Key Terms
Glasnost was a policy, adopted by the Soviets, characterized by a more open-minded attitude of allowing Western ideals to be adopted into the USSR. Perestroika was a policy that allowed (limited) market incentives to the Soviet people. Gorbachev, already known in the USSR as a reformer, hoped that these two changes would help boost the economy in the Soviet Union. Key Figures
Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the USSR and with him came tremendous revolution. The Berlin Wall fell, and Western policies were brought into the USSR. Gorbachev enacted the glasnost and perestroika policies in an attempt to help Russia's slow economy. Soon after he took them away. But the people enjoyed the freedom they had gained under these policies. Spurred by a desire for this freedom of Gorbachev's glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) policies, the people led a rebellion. Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan was President of the United States of America during the end of the Cold War. Though Reagan initially had the United States creating weapons based in space to defend the US against the Soviet Union, he was also known for ending the Cold War and creating more positive relations with the USSR. Gorbachev and Reagan, together, helped to improve the US-USSR relationship. They agreed to reduce nuclear weapons with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. As the years passed, the Eastern Bloc (or coalition of communist countries connected with the USSR) began to crumble as well, without response from the Soviet Union. Even though countries such as Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were no longer electing communist leaders into government, the Soviet Union and Gorbachev did not react. States in the Soviet Union also gained their independence and by the 1990s, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Republic - finally and officially ending the Cold War.
Due to Gorbachev giving the people of the Soviet Union the opportunity to taste freedom with glasnost and perestroika, a Revolution was sparked and the Cold War was ended. |
Fall of Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, the Spokesperson for East Berlin stated that people were now allowed to cross between West and East Germany. East and West Germans began tearing down the Berlin Wall with pickaxes and celebrating the "opening of the gate." It became a time of great celebration in Germany. The country was reunited on October 3, 1990. |