The Collapse of the

Soviet Union
And the world watched
with wonder

Eastern
Bloc

7 Satellite
Countries:
Bulgaria,
Czech
Republic, East
Germany,
Hungary,
Poland,
Romania,
Slovakia

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

15 Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,
Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
Ukraine,
Uzbekistan

Was the Collapse Due to Force? No

The

Cold War cost more than

$11 trillion. But the collapse of
the Soviet Union and its
satellites was not a result of
force.
No
No

NATO tank fired a shot.

bomb fell on the

Kremlin.

A Home-Grown Insurgency

Instead, a massive, homegrown insurgency, led by a

number of different
participants, contributed to
the collapse:
Workers
Dissident

intellectuals

Advocates

of national selfdetermination

Reformers

Polish Trade Union: Solidarity

The

downfall began in 1980

when striking Polish
workers organized
Solidarity, an independent
trade union of nearly 10
million members.

Support from Catholic Church

Solidarity,

which had strong

support from the powerful
Polish Catholic Church,
demonstrated how a
working-class movement
could offer an entire nation
moral and political
leadership.

Solidaritys Chairman: Lech Walesa

The

Polish military drove

Solidarity underground in
1981. However, in 1983,
Solidaritys chairman, Lech
Walesa, won the Nobel peace
prize. In 1990, he would be
the first freely elected
president of the Polish nation
in more than sixty years.

The Gorbachev Revolution

Mikhail Gorbachev, who

came to power in 1985 as
the General Secretary of
the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union (CPSU),
recognized that the Soviet
Union could not remain
politically and economically
isolated and that the
Soviet system had to be
changed if it was to
survive.

Gorbachev's Five-Point Plan

The

key pieces to Gorbachev's plan for the survival of

the Soviet Union were a series of reforms:
1.

Glasnost (openness) greater freedom of

expression

2.

Perestroika (restructuring) decentralization of

the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms

3.

Renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine (armed

intervention where socialism was threatened) and
the pursuit of arms control agreements

4.

Reform of the KGB (secret service)

5.

Reform of the Communist Party

The Objective: Survival

Gorbachev knew that the Soviet Union would have to change if

it was to survive.
Central

planning in a modern industrial economy brought

many inefficiencies.

The

factory management system provided little incentive to

make technological improvements and every incentive to
hide factory capacities to ensure low quotas

The

socialist farm system was inefficient there were poor

worker incentives and storage and transportation problems.

The

Soviet State could no longer afford the high defense

spending that accompanied the Cold War.

Insistent Calls for Change

He believed that his reforms

were necessary and used his
leadership and power to
attempt to implement them.

The policy of glasnost

(openness) made it possible
for people to more freely
criticize the government's
policies. When people
realized it was safe to speak
out, the calls for change
became more insistent.

The Canadian Connection

In 1983, Gorbachev, then minister of Agriculture, travelled

to Canada with Aleksandr Yakovlev, the Russian Ambassador
to Canada

They were to go on a 3-week tour of Canada, arranged by

Eugene Whalen, Canadian Minister of Agriculture.

Upon arrival in Windsor, Gorbachev saw two cars in every

driveway, and was impressed with the speed of food
processing from farm to table in our country.

While waiting for Whalen at his home in Amherstburg,

Gorbachev and Yakovlev opened up to each other about the
fundamental problems in Russia, and over the course of a 3hour conversation, outlined the plan for perestroika.

Reforms Were Too Slow

The

gradual market reforms

and decentralization of the
economy (perestroika) were
too slow and failed to keep
pace with the crisis and his
people's demands.

The

Soviet Union was

suffering a deterioration of
economic and social
conditions and a fall in the
GNP.

Party Reforms a Failure

His

attempts to reform the

Communist Party were a
failure. Change was too
slow to keep pace with
events and he was
continually hampered by
his need to give in to the
hard-liners in order to
retain power. As
communism collapsed in
Eastern Europe, reform of
communism in the Soviet
Union became unlikely.

Release from Soviet Domination

The

renunciation of the
Brezhnev Doctrine (armed
intervention in support of
socialism) released the
Eastern European states
from Soviet domination.

The

communist rulers of
these states could not
survive without the support
of the Soviet Union.
The Brezhnev Doctrine was articulated in 1968 when the Soviet
army occupied Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring, an
attempt by Alexander Dubcek to build socialism with a human
face.

