Collapse of Communism

• Soviets were spending 25% GNP on the arms race and Afghan War
• Soviet Industry was lazy and inefficient - No Stalin = No fear = not as much production
• Quantity and quality of the USSRs industrial output was falling
• Both outdated technology and carelessness increased pollotion levels
• Standard of living was appaling
• Food shortages and long queues for basic goods
• Gripped by defeatism
• Protest groups were supressed
• Alcoholism increased

Perestroika

• restructuring
• changing economic policies to allow more competition
• foreigners were given more freedom to be allowed in the Soviet economy
• soviet businesses were given freedom of where to be based/what to produce
• businesses had to pay for themselves through profit not government money

Glasnost

• openess
• restoring faith in government and ending corruption
• people shouldnt be punished for disagreeing with government policies
• open debate
• adopted with relations with the west

+ Cut back on global commitments and abandon the brezhnev doctrine by loosening soviet control over satellite states. He aimed to cut military spending and pull out of Afghanistan

November 1986 Geneva

• cut offensive weapons by 50%established personal rapport/ laid the foundations for the future

October 1986 Reykjavik

• G proposed phasing out nuclear weapons and offered a series of ever increasing concessions at the price of removing the American SDI programme. No agreement was reached USSR announced pulling out of Afghan 

December 1987 Washington

• The INF treaty was signed - scrapped all intermediate range ballistic missiles

May/June 1988 Moscow

• More complex INF details. In December they met in new york and announced further cuts in soviet arms

• Gorbachev was at height of popularity and awarded a nobel peace prize in 1989. G and George Bush announced end of Cold War.
• Many people once imprisoned  for disagreeing with communist policies were realeased and others were allowed to return from exile
• Hard line communists were horrified with the reforms. They saw it as strirring up trouble.
• They condemned him for excessively raising soviet peoples hope
• once he allowed freedom of speech, he could not censor the media
• many wanted to get rid of communism all together

• March 1989 G told communist leaders of the Eastern bloc that the Soviet Red Army would no longer protect them (soviet tanks wouldnt put down demonstrators)
• Poland - free elections june 1989. Lech Walesa become 1st non-communist leader since 1945
• East Germany -  November 1989 Berlin Wall pulled down. Unpopular leader Honeckers troops refused to fire demonstrators
• Czechoslovakia - November 1989 huge anti-communist demonstrations. Vaclav Havel (plawright) became leader and free elections in 1990
• Romania - short and bloody revoloution December 1989 communist dictator Ceausecu and wife were shot
• Bulgaria - communist leader resigned in november 1989 and free elections in 1990
• Baltic States - 1990, LIthuania, latvia, estonia declared themselves independant from the soviet union

• November 9th 1989, E German gov announced greater freedom of travel including crossing the border. Thousands of E Berliners flocked to the checkpoints and the borderguards let them pass and soon enough they were chipping away at it
• afghan become russias 'vietnam'
• russia couldnt afford arms race
• soviet economy was backwards causing increasing environmental problems
• many people were much poorer than the poorest people in the West
• Crime alcholism and drugs were out of control
• Soviet system = corrupt and out of date

• Many saw G as weak within the USSR. Promised reforms hadnt improved living standards and he appeared to have just accepted the collapse of soviet influence
• February 1990 - huge demonstration in Moscow against the communist system. The republics within the USSR demanded their freedom from the grip of the union
• New President of Russia Boris Yeltsin encouraged the process of breaking up the union.
• He disabandoned the communist party
• G resigned as soviet president as there was no longer a soviet state to control
• 1991 - W and E Berlin were reuninted and Germany became a single country
• Yugoslavia - Serbs refused to accept croatia as a leader and solvenia and croatia declared independance in 1991 (bloody civil war)
• The era of communism in eastern europe was over