When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, the Soviet Union faced all of the following challenges EXCEPT:

Question

Accepted Answer

A severe shortage of nuclear weapons compared to the United States. The Soviet Union did not face a shortage of nuclear weapons when Gorbachev came to power. In fact, the USSR had achieved rough nuclear parity with the United States by the 1970s and maintained one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals. The nuclear arms buildup was actually part of the problem, as excessive military spending diverted resources from the civilian economy.

Economic stagnation was perhaps the most pressing challenge Gorbachev inherited. Growth rates had been declining for two decades, productivity was low, consumer goods were scarce, and the centrally planned economy was increasingly unable to compete with Western market economies. The war in Afghanistan, which had begun in 1979, was a major drain on resources and morale, with no victory in sight. The party bureaucracy had become sclerotic under Brezhnev's "stability of cadres" policy, with elderly officials resistant to change occupying positions at every level.

Gorbachev's inheritance of a system in crisis is a foundational topic for the DSST exam's coverage of the Soviet Union's final years. At 54, Gorbachev was the youngest General Secretary since Stalin and represented a new generation of Soviet leaders. His recognition that the system required fundamental reform - rather than mere tinkering - set in motion the transformative but ultimately uncontrollable changes that led to the USSR's dissolution.

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