Collapse of Communism and the End of the Cold War

Problems within the USSR

Non-Russian ethnic groups resisted assimilation the entire time the Soviet Union existed

Economic planning failed to meet the needs of the State because they focused on building weapons instead of providing consumer goods

Communism never took root organically (it was forced upon people) and lost influence over time

Underlying Causes for the Collapse of the USSR

Years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development caught up with USSR by the 1980s

Economic growth stalled and shortages of consumer goods grew worse

Failed attempts at reform throughout the 1970s and 1980s

The war in Afghanistan was very unpopular

Brinkmanship to Detente

The end of the Cold War can be attributed in part to a policy of Detente which ended policies such as:

  • Deterrence: measures taken by a state or an alliance of states to prevent hostile action by another state

Brinkmanship policy created major tension – too much anxiety

Both superpowers feared a nuclear war which is why deterrence and brinkmanship characterized much of the Cold War’s policies that the US and USSR engaged in

Detente

Under Nixon, the U.S. followed a policy of detente – lessened Cold War tensions, rather than creating tensions-ending brinkmanship

The goal was to move AWAY from the Cold War and encourage peaceful coexistence between the US and Soviet Union

Most likely encouraged by the realization that the stockpiles of nuclear weapons had the clear capability of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD!)

  • Which would mean if anyone used nuclear weapons it would bring about the end of both countries if not the world!

Limiting Nuclear Weapons

To reduce the threat of nuclear war, the two sides met at disarmament talks

1969, U.S. and Soviet Union began Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

  • Limit the number of nuclear weapons for each side

A New Hope - Mikhail Gorbachev

Communist Party gets a new Soviet leader – Gorbachev

  • He will be the last president of the Soviet Union

Introduced policy of glasnost – “Openness”

  • Encouraged Soviet citizens to discuss ways to improve society
  • Ended censorship of media
  • People weren't allowed to critique communism

Introduced perestroika - economic restructuring; mix of capitalism and communism- this policy was too late because years of lying about the amount of goods produced had created massive shortages across the Soviet Union

Failure of Communism

Glasnost and perestroika did not work…

Nationalism led to satellite states and Soviet republics to break away from Soviet domination

The Soviet Union slowly began to fall apart

Nationalism in Satellite States

The first countries to break away due to Perestroika were the ones located in the Balkans as they declared their independence from the Soviet Union between 1985-1991

Nationalism in Warsaw Pact (Eastern European) countries continued to slowly weaken the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Many tried to escape East Berlin

Protesters demanded the right to travel freely by 1989

Old leadership failed and eventually the Berlin Wall was opened to restore stability

Break-up of the Soviet Union

1990: East European nations held multi-party elections and set up democratic government and free-market economics

1992: USSR (Soviet Union) broke up into several different republics including modern Russia

Expansion of NATO

Many people assumed that, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, that the NATO alliance would come to an end.

Instead the alliance adapted. Leaders on the continent saw the need of the organization to maintain peace and to act collectively against threats to peace as they arose. One example was during the breakup of Yugoslavia, NATO, peacekeepers were deployed to promote peace in an unstable region of the world

After the collapse of the Soviet Union many former countries of the Soviet Union joined NATO including Hungary, Poland, The Czech Republic, Estonia, and Lithuania.