The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Disintegration of the Soviet Union

The December of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Union—and with it, an entire era. Like the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in rapid succession, with both spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, there existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been proven ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative

Mikhail Gorbachev has greatly contributed to the collapse of the USSR that has consequently leaded to the end of the cold war. He came to power in 1985 as the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and resigned in 1991 as the president of the Soviet Union ending the existence of USSR. During this time, Gorbachev’s actions such as the creation of “perestroika” and “glasnost” policy, the ending of the Afghanistan war, the agreement of reunification of Germany and finally the contribution to the Malta summit were very significant and brought the cold war to it’s end and USSR towards it’s collapse.

Moreover, while things were getting out of control in the Soviet Union, one nation that can illustrate how the Soviet Union finally collapsed is Russia. Things were like as it is when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power following the death of Konstantin Cherenko in 1985. Gorbachev used the policy of Glasnot, or “openness to freedom of

Communism is a system of social organisation which formerly consumed almost a third of countries in the entire world, having originated in Russia. The first official communist state was founded during the Russian revolutions in 1917, due to the inaugural communist political party ‘Bolsheviks’ gaining primal power. Afterwards, the influence of communism spread to other countries with the likes of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and East Germany to name a few. These countries that were governed on communist principles were known as the ‘Eastern Bloc’. Even countries in Asia were persuaded into the theoretically human equality system such as China, Laos and Vietnam. Communism was gathering strength to strength every year in the mid 20th century, but eventually its impact was wiped off in the late 20th century when the Berlin War was knocked down in 1989, ending the barrier between the Eastern and Western blocs. Communism arguably was the most influential social experiment in history, but also the most flawed and its failure to change the world permanently will always remain significant in history.

The Cold War is over, but the influence of the Soviet Union is not. The Soviet Union grew out of the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War in 1917. Eight leaders and 74 years later the Soviet Union fell in 1991. The story of those 74 years leaves much to tell. However, three areas are most necessary to understand: its cultural achievements, its military strength, and its political oppression.

The Berlin Wall is a historical symbol of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall is a symbol of the end of the Cold War. And also, the Berlin Wall played a great role in the life of millions of people and defined the fate of German people, which put them apart by the Wall for a long period of time. Sixteen years after the end of World War II, the communist government of East Germany began building a wall on (August 13, 1961), that would divide the city of Berlin into East Berlin and West Berlin. The purpose was to keep fascists from entering East Germany, but mostly to keep West German citizens, primarily people of valuable professions such as doctors, teachers and engineers, from Changing side to the West. People of Berlin Called the wall Schandmaur, which actually means " The wall of shame". Over the years of the wall being constructed it took at least 3x times to rebuild it, but each time bigger than the last one.

Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the disintegration of a country based on an uncompromising ideological dogma, the unlikely inheritor of Marxist/Leninist communist philosophy. The Soviet Union’s unwieldy economic superstructure left it vulnerable to Ronald Reagan’s aggressive economic/military policy, an approach based on the belief that a military build-up would force the Soviets to spend to keep pace, an effective strategy because it pushed the Soviet economy over the edge into ruin. The subsequent implosion ended communist domination in Eastern Europe and opened the way for democratic elements that radically altered the political landscape in Moscow. When the Soviet Union officially came to an end in 1993, it briefly recalled the end of tsarist rule in 1917, with the potential for the kind of chaos and violence that turned the Russian Revolution into a bloodbath. President Boris Yeltsin used the military to disband parliament but his call for new elections moved the country toward a more open, democratic form of government. Lacking any real background in representative government, Russia ultimately proved incapable of fulfilling the promise of democratic government and descended into a form of anarchy riddled by increasingly strong criminal elements. In recent years, the rise of Boris Putin, a new strongman in Moscow, helped restore a sense of order and allowed the resurgence of communist elements. The government that now holds power, and which

The Berlin Wall was built on August 13, 1961. It was built because millions of East Germans were defecting to the West via West Berlin. In the documentary it was said that before the wall was built one person every three minutes was defecting to the West. This was threatening East Germanys labor force and its economic survival. The GDR said the official reason for the wall was to keep out anti-socialist influences.

