What Caused the Collapse of the USSR and the End of the Cold War?
The Sudden Collapse of the USSR
- 25th December 1991, Mikhali Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR and the USSR ceased to exist
- End of the Cold War
- 1989 Immediate collapse began - Communist governments fell across Eastern Europe in a wave of protests
- November 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down
- Many causes attributed to the collapse - Reforming policies of Gorbachev, pressures of the arms race
The Role of the Leaders
Gorbachev
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- Similar to the reforms in China instated under Deng Xiaoping, all an attempt to reform the Communist system not abolish it
- USSR couldn't compete with USA in the arms race, Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI)
- April 1986, Chernobyl disaster expressed the dangers of nuclear weapons
- November 1985, Geneva - Gorbachev and Reagan agreed that 'a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought'
- October 1986, Reykjavik - Disagreements over SDI, arms control was discussed
- December 1987, Washington - INF Treaty was signed, abolished land-based nukes and inspections
- May 1988, Moscow - Further arms reductions, Reagan no longer believed in an 'evil empire'
- Success in these summit meetings was due to the chemistry between Gorbachev and Reagan
- 1988 Gorbachev improved relations by announcing that the Soviet Union would withdraw from Afghanistan
- 1989 Malta Summit, new US President George HW Bush announced that the superpowers had 'buried the Cold war at the bottom of the Mediterranean'
The Role of the Leaders
Reagan
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- Reagan also had the political power to negotiate from a position of strength as he was a hard-line Republican who hated Communism
Economic Collapse - Long-term Cause
- 1982, It can be argued that the Soviet Economy was near collapse - Prompted Gorbachev to introduce reforms and end the arms race
- Under Brezhnev the USSR achieved nuclear parity with the USA - Cost of spending 25% of GDP, USA was only spending 4-6%
- USSR had costly foreign commitments
- Afghanistan drained resources
- USSR have $4 billion to Cuba a year, $6 billion to Vietnam and $3 billion to Eastern Europe
- 'Command economy' was failing - Very little money was put into producing consumer goods and promoting domestic demand
- No incentives to work hard or to be more efficient - Annual growth dropped from 5.2% in 1967 to 2% in 1980
- Soviet economy was failing with its competition with the US
Ideological Collapse - Long-term Cause
- USSR was a regime built by Stalin with Communist ideology
- People were indoctrinated with the belief that they were building a better world and a system better than Capitalism
- 1980s All the promises of the system had failed and world revolution hadn't occurred, crime had risen, nationalism and religion hadn't disappeared
- Cohesive 'faith' that the Soviet people had in their system slowly decreased - Provided Gorbachev with the pressure to reform
Social Collapse - Long-term Cause
- As the economy collapsed, members of society also lost their faith in Communism
- Soviet citizens who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s lacked career opportunities
- Ambitious young people received free education and were indoctrinated with high expectations in the Soviet system - Without jobs, many in society lost optimism and faith in the system
- Alcoholism and anti-social behaviour became rampant throughout the Soviet bloc
Nationalist Feeling - Long-term Cause
- Many places such as, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland grew disillusioned with the Communist Party - Seemed to have no interest in reform and was repressive
- Many had access to radio and television from West Germany - Ability to see the difference between the two worlds, Glasnost and Perestroika also allowed people to criticise their leaders
- December 1988, Gorbachev gave a speech to the UN announcing that the USSR would cut its troop commitments to the Warsaw Pact by half a million men
- Complete overturn of the Brezhnev Doctrine - Used force to rule Eastern Europe
1989
- May 1989, Hungarian government stopped patrolling its Austrian border
- Tens of thousands of people from East Germany went on holiday to Hungary and never came back