Reagans Brandenburg Gate Speech

President Ronald Reagan called upon Gorbachev to

tear down the Berlin Wall:
"In the Communist world, we see failure,
technological backwardness, declining standards...
Even today, the Soviet Union cannot feed itself. The
inescapable conclusion is that freedom is the victor.
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace,
if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union,
if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr.
Gorbachev, open this gate!
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

President Reagan giving a speech at the Berlin Wall,

Brandenburg Gate, Federal Republic of Germany. June 12, 1987

Wave of Demonstrations
Beginning

in September 1989, a
wave of huge demonstrations
shook Communist regimes
across eastern Europe. A
massive tide of East German
emigrants surged through
Czechoslovakia and Hungary to
the West, undermining the
authority of the Communist
hard-liners who still clung to
power in the German
Democratic Republic (GDR).

A tram is blocked by East German demonstrators in the center of the city in October 1989. Their
banner reads: 'Legalization of opposition parties, free democratic elections, free press and
independent unions.'

The Wall Came Down

Finally, on the night of

November 9, 1989,
ordinary Germans poured
through the Berlin Wall.
The GDR quickly
disintegrated, and by the
end of 1990, all of East
Germany had been
incorporated into the
wealthy, powerful Federal
Republic of Germany.

The Rise of Nationalism

With

the iron grip of the

centralized Soviet state
relaxed and the growing
failure of the state to
adequately feed and clothe
its people, nationalism in
the republics surged and
separatist movements
threatened the very
existence of the Soviet
Union.
Super Cute Protesters:
Moldova: The hot, angry face of
nationalism - Apr 13, 2009

Events in Eastern Europe

Communist governments in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
and Bulgaria either tumbled
or underwent reform.

The Communist dictatorship

in Romania fell after a week
of bloody street battles
between ordinary citizens
and police, who defended
the old order to the bitter
end.

Radical Change
Radical

change finally
reached the Soviet
heartland in August 1991,
when thousands of
Russian citizens poured
into the streets to defeat a
reactionary coup d'tat.

Independent Republics
The

Communist party
quickly collapsed, and the
Soviet Union began the
painful and uncertain
process of reorganizing
itself as a loose
confederation of
independent republics.

Boris Yeltsin
Boris

Yeltsin, who headed

the Russian Republic,
replaced Gorbachev as
president of a muchdiminished state.
Gorbachev found that
there was no Soviet
Union to lead and retired
into private life.

Time magazine's July 15, 1996, issue, featured a 10page spread about a squad of U.S. political pros who
"clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's

Nobel Peace Prize

Gorbachev

won the 1989

Nobel Peace Prize. He
brought a peaceful end to
the cold war, and dramatic
change to his country's
economy, though not in the
way he intended.

The End of the Cold War

The

Cold War was over,

brought to a close not by the
missiles and tanks of the
principal participants, but by
the collective courage and
willpower of ordinary men
and women.

Ronald Reagans Role

In

the United States, partisans of

Ronald Reagan claimed much of the
credit for ending the Cold War.
Reagan's frank denunciation of the
Soviet Union as an evil empire,"
along with his administration's
military buildup, were said to have
inspired eastern bloc dissidents at
the same time the arms race
exhausted the productive capacity of
the Soviet Union and other inefficient
Communist regimes.

Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006

Source data from: Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, "Global nuclear stockpiles, 1945-2006," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 62,
no. 4 (July/August 2006), 64-66. Online at http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/c4120650912x74k7/fulltext.pdf

Another Side to the Story

According

to U.S. diplomat George

Kennan, author of "The Sources of
Soviet Conduct" (1947) and
architect of the containment policy,
the West's militarized posture
helped the Communists to
rationalize their authoritarian rule.
The more U.S. policies followed a
hard line, the greater was the
tendency in Moscow to tighten the
controls and to discourage
liberalizing tendencies.

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

and the End of the Cold War

John Paul IIs

CATHOLIC
CHURCH

East German
NATIONALISM

Lech Walesa's
SOLIDARITY

Gorbachevs
REFORMS

Eastern
Bloc

Ronald Reagans
FOREIGN POLICY

Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics

Glasnost
Perestroika

EVIL EMPIRE
Speech
MILITARY
BUILDUP

Ordinary
MEN & WOMEN

ARMS RACE
COURAGE
WILL POWER

No Brezhnev
Doctrine
Reform
KGB
Reform
Comm Party

Remaining Communist Countries

At

its peak, communism was practiced in dozens of countries:

Soviet

Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia,

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan

Asian

Countries: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Yemen

Soviet

Controlled Eastern bloc countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic,

East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia.

The

Balkans: Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,

Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Africa:

Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and

Mozambique.

Currently

only a handful of countries identified as communist

remain: Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, China, and Cuba.