Collapse of the Soviet Union

It’s 1985. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power. He faces big challenges. Some soviet-controlled regions are calling for major political change. Some want full independence.

What’s more, the Soviet Union is spending huge amounts on the military while the economy worsens. The country’s highly controlled communist economy cannot compete with capitalist countries in the West. Gorbachev creates a plan to modernise the Soviet Union’s political situation and to transform the struggling economy. He puts two major changes, or reforms, into motion. The first is to allow more transparency in the government and freedom of speech among the people.

Gorbachev calls this reform “openness” – in Russian, glasnost. Glasnost means that government officials are held accountable to the people for their actions. And for the first time, people in the Soviet Union are allowed to protest… and the media can cover these protests. Gorbachev’s other big reform is a restructuring of the country’s economy. He calls this reform “reconstruction” – or perestroika.

Under perestroika, Gorbachev loosens the tight control that the government has had on the economy. Private ownership of companies is allowed for the first time. Gorbachev hopes that having private companies that compete with each other will help the economy out of its slump. Besides glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev also hints at scaling back the Soviet Union’s military, including reducing its weapons. By doing so, he opens the way for disarmament agreements between the Soviet Union and its opponents in the long-running Cold War – the United States and NATO.

Gorbachev’s plans earn him popularity both at home and in the West. But things in the Soviet Union will get worse before they get better… With the new press freedom, people learn of the shocking abuses of their government going back decades. And with their new freedom of speech, people rise up against Soviet control. Gorbachev has already allowed several Central European countries to break away. Now the Baltic states demand their independence.

More states follow. The central government of the Soviet Union begins to feel the pressure. On top of this, the perestroika reforms worsen the economic situation. Years of tight government control over the economy have indeed caused problems, but the switch to an economy based on competition takes time to begin working. In the meantime, there are shortages of goods and long queues for food.

People across the Soviet Union grow more and more frustrated with Gorbachev. His communist government seems on the verge of collapse. Some strict – hardline – officials in the Communist Party decide to take action. In August 1991, they kidnap Gorbachev and announce to the world that he is too sick to govern. They will be taking over.

Many citizens protest. They may be dissatisfied with Gorbachev, but they do not want to go back to hardline communist rule. The officials call in the military to shut the protests down. However, the soldiers refuse to shoot or arrest their own people. Without military backing, the attempted takeover quickly fails.

Gorbachev returns to office – briefly. Over the following weeks and months, Soviet states begin to proclaim their independence. They form fifteen separate countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigns and a new president, Boris Yeltsin, takes over – not as leader of the Soviet Union, but of the smaller Russia. The Soviet Union is no more.

Since the end of World War II, fierce tensions have existed between the Soviet Union and the United States, along with their respective allies. Now, after 45 years, the Cold War is over.