The Sudden Revolution: The Emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the End of the Cold War E-Book

Robinson Roxanne

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The Cold War defined the latter half of the 20th century, and at its center stood two superpowers locked in an ideological battle for global dominance. Yet, in an unexpected turn of events, the seemingly indestructible Soviet Union crumbled from within, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of a decades-long standoff.

This book delves deep into this dramatic shift in world history, exploring how one man—Mikhail Gorbachev—ushered in a new era that shaped the global order.
 
In this meticulously researched book, Robinson takes readers through the critical events that unraveled the Iron Curtain, exploring Gorbachev’s rise to power, his bold reform policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, and his diplomatic efforts with world leaders like Ronald Reagan. This book provides a riveting narrative of how cracks began to form in the Soviet Bloc, leading to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall—a symbol of division that, for nearly 30 years, split not only a city but the world.
 
Key events such as the nuclear arms race, proxy wars, and the growing dissent within the Soviet Union are brought into sharp focus, offering readers a comprehensive understanding of the Cold War’s most crucial moments. Additionally, the book captures the global reaction to these earth-shattering changes, from scenes of jubilation in Berlin to the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe, and the eventual dissolution of the USSR itself.
 
Perfect for history enthusiasts, students, and anyone fascinated by the intersection of politics, diplomacy, and human perseverance, the book provides fresh insights into the end of the Cold War and the legacy of Gorbachev—a man whose vision changed the course of history.
 
Discover the events that tore down walls, ended an era of conflict, and shaped the world we live in today.

Leseprobe

The Sudden Revolution: The Emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the End of the Cold War

ROXANNE ROBINSON

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © ROXANNE ROBINSON, 2024.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: COLD WAR'S CHILL: TENSIONS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II

The Nuclear Superpowers

Political Divisions and Proxy Conflicts

The Korean War: The Cold War's Initial Front

CHAPTER 2: MIKHAIL GORBACHEV'S ASCENT: A NOVEL PERSPECTIVE

The Reformist Ideals

Perestroika and Glasnost Ideals

CHAPTER 3: THE SOVIET BLOC'S DECLINE

The Eastern Bloc's Economic Collapse

Religion and National Identity in the Society

CHAPTER 4: THE BERLIN WALL: A DIVIDED SYMBOL

Two Societies, One City: West Berlin vs. East Berlin

The Wall as a Universal Icon

CHAPTER 5: THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION UNDER GORBACHEV

Afghanistan Withdrawal

Eastern Europe's Recession of Soviet Dominance

CHAPTER 6: THE BERLIN WALL'S FALL: EAST GERMANY'S GROWING DISSENT

Events that Led to the Fall of Berlin Wall

International Responses

CHAPTER 7: THE SOVIET UNION'S COLLAPSE: THE REPUBLICS' NATIONALISM

The Soviet Union's Collapse: The Putsch of 1991

The Collapse of the Soviet Union: The End of the USSR

CHAPTER 8: GORBACHEV'S LEGACY AND THE END OF COLD

The New Europe at the End of the Cold War

The End of the Cold War and Its Global Repercussions

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The US and the USSR were the two superpowers that fought the Cold War. The war was triggered by a competition for military, political, and ideological supremacy by these superpowers that kept the world on the verge of nuclear war for more than 40 years. As a result of this international conflict, millions of people were impacted by proxy wars, economic sanctions, and repressive regimes that emerged behind the rhetoric and threats of mutually assured destruction. But few could have imagined that the ideological conflict that had defined a generation and the iron grip of Soviet control over Eastern Europe would come to an abrupt and unexpected end.

A thawing of Cold War tensions, which many had considered impossible, actually happened by the end of the 1980s. The Berlin Wall, the most powerful representation of the division between the East and the West, came down. After a prolonged period of dominance over half of Europe, the Soviet Union collapsed. Before rising to prominence in international politics in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was a relatively unknown figure; he was the mastermind behind these enormous transformations.

Through his policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), Gorbachev launched a series of reforms that drastically changed not only the Soviet Union but also the global environment in a matter of short years. By tearing down the inflexible framework that characterized the Soviet system, he initiated a series of actions that ultimately led to the collapse of the Cold War hierarchy.

A World in Transition

The Soviet Union was in a state of stagnation by the early 1980s. Due to corruption and inefficiency, its command economy, which had been essential to its ascent to prominence in the world economy, was collapsing. Breadlines extended to all of the main cities, the military-industrial complex devoured enormous resources, and the people of the Soviet Union became more and more disenchanted with their leadership. Both sides had suffered from the actual Cold War. National budgets were depleted by the arms race, and proxy wars like those in Afghanistan and Angola incurred high financial and human costs.

In the meantime, the US and Western Europe intensified their efforts to undermine the Soviet system under the direction of President Ronald Reagan. Reagan's policies, which focused on escalating military power, imposing economic sanctions, and using strong anti-communist rhetoric, increased the strain on the already fragile Soviet economy. Simultaneously, nationalist movements, religious authorities, and intellectuals who questioned the legitimacy of their Soviet-installed regimes distorted a growing wave of dissent throughout Eastern Europe.

