trial and noted that there was a pattern of "deception and obstruction" by Bush, Weinberger, and other senior Reagan administration officials. Walsh submitted his final report on 4 August 1993 and later wrote an account of his experiences as counsel, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.
(Crimea in the 1980s)
In the meantime, members of the conservative faction within the CPSU raised the question in regard to the Crimean Peninsula. On February 19, 1954,
the Crimean Oblast was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian SSR on the basis of "the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR" and to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Russia (also known in the Soviet Union as the Pereiaslav Agreement). Sevastopol became a closed city due to its importance as the port of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and was attached to the Crimean Oblast only in 1978. Now, the conservatives argue that Khrushchev's mistake should be rectified, and the Crimean Peninsula should be returned to the Russian SFSR, which met with disapproval from the liberal and reformist factions.
Links to wiki articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater%E2%80%93Nichols_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
