Changes

==End of the Oil Crisis==

The United States also saw dramatic rise in GDP growth. The 1970s had multiple years where nominal growth was similar to the rise in inflation. A series of tax cuts and reductions in regulation coupled with low oil prices led to a sharp increase. In 1980 real GDP declined by 0.3%. By 1984, real GDP grew by a blistering 7.3%. Unemployment also fell sharply. As the U.S. economy roared, the Soviet command economy suffered mightily. The rigid form of state control led to a lack of consumer goods and public discontent.

==Contrasting Leadership==

In the United States, President Reagan polled as one of the more popular presidents of the 20th Century. He was already familiar to millions of Americans through his days as an actor and the governor of the nation's most populous state. Despite being the oldest elected President, Reagan remained in office for eight years, projecting an air of stability. Reagan's iconic speech at the Berlin Wall helped to galvanize opposition to Soviet power.

Things could not be more difficult for the Soviets. Longtime dictator Leonid Brezhnev had been in power since 1964 and had been a frequent foil for President Carter. By the time Reagan took office Brezhnev was 74 and in poor health. When Brezhnev died in 1982 we was promptly replaced by 68 year old Yuri Andropov, a former director of the KGB, who also died in February 1984. Andropov was replaced by 72 year old Konstantin Chernenko, who died in March 1985. Facing three successive deaths as the Soviet economy stalled, the Politburo chose 54 year old Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the first, and only leader of the Soviet Union that reached adulthood after the Second World War. Gorbachev's leadership was seen as more conciliatory and fostered new relations with the West. <ref>Gaddis, John Lewis. ''We now know: rethinking Cold War history.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pages 45-49.</ref>

==Foreign Policy==

For the Soviet Union there was one overhanging albatross: the war in Afghanistan. Brezhnev had invaded the country in 1979 and now the U.S.S.R. was mired in a tremendous struggle against varying tribes and foreign mujahadeen. The U.S. offered substantial military and financial assistance to the rebels, including the introduction of Stinger missiles, which destroyed Soviet dominance of the skies. The Soviets never exercised control over the entire country, instead having authority over the capital of Kabul and a corridor within the country. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is commonly referred to as its country's Vietnam War. After suffering about 15,000 dead, the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989.

==Glasnost, Perestroika, and the Wider World==

Gorbachev recognized much of the rot that threatened to undermine every aspect of Soviet society. He understood that the structure of the Soviet Union could not tolerate rapid, radical change and instead introduced a series of reforms meant to bring more liberty and growth to the U.S.S.R. Gorbachev introduced the glasnost policy, sometimes referred to as 'openness' in the West in 1986. These reforms did not completely open up Soviet society, but did reduce censorship and allow some criticism of the past. As Soviet citizens and intellectuals read a more accurate version of Soviet history, discontent would follow. Residents of the Soviet bloc would also read accurate government statistics and about the true standard of living in the West. Gorbachev also restructured the government of the Soviet Union, creating the position of President assume much of the power given to the General Secretary of the Communist Party. The most profound effects of this new policies would take place in Eastern Europe. The countries under Soviet domination now demanded more liberties.

==Instability and the Ultimate Fall==

The Soviet Union faced a series of internal and external challenges that it was unable to meet. Gorbachev's reforms had improved some conditions while giving enough of an opening for anti-Communist ideas to spread. Nationalist forces, some suppressed since the First World War began to break out. Violence in the Caucasus began as ethnic Armenians demanded the Azerbaijani-controlled territory Nagorno-Karabakh be united with the Soviet Republic of Armenia. Soviet power appeared on the wane everywhere-- Soviet forces were pulling out of Afghanistan after a decade of unsuccessful war, protests roiled Eastern Europe and the Baltic republics, and the Soviet economy continued to lag.<ref>Lebow, Richard Ned, and Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds. ''International relations theory and the end of the Cold War.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.</ref>

One by one nations of Eastern Europe began to remove themselves from the Soviet sphere of influence. Protests began across Poland, Hungary, and East Germany in the spring of 1989. After a declaration that East German citizens could visit West Germany unimpeded on November 9th the Berlin Wall was opened and travel between the two Germanies began. Germany would be reunited the next year. By the end of 1990 each of the former Soviet satellite states were against independent with democratically elected governments.

With the decline of the Soviet Union and fall of its imperial status in Eastern Europe, Communist Party hardliners determined that something had to be done. Led by Vice President Gennadi Yanayev the ringleaders launched a coup against Gorbachev while he was on vacation in August 1991. Massive public protests led by Yelstin helped to stall the effort. Gorbachev returned to Moscow and assumed control. However, his actual power was severely limited. The power of the Communist Party had essentially collapsed. Gorbachev resigned as Communist Party General Secretary later that month. As the Soviet Union appeared on the brink of collapse and with a multitude of the constituent republics either outright independent or with substantial autonomy, Gorbachev announced his resignation on December 25, 1991, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.<ref>Wohlforth, William C. "Realism and the End of the Cold War." ''International Security'' 19, no. 3 (1994): 91-129.</ref>

==Conclusion==

The fall of the Soviet Union had a multitude of effects on the wider world, including the democratization of almost all of Eastern Europe. Russia faced a turbulent 1990s with Yelstin as President. The country partially modernized and entered into a market economy, but much of the economy was instead taken over by oligarchs and the Russian mafia. Gorbachev and Reagan's actions helped bring an end to almost fifty years of hostilities in Europe and beyond and close out the Cold War.

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