In December of 1991, the world was shocked, of once seeing a super power that was dominating the world beside the United State of America. Moreover, The Soviet Union sudden collapse, which was composed of fifteen countries, exposed the downfall of the political and economic rule of Communism, which was put in place by the Bolshevik revolution in November of 1917. Many westerners predicted and or were happy that the Communistic ruled country finally saw it’s ending, which left only one dominate nation, United State of America. The arms race with the USA seemed to be too much for the USSR, as their economy fell into turmoil. A strong power in the world always needs a strong economy, however Gorbachev changed a strong economy into a staggering economy about to collapse. Another reason why westerners could see the collapse of the Soviet Union in the near future was because of the external factors that played in, for example the Reagan administration, the Afghanistan crisis and the revolutions that took place in 1989. Additionally, the internal factors which were the corruption inside the Soviet Union government as well as the attempted Coup d’état of 1991. All these reasons played a major role in the shocking but relieving collapse of the Soviet Union. Ardent yet inhuman, Gorbachev efforts of reforming the communistic government seemed promising at first, but a streamline of events led to the uneventful collapse of the Soviet Union.

he Berlin Wall was not only a physical divide between the Soviets and the Americans, but was also a cultural divide between communism and democracy. This split between ideologies, as well as numerous political squabbles, was the very definition of the Cold War itself. Ever since the end of World War II in Europe, a new battle had begun which would not be fought directly with bullets and tanks, but rather with ideas and words. However, there were some instances where it would almost seem that war would be impossible to avoid. With the signing of the Potsdam Agreement that split was even more transparent than it had been. Germany being divided into the four sections proved to be a much better alternative than fighting over control. Eventually, the Soviet government in Moscow, tired of having western influence in the middle of the East Germany, made several threats demanding that the Americans, British, and French leave

During the 1900 's, the Soviet Union proved to be one of the most powerful and ruthless empires in history. They had vast amount of land under their control, millions of people that came from different ethnicities, and was one of the worlds strongest military power. However, through the struggle for military power, economic factors, ethnic fragmentation it watched its mighty empire crumble, and many blamed its president, Mikhail Gorbachev and his incompetent decisions for it.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most influential events of the Cold War. After losing the election is 1945, Winston Churchill gave a very prophetic speech about the “Iron Curtain” forming in Germany. Sixteen years later, barbed wire stretched across Germany creating the beginning of the Berlin Wall. Later reinforced with concrete, the Berlin Wall’s purpose was to stop the migration of the East Germans to West Germany. The Berlin Wall also served as a symbol of the beginning of the Cold War.

In The Year That Changed The World tells the first hand experience of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The main factor in the collapse of the wall was the never ending fight of the individuals who had fallen under the communist state. Most of these individuals came together and fought in order to achieve their goal of a non-communist state and German unification. The Cold War was the conflict between the Eastern bloc (Communist) against the Western Bloc (Capitalist), the separation between them began to be known as the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Wall was physical representation of the war for most people, a city divided into two. This important part of history led to the beginning of the Cold War period and the end. The fall of the Berlin Wall made 1989 the year that changed the world. In The Year That Changed the World Meyer conveys that success is easily accomplished in cooperation rather than separation.

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

     What is Communism? Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. It also can be defined as a conceptualized system of government in which resources and production facilities are the property of the entire society rather than individuals. In a communist society, labor is shared equally as well, and the benefits of labor are distributed according to need (Communism.4all 1). No one person shall be ranked higher than another and there is to be one person in charge of the society in a communism government. There are still to this day many countries that fall under the rule of communism and the ways they were transformed under communist rule is quite interesting.