Effect of Cold War and Effect of end of Cold War

Effect of Cold War and Effect of End of Cold War

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The Cold War (1947–1991) was not merely a rivalry of ideologies between the United States and the Soviet Union — it reshaped the political, economic, and military architecture of the entire world. Its effects, both during the conflict and after its end, continue to influence contemporary international relations, from the emergence of a unipolar world order to the persistence of regional conflicts rooted in Cold War-era rivalries. Understanding the effect of the Cold War and the effect of the end of the Cold War is essential for aspirants attempting questions on 20th-century world history, the disintegration of the USSR, and the roles played by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in that process. This article examines these effects systematically, followed by a detailed discussion on how Reagan’s policies and Gorbachev’s reforms together contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Effects of the Cold War

Political and Strategic Effects

The Cold War defined the political and military role of the United States after World War II. By 1989, the US had military alliances with 50 countries and stationed 526,000 troops abroad — 326,000 in Europe (two-thirds of these in West Germany) and 130,000 in Asia (mainly Japan and South Korea).
It marked the zenith of peacetime military-industrial complexes, especially in the United States, along with large-scale military funding of scientific research.
US military expenditure during the Cold War is estimated at $8 trillion.
- Nearly 100,000 Americans lost their lives in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
- Soviet casualties are harder to estimate precisely, but as a share of Gross National Product (GNP), the financial burden on the Soviet Union was considerably higher than that borne by the United States.
Beyond uniformed soldiers, millions died in the superpowers’ proxy wars fought across the globe.

Economic and Social Effects (Case of Russia)

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia drastically cut military spending, and the accompanying economic restructuring left millions unemployed — the military-industrial sector had previously employed one in every five Soviet adults, and its dismantling had a severe economic impact.
The subsequent capitalist reforms of the 1990s culminated in a recession more severe than the Great Depression experienced by the United States and Germany.
Russian living standards worsened overall through the post–Cold War years, though the economy resumed growth from 1999 onward.

Effects of the End of the Cold War

The post–Cold War world is widely regarded as unipolar, with the United States emerging as the sole remaining superpower.
Most proxy wars and external subsidies for local conflicts ended along with the Cold War. Consequently, interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, as well as refugee and displaced-persons crises, have declined sharply in the post–Cold War years.
However, the aftermath of Cold War conflict is not easily erased — many economic and social tensions that were exploited to fuel Cold War competition in parts of the Third World remain acute.
- The breakdown of state control in several former Communist-ruled regions produced new civil and ethnic conflicts, most notably in the former Yugoslavia.
- In Central and Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War ushered in an era of economic growth and a rise in the number of liberal democracies, whereas in other regions, such as Afghanistan, the end of superpower involvement was accompanied by state failure.

Disintegration of the USSR: Role of Reagan’s Policy and Gorbachev’s Reforms

Mains Question: “President Reagan’s attitude and Gorbachev’s reform, both helped in disintegration of the USSR.” Explain.

President Reagan’s Attitude and Strategy

Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 as a vocal opponent of the Soviet Union, famously branding it the “evil empire” and making his adversarial intentions clear from the outset.
His leadership triggered a massive increase in American military spending, along with intensified research into new and advanced weapons systems.
Reagan championed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a missile-defense system designed to neutralise the Soviet nuclear arsenal by intercepting missiles mid-flight — theoretically making a nuclear war “winnable” for the United States.
Reagan’s strategy was not limited to military pressure; he also targeted the Soviet economy directly.
- The United States isolated the USSR from the wider world economy and helped drive global oil prices to their lowest levels in decades.
- Deprived of crucial oil revenue, the Soviet economy began to crumble.
Faced with Reagan’s military build-up, the USSR could not respond in kind — its enormous existing military expenditure, combined with an inefficient centrally planned manufacturing system and collectivised agriculture, had already placed an unsustainable burden on the Soviet economy.

The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Although Soviet leader Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan would be brief, Mujahideen (Muslim guerrilla) forces, aided by the US and other countries, mounted fierce and sustained resistance.
The USSR deployed nearly 100,000 troops in 1979 to prop up its client regime in Kabul.
By the late 1980s, the war had become a quagmire for an already disintegrating Soviet Union — the Soviets suffered roughly 15,000 dead, many more wounded, and incurred heavy financial expenditure.
Having failed to establish a stable, sympathetic regime, the Soviet Union signed an accord in 1988 with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, agreeing to withdraw its troops. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on 15 February 1989.