The time for change was right. However, few could have predicted that the Soviet leadership itself would be the source of this change. Gorbachev took over as the Communist Party's General Secretary in 1985 after the nation had been led by a string of elderly, sickly leaders who gave little prospect for change. Gorbachev, on the other hand, was a young, vibrant man who recognized the seriousness of the Soviet Union's situation.

Gorbachev's Bet: Internal Reform

The Soviet Union was not intended to be destroyed by Gorbachev's reforms. In actuality, he viewed himself as a socialist defender and worked to preserve the system by implementing drastic adjustments. His conviction in glasnost—openness in public discourse and government—reflected his wish to remove the shroud of secrecy that had long characterized Soviet governance. He aimed to increase public confidence in the government by granting more freedom of speech.

His economic restructuring program, known as Perestroika, was an attempt to solve the inefficiencies that had befallen the Soviet economy. Gorbachev aim was to preserve state control over important industries while introducing aspects of market economics into the Soviet system, thereby diminishing the importance of central planning. Despite their good intentions, these well-meaning reforms encountered opposition from influential interest groups that had profited from the previous system as well as from within the Soviet bureaucracy.

But Gorbachev faced more difficulties from its Eastern European satellite states than from within the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet Union had used military might and the threat of intervention to keep control of this area for many years. Following the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, the Brezhnev Doctrine was implemented, which stated that any attempt by Eastern European nations to deviate from the Soviet course would result in military intervention.

However, Gorbachev rejected this theory. Acknowledging that the Soviet Union could no longer sustain its hold on Eastern Europe, he backed reforms and let these nations follow their own interests. An important turning point came when he decided against using force to quell protests in Poland, Hungary, and East Germany. The Soviet Union would stop using force to impose its will on the countries of the Eastern Bloc.

The Berlin Wall's collapse

East Germany was the one place where Gorbachev's reforms were most noticeable. Since its construction in 1961, the Berlin Wall has come to represent the division of the Cold War-era world, not just Germany. East Germans had endured years of oppression at the hands of the Socialist Unity Party, which imposed stringent speech and movement restrictions. East Berlin withered while West Berlin thrived.

By 1989, reformers in East Germany had gained confidence from Gorbachev's non-interventionist policy. Thousands of people protested in Leipzig and other cities, demanding their right to travel and political freedom. Under internal and external pressure, the East German government made a crucial error. East Germans would be free to cross the border, a government official declared at a press conference that was not well-publicized on November 9, 1989. Thousands of people flocked to the Berlin Wall that evening, and the gates were thrown open with little opposition from border guards.

A pivotal moment in modern history was captured in the photos of East and West Berliners using their hands and hammers to tear down the Wall. The physical and ideological barriers dividing Europe had started to give way. In addition to being a victory for the German people, the fall of the Wall represented the larger collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe.

The Cold War's End

Gorbachev's reformist policies and his stance against using force to uphold Soviet hegemony hastened the end of the Cold War. Communist governments collapsed one after another throughout Eastern Europe. An era came to an end with the Solidarity movement in Poland, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and Hungary's nonviolent revolution. As sovereign states from the Baltics to Central Asia proclaimed their independence, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated by the end of 1991. In the end, Gorbachev, who had aimed to modernize the Soviet system, oversaw its disintegration.

However, Mikhail Gorbachev's legacy is nuanced. Some see him as the man who led the collapse of a world powerhouse, but others, especially in Russia, see him as a hero who brought freedom and peace to millions. Unquestionably, Gorbachev was crucial in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion without the devastating carnage that many had feared.

The tale of the unexpected revolution that erupted in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s is a monument to the strength of ideas, the bravery of common people, and the unexpected results of leadership.

CHAPTER 1: COLD WAR'S CHILL: TENSIONS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II

Between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cold War was a geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that started in the wake of World War II and lasted until the early 1990s. Despite the fact that there was never direct combat between the two superpowers, it was characterized by political unrest, military buildup, and a persistent fear of nuclear exchange. The origins of this conflict can be found in the closing years of World War II, when it became clear that a struggle between two opposing worldviews—Soviet communism, supported by the Soviet Union, and Western democracy and capitalism, led by the United States—would shape post-war Europe.

Europe was in ruins when World War II ended. Millions of people were left homeless, entire cities had collapsed into debris, and economies had been completely destroyed. The Allies, which included the US, the USSR, Great Britain, and France, had defeated Nazi Germany, but the harmony that had bound them together during the conflict soon broke down. The goals of the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences were to set the stage for the future and recovery of Europe. But these gatherings planted the seeds of discord that would characterize the Cold War.

