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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Analyse the factors for the collapse of Soviet Communism and Soviet Union during 1985–1991.

  • UPSC 2004
  • Disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Rise of the Unipolar World

The years 1985–1991 witnessed two related but analytically separate collapses — the collapse of Soviet Communism as an ideological and political system, and the collapse of the Soviet Union as a territorial state — both set in motion by Mikhail Gorbachev's reform programme.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Inheritance Gorbachev Faced in 1985
  • Perestroika: Restructuring and Its Failure
  • Glasnost and the Collapse of Communist Legitimacy
  • From Ideological Collapse to Territorial Collapse: The Nationalities Question
  • The August 1991 Coup: The Hinge Event
  • Dissolution: The Belovezha Accords and Formal End
  • …and 2 more sections, with a conclusion

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