Gorbachev’s Reforms: Perestroika and Glasnost

In the mid-1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev, as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), introduced sweeping liberalising reforms aimed at overhauling the USSR’s stagnant administration and economy.
Gorbachev’s internal reforms rested on three pillars:
- Uskoreniye — acceleration, aimed at improving GDP growth.
- Perestroika — restructuring of the economy, bureaucracy, and party apparatus.
- Glasnost — transparency, or greater political and civil freedom.
The underlying logic was that some measure of freedom was necessary to enable genuine progress, since the entire Soviet system had grown orthodox and unprogressive, and restructuring was an urgent necessity.
Perestroika represented a move toward “Market Socialism” — it did not signify an acceptance of capitalism, but rather an attempt to reconcile socialist principles with the dynamics of a market economy.
- Soviet enterprises were eventually allowed to disengage from the central planning system and become self-financing, self-managing units.
- This did not amount to a reintroduction of capitalism, as enterprises remained publicly owned; the key change was that they now operated within a market environment shaped by competition, profit, and incentives, rather than under central planning directives.
Glasnost was the policy of open discussion of political and social issues.
- It brought about fundamental changes to the political structure of the USSR — the power of the Communist Party was curtailed, and multi-candidate elections were introduced for the first time.
- It also permitted criticism of government officials and allowed the media greater freedom in disseminating news and information.

Reactions to the Reforms and the Collapse of the USSR

Conditions within the USSR were already dire, and the freedoms granted under Glasnost unleashed long-suppressed pent-up emotions and aspirations, causing popular demands to rise sharply. Gorbachev failed to manage these reforms effectively, provoking several distinct reactions:
- Orthodox, anti-reform elements within the Communist Party opposed the changes outright.
- Progressive/radical elements, led by Boris Yeltsin, demanded even more extensive reform.
- Ordinary citizens grew impatient, demanding immediate improvements in living standards.
- The bureaucracy, fearing the loss of its power and privileges, actively obstructed the reform programme.
- The constituent republics of the USSR increasingly demanded greater autonomy.
A structural economic flaw compounded the crisis: since wages were now linked to output measured in rouble value, factories were incentivised to focus on producing expensive goods rather than increasing the output of cheaper, basic consumables — leading to acute shortages and longer queues in towns across the USSR.
Disillusionment with Gorbachev set in rapidly. Having raised public expectations, he now faced growing outrage over shortages, and public support collapsed as people saw no immediate benefit from the reforms.
Gorbachev ultimately became a victim of these converging pressures. In August 1991, hardline/orthodox elements attempted a coup against him, which was defeated due to Boris Yeltsin’s resistance.
Around the same time, the Soviet republics began declaring independence, setting the process of disintegration in motion — beginning with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and others.
Gorbachev formally resigned as President of the USSR in December 1991, marking the official end of the Soviet Union.
In sum, Gorbachev’s reforms did more to hasten the fall of the Soviet Union than to save it. By loosening state control over the people while simultaneously reforming the political and economic elite, the Soviet government appeared weak and vulnerable. Ordinary citizens used their newly acquired freedoms to organise and openly critique the government, ultimately bringing an end to Soviet rule in 1991.

Conclusion: A Convergence of Forces

Reagan’s aggressive military and economic pressure and Gorbachev’s internal liberalising reforms both contributed significantly to the fall of the USSR. Their combined impact was further accelerated by other structural factors, including the long-stagnating Soviet economy, the costly Soviet war in Afghanistan, the global oil glut, and the Chernobyl disaster. Together, these political, economic, and military pressures converged to bring about the collapse of one of the twentieth century’s two superpowers.

Related Mains Practice Questions

Q. “President Reagan’s attitude and Gorbachev’s reform, both helped in disintegration of the USSR.” Explain.
Q. Discuss the New World Order and the internal reforms of Gorbachev, and their inability to save the USSR.
Q. Consider the view that if Gorbachev had followed different policies, the USSR could have survived, in the same way that communism survived in China.