What would happen to Germany and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe was the main point of contention. It was decided at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 that the US, the USSR, Britain, and France would each control four occupation zones within Germany. The capital, Berlin, which is located deep within the area of Germany under Soviet control, would likewise be divided into four zones. Though theoretically only temporary, this arrangement quickly evolved into a tangible, long-lasting representation of the expanding East-West divide.

Soviet authority was established over Eastern Europe, where the Soviet army had successfully advanced against Nazi Germany. The Soviet leader Stalin was adamant about installing pro-Soviet governments in the area, claiming that these nations were necessary as a buffer to keep future invasions of the Soviet Union at bay. This was seen by the West as the beginning of Soviet imperialism. Communist regimes with little room for democratic opposition were imposed in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1948. Stalin's secret police and armed forces put down political opposition in each of these countries, guaranteeing that the Soviet Union would continue to have a strong hold over the Eastern Bloc.

Delivered in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, Winston Churchill's renowned "Iron Curtain" speech crystallized what was already obvious: Europe had been divided into two blocs. "An iron curtain has descended across the continent, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic," declared Churchill. With the United States and its democratic values influencing it, Western Europe was on one side of the curtain, and Eastern Europe was on the other, where Moscow imposed communist governments.

The division of Europe would define the Cold War not only in terms of politics and territory but also in terms of ideology. The Western powers, especially the United States, grew more concerned about the spread of communism outside of the Eastern Bloc as Eastern Europe came to be a region under Soviet dominance.

East-West Ideological Disparities

The Cold War was primarily an ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. As a capitalist democracy, the United States supported free markets, political pluralism, and individual liberty. It saw communism as an intrinsically oppressive system that deprived people of their fundamental freedoms and rights in favor of a one-party government. Contrarily, the Soviet Union believed that its own system of centralized planning, one-party rule and state ownership of the means of production was a better way to structure society and guarantee social equality. It also considered capitalism to be exploitative and imperialist.

As both sides tried to export their systems to the rest of the world, the ideological divide between the East and the West grew more evident. The US sought to stop the spread of communism by advancing liberal democracy and capitalist markets, while the Soviet Union supported communist parties and attempted to incite communist revolutions throughout the world. As each side attempted to expand its influence globally, these opposing objectives resulted in a number of proxy wars, coups, and political interventions throughout the world, especially in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

When US President Harry Truman declared the Truman Doctrine in 1947, it signaled a sea change in the global ideological struggle. Truman said that the US would back "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures" in reaction to Soviet influence in Greece and Turkey. This marked the beginning of the U.S. policy of containment and was a clear indication that the country was ready to actively participate in keeping communism in check. The Marshall Plan, launched in 1948, further solidified this approach. By providing over $12 billion in aid to help rebuild war-torn Western Europe, the U.S. sought not only to restore the European economy but also to prevent these countries from falling under communist influence.

In response, the Soviet Union strengthened its hold on Eastern Europe and spread the myth that the US and its allies were globalists out to conquer the world. According to Soviet propaganda, the US is a global bully that uses its economic and military might to subjugate weaker countries. On the other hand, the Soviet model was portrayed as a symbol of global socialism that would free oppressed peoples everywhere.

In this sense, the Cold War assumed a moral dimension as both sides engaged in an ideological struggle over the future of humanity, each claiming to represent the forces of good. The conflict appeared existential to all parties due to the intensified rhetoric, raising the stakes and making it unlikely that any kind of compromise would be reached.

The Warsaw Pact and NATO Formation

Through military alliances, the division of Europe was formalized as tensions increased in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union had shown that it was prepared to use military force to further its objectives during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949, when it attempted to cut off access to West Berlin in an effort to drive the Allies out. In reaction, Western countries believed that in order to prevent Soviet aggression, they needed to forge a single military front.

NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was established in April 1949 by the United States, Canada, and ten countries in Western Europe. Providing collective security against the Soviet Union—that is, making sure that an attack on one member would be viewed as an attack on all—was NATO's main goal. Deterring Soviet expansion into Western Europe and shielding democratic states from communist influence were the explicit goals of the alliance.

The United States' foreign policy underwent a dramatic change with the founding of NATO. Traditionally, the United States has stayed out of alliances and stayed out of European conflicts. But this calculation was altered by the perceived Soviet threat. Now that it had made the decision to defend Western Europe, the United States began a long-term military presence on the continent.

As a direct result of seeing NATO as a threat to its security, the Soviet Union strengthened its hold on Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states—East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania—formed the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance, in 1955. In direct opposition to NATO, the Warsaw Pact established two militarily powerful European blocs that were both ready for potential conflict.

Europe was formally divided into two camps with the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Although the idea of collective defense served as the foundation for NATO, the Warsaw Pact gave the Soviet Union the ability to firmly establish its authority over its allies in Eastern Europe, guaranteeing their continued allegiance to Moscow. The tension between these alliances was further increased by their existence.

The two superpowers, resulting in an arms race and the political and military entrenchment of the Cold War.