Changes

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>

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>