President Reagan’s attitude

Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 as a vocal opponent of the Soviet Union, calling them the “evil empire”, and making his intentions towards the Soviet Union clear.
Reagan’s leadership led to a massive increase in American military spending, as well as research into new and better weapons.
Reagan supported the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which nullified the Soviet nuclear arsenal by destroying missiles as they fell and made a nuclear war theoretically winnable for the United States.
Reagan did not just attack the Soviets with military spending; he also attacked their economy.
- The United States isolated the Soviets from the rest of the world economy, and helped drive oil prices to their lowest levels in decades.
- Without oil revenue to keep their economy solvent, the Soviet Union began to crumble.
After Reagan’s military build-up, the Soviet Union did not respond by further building its military because the enormous military expenses, along with inefficient planned manufacturing and collectivized agriculture, were already a heavy burden for the Soviet economy.

Soviet war in Afghanistan

Although USSR leader Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the Soviet war in Afghanistan would be brief, Muslim guerrillas, aided by the US and other countries, waged a fierce resistance against the invasion.
USSR sent nearly 100,000 troops to support its puppet regime in Afghanistan in 1979.
The war in Afghanistan became a quagmire for what by the late 1980’s was a disintegrating Soviet Union. (The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many more injured apart from heavy expenditure).
Despite having failed to implement a sympathetic regime in Afghanistan, in 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on Feb. 15, 1989.

Gorbachev’s reforms

In the mid-1980’s, the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms to bring long term changes in the administration and the stagnant economy of the erstwhile USSR.
Gorbachev’s internal reforms rested on three pillars:
- Uskoreniye:
  - acceleration (in economy to improve GDP)
- Prestroika:
  - restructuring (economy, bureaucracy, party etc.)
- Glasnost:
  - transparency (freedom)
His idea was that some freedom should be there in order to ensure proper progress and restructuring is a basic requirement as entire system has become orthodox and unprogressive.
Prestroika was a kind of mark towards Market Socialism but it does not mean acceptance of capitalism, rather reconcile principle of socialism with dynamic of market capitalism.
- He eventually allowed the soviet enterprises to disengage themselves from planning system altogether and to become self-financing and self-managing units.
- It did not amount to re-introduction of capitalism because economic enterprises were all public. New thing was that these enterprises were not to operate according to central planning committee but within market environment shaped by competition, profits and incentives.
Glasnost was the policy of open discussion of political and social issues.
- The fundamental changes to the political structure of the Soviet Union occurred: the power of the Communist Party was reduced, and multicandidate elections took place.
- Glasnost also permitted criticism of government officials and allowed the media freer dissemination of news and information.
Situation in USSR was so bad and the freedom granted under Glasnost giving rise to pentup emotions, aspirations (which were long suppressed), demand by the people rose even higher. Gorbachev failed to manage the reforms effectively and several kinds of reactions emerged:
- From orthodox elements of the party who were anti-reform.
- From progressive/ radical elements of the party whose leader was Boris Yeltsin. They wanted even more reform.
- From people, who were demanding immediate good results.
- The bureaucracy, fearing the loss of its power and privileges, obstructed much of the program.
- From republics of USSR, who wanted more autonomy.
The problem was that wages were now dependent on output, but since output was measured by its value in roubles, factories were tempted not to increase overall output, but to concentrate on more expensive goods and reduce output of cheaper goods. Basic consumable goods were in very short supply, and the queues in the towns got longer.
Disillusion with Gorbachev and his reforms rapidly set in, and, having had their expectations raised by his promises, people became outraged at the shortages. Public support lost soon as they did not see any immediate benefit.
Gorbachev eventually became victim of all these reactions and there was coup in Auguat 1991 by the hardliners /orthodox against Gorbachev but this coup was failed by Boris Yeltsin.
- Roughly during the same time the republics began to declare independence and the process of disintegration set-in starting with Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc.
- Finally, Gorbachev resigned as president of USSR in December 1991 and with this there was a formal end of USSR.
Gorbachev’s reforms did more to hasten the fall of the Soviet Union than they did to save it.
- By loosening controls over the people and making reforms to the political and economic elites, the Soviet government appeared weak and vulnerable to the Soviet people.
- They used their newfound powers to organize and critique the government, and in 1991, they successfully ended Soviet rule.

Hence Reagan and Gorbachev, both contributed to the fall of the USSR which was also accelerated by other factors likestagnating economy of the USSR, Soviet war in Afghanistan, oil glut, Chernobyl disaster etc.

The USSR was a vast territorial region and it was said that “USSR was a prison of nations” as many nationalities were incorporated through force (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland etc.).
So aspiration of autonomy within Soviet Union were there which stood suppressed.
Its involvement in the cold war exhausted its economy by 1980s. The economy scenario in 1980s was marked by the fall in GDP, fall in export, import of daily use commodities and even food grain on a large scale, poor quality industrial goods etc.
This was the scenario when Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and he embarked upon a policy to reform Soviet Union internally by strengthening its economy, making communist party progressive, by giving people some freedom. Externally, he envisioned New World World based on peace and cooperation.

New World Order of Gorbachev

Gorbachev became leader of USSR in 1985 and began to present his ideas related to New World Order (NWO). Idea was to end the Cold War and create NWO for international peace and cooperation.
In 1988, he delivered speech in UNGA which was his principle statement on NWO.
The major elements of his idea of NWO were:
- De-ideolising relations
- Strengthening role of UNO
- New level of cooperation
- Restrain on use of force
- Cooperation in the field of environment
- Cooperation to provide relief to underdeveloped and poor countries.
Earlier Gorbachev had presented his concept of “our common European home” during his visit to Czechoslovakia in April 1987 in which he had opposed the division of European continent into military blocs and accumulation of military arsenals in Europe and everything that is the source of the threat of war.
He kept on repeating this ideas later on.
In December 1989, Malta summit with G.H.W. Bush, both reiterated some of ideas of NWO including human rights, disarmament, debt relief, German unification etc.
In September 1990, famous speech of G.H.W. Bush, known as “Towards a NWO” speech reiterated ideas of NWO.
Finally in November 1990 Paris meet of Conference on security and cooperation in Europe, which was created in Helenski conference (1975), treaty was signed which formally ended the cold war.
He had declared policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of Eastern European communist countries which encouraged people there to throw away communist regime.
Hence during 1989-91, USSR and Eastern Bloc disintegrated completely and Berlin wall was brought down leading to unification of Germany. All these were encouraged by his moderate policies visible in his ideas of New World Order.

Many believe that Russian communism could have survived if Gorbachev had followed different policies and that if the USSR had followed the. same path as China.
- This argument is that both Russia and China needed reform in two areas – the Communist Party and government and the economy.
- Gorbachev believed these could only be achieved one at a time and chose to introduce the political reforms first by Glasnost and Perestroika, without any really fundamental economic innovation.
- The Chinese did it the other way around, introducing economic reform first and leaving the power of the Communist Party unchanged.
- This meant that although the people suffered economic hardship, the government retained tight control over them, and in the last resort was prepared to use force against them, unlike Gorbachev.
Gorbachev’s only instrument of power was the Communist Party, but his reform ended precisely that instrument.
- He was like the proverbial man sawing off the branch on which he was sitting. There could be no other except what happened.’
- If Gorbachev had put into operation a carefully worked-out programme of economic reform designed to last ten years, arguably the situation could have been saved.
Other observers argue that the Communist Party was beyond reform.
- They point out that any political system or party which enjoys a long, uninterrupted period of power becomes arrogant, complacent and corrupt.
- Both Khrushchev and Gorbachev tried to reform the nomenklatura (the system whereby influential posts in government and industry were filled by Party appointees) and both failed, because the elite, the bureaucracy in the government and the economic system, were solely concerned to further their own careers and refused to respond to the changing circumstances.
In theory, reform should have been possible, but it might have been necessary to use force, as the Chinese government did in Tiananmen Square. Given Gorbachev’s extreme reluctance to resort to force, the prospects for success would not seem promising.

Factors for the collapse of Soviet Communism and Soviet Union during 1985-1991

Issues with command and stagnating economics, oil prices decreases, large military expenditures, nationalisticpressure, absence of democratic base, contact with West, support from West etc. led to the fact that the Soviet Unionwas incapable of maintaining the country’s role as a Superpower which gradually brought the Soviet down.

Stagnating economy

The system was too centralized, leaving no room for local individual initiative.
It was a ‘command’ economy, based almost completely on state ownership and control, and weighted strongly towards defence and heavy industry, leaving consumer goods for ordinary people in short supply.
It was inefficient model and only stood powerful control and restrictions, poor standard of health, housing, education and social services.
Moscow had built up a military that consumed as much as 25 percent of the Soviet Union’s gross national product at the expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors.
- Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments both caused and exacerbated deep seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which saw at least a decade of economic stagnation in 1980’s.
- Soviet investment in the defense sector was not driven by military necessity, but in large part by the interests of massive party and state bureaucracy’s dependent on the sector for their own power and privileges.
- The Soviet Armed Forces became the largest in the world in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed, in the number of troops in their ranks, and in the sheer size of their military–industrial base.
- However, the quantitative advantages held by the Soviet military often concealed quality where the Eastern Bloc dramatically lagged behind the West.

Oil glut

Saudi Arabia increased oil production, even as other non-OPEC nations were increasing production.
These developments contributed to the 1980’s oil glut, which affected the Soviet Union, as oil was the main source of Soviet export revenues.

President Reagan’s attitude

Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 as a vocal opponent of the Soviet Union, calling them the “evil empire”, and making his intentions towards the Soviet Union clear.
Reagan’s leadership led to a massive increase in American military spending, as well as research into new and better weapons.
Reagan supported the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which nullified the Soviet nuclear arsenal by destroying missiles as they fell and made a nuclear war theoretically winnable for the United States.
Reagan did not just attack the Soviets with military spending; he also attacked their economy.
- The United States isolated the Soviets from the rest of the world economy, and helped drive oil prices to their lowest levels in decades.
- Without oil revenue to keep their economy solvent, the Soviet Union began to crumble.
After Reagan’s military build-up, the Soviet Union did not respond by further building its military because the enormous military expenses, along with inefficient planned manufacturing and collectivized agriculture, were already a heavy burden for the Soviet economy.

Soviet war in Afghanistan

Although USSR leader Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the Soviet war in Afghanistan would be brief, Muslim guerrillas, aided by the US and other countries, waged a fierce resistance against the invasion.
USSR sent nearly 100,000 troops to support its puppet regime in Afghanistan in 1979.
The war in Afghanistan became a quagmire for what by the late 1980’s was a disintegrating Soviet Union. (The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many more injured apart from heavy expenditure).
Despite having failed to implement a sympathetic regime in Afghanistan, in 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on Feb. 15, 1989.

Gorbachev’s reforms

In the mid-1980’s, the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms to bring long term changes in the administration and the stagnant economy of the erstwhile USSR.
Gorbachev’s internal reforms rested on three pillars:
- Uskoreniye:
  - acceleration (in economy to improve GDP)
- Prestroika:
  - restructuring (economy, bureaucracy, party etc.)
- Glasnost:
  - transparency (freedom)
His idea was that some freedom should be there in order to ensure proper progress and restructuring is a basic requirement as entire system has become orthodox and unprogressive.
Prestroika was a kind of mark towards Market Socialism but it does not mean acceptance of capitalism, rather reconcile principle of socialism with dynamic of market capitalism.
- He eventually allowed the soviet enterprises to disengage themselves from planning system altogether and to become self-financing and self-managing units.
- It did not amount to re-introduction of capitalism because economic enterprises were all public. New thing was that these enterprises were not to operate according to central planning committee but within market environment shaped by competition, profits and incentives.
Situation in USSR was so bad and the freedom granted under Glasnost giving rise to pentup emotions, aspirations (which were long suppressed), demand by the people rose even higher. Gorbachev failed to manage the reforms effectively and several kinds of reactions emerged:
- From orthodox elements of the party who were anti-reform.
- From progressive/ radical elements of the party whose leader was Boris Yeltsin. They wanted even more reform.
- From people, who were demanding immediate good results.
- The bureaucracy, fearing the loss of its power and privileges, obstructed much of the program.
- From republics of USSR, who wanted more autonomy.
The problem was that wages were now dependent on output, but since output was measured by its value in roubles, factories were tempted not to increase overall output, but to concentrate on more expensive goods and reduce output of cheaper goods. Basic consumable goods were in very short supply, and the queues in the towns got longer.
Disillusion with Gorbachev and his reforms rapidly set in, and, having had their expectations raised by his promises, people became outraged at the shortages. Public support lost soon as they did not see any immediate benefit.
Gorbachev eventually became victim of all these reactions and there was coup in Auguat 1991 by the hardliners /orthodox against Gorbachev but this coup was failed by Boris Yeltsin. Roughly during the same time the republics began to declare independence and the process of disintegration set-in starting with Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc. Finally, Gorbachev resigned as president of USSR in December 1991 and with this there was a formal end of USSR.
Gorbachev’s reforms did more to hasten the fall of the Soviet Union than they did to save it. By loosening controls over the people and making reforms to the political and economic elites, the Soviet government appeared weak and vulnerable to the Soviet people. They used their newfound powers to organize and critique the government, and in 1991, they successfully ended Soviet rule.

Nationalist pressures

The fall of the Soviet Union can also be linked to the structure of the nation itself.
- The Soviet Union was a federal state composed of 15 radically different republics.
- Across the nation there were dozens of ethnicity, languages, and cultures, many of which were incompatible with each other.
- Bullying of ethnic minorities by the Russian majority created tensions along the outlying provinces, especially those in continental Europe.
USSR as a communist system of governance not only established secular norms and notions but it also banned the religious practices.
- Religious feeling in many parts of USSR were still strong.
- People in USSR had nostalgia for the art and architecture of the period of medieval period.
- They had accepted the values established by the communist order, but there were people who were proud of the old glory and had different view prints on issues related with Russian history and culture.
The republics had been kept under tight control since Stalin’s time, but glasnost and perestroika encouraged them to hope for more powers for their parliaments and more independence from Moscow.
Gorbachev himself seemed sympathetic, provided that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) remained in overall control. However, once started, demands got out of hand.

East Europe breaks away (Revolutions of 1989)

It became apparent to the Soviets that oil and gas subsidies, along with the cost of maintaining massive troops levels, represented a substantial economic drain.
In addition, the security advantage of a buffer zone was recognized as irrelevant and the Soviets officially declared that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states in Central and Eastern Europe.
In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the Communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power.
Grass roots organizations, such as Poland’s Solidarity movement, rapidly gained ground with strong popular bases.
The Revolutions of 1989 were part of a revolutionary wave that resulted in the Fall of Communism in the Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe.
- The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.
- One feature common to most of these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to the pressure for change.

Unification of Germany

Hungary physically dismantled its section of the Iron Curtain leading to a mass exodus of East Germans through Hungary and destabilizing East Germany.
This would lead to mass demonstrations in cities such as Leipzig and subsequently to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990.
Gorbachev dropped his objections to a unified Germany within in return for sizable West German financial aid to the Soviet Union as USSR’s economy was crippling.

Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in the Soviet Union.
The Chernobyl disaster was one of the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties.
Outrage over the catastrophe began to spread among even loyal citizens who had never questioned the infallibility of their government.
As Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, reflected years later, the meltdown, “even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.”
It was a catalyst for glasnost, the opening-up of the Soviet media, which exposed the flaws of the Soviet system and set off the chain reaction that led to its ultimate destruction.

Other Reasons

Absence of democratic base:
- Communist government had no democratic bases, it was not based on the support of masses.
Contact with West and support from the West:
- They were awakened to see high standard of living in the West and reacted. These reactions got the support from the West.
International economic scenario is equally important in this regard:
- After WTO’s convention and the process of globalization and privatization facing international challenges became difficult for the communist economy of USSR.
- With the evolution of new world order and process of democratization also changes had become inevitable in USSR.

Who was to blame for Cold War?

Historians have changed their views about who was to blame for the Cold War over the years:

Soviet historians

They blamed the United States.

The Traditionalists

All western writers before the 1970s, and many since, blamed the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its “attempt to impose its ideology on the rest of the world”.

The Revisionists

In 1959 the historian William Appleman Williams was the first to suggest that America was to blame.
The Revisionists said America was engaged in a war to keep countries open to capitalism and American trade.
Revisionists said that Truman’s use of the atomic bomb without telling Stalin was the start of the Cold War.

The Post-Revisionists

John Lewis Gaddis first published this idea in 1972.
The post-revisionists argued that neither Russia or America was to blame, but that the Cold War was the result of misunderstandings on both sides, and the failure to appreciate each other’s fears.

After the collapse of Communism

Russian historians such as Zubok and Pleshakov have been able to study the Soviet Union’s secret files for the first time.
These files show that Soviet leaders during the Cold War were genuinely trying to avoid conflict with the USA. This puts more of the blame back on America.
Modern historians stress the Cold War as a clash between capitalism and communism.