Which soviet leader ended the cold war

First, for several years the Soviet economy had faced stagnation. Citizens found employment in one of the , construction projects, far more than was needed, but reducing that number by two-thirds presented a real danger of mass unemployment.

The ruble had only paper value, with Soviet citizens holding overall billion rubles, but they had nothing to spend it on; store shelves carried few consumer goods. By December , citizens were roiling with discontent. Coal miners in the Arctic Circle struck for better living conditions, including soap and potatoes. Other miners followed suit in separate incidents. Land privatization was postponed and the budget deficit grew exponentially. Second, the Soviets had always feared the superiority of U.

Soviet revenues devoted to defense would have to increase, further depriving ordinary citizens of revenues for medical research, infrastructure, and consumer goods. Complaints from ordinary citizens soared. Third, nationalism in Eastern Europe and the USSR itself had become more pronounced as the dream of a classless communist society became illusory.

Among the peoples of both regions, there arose a gradual loss of ideological self-confidence. In its place, national pride against an externally imposed Soviet system had goaded the citizens of Poland and the Baltics to seek self-determination.

As a result, he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the world. This policy, particularly as it was applied in the developing world in places like Grenada and El Salvador, was known as the Reagan Doctrine. Soviet influence in Eastern Europe waned. In , every other communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

The Cold War was over. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. On December 25, , the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. Since its start a century ago, Communism, a political and economic ideology that calls for a classless, government-controlled society in which everything is shared equally, has seen a series of surges—and declines.

What started in Russia, became a global revolution, taking Both socialism and communism are essentially economic philosophies advocating public rather than private ownership, especially of the means of production, distribution and exchange of goods i.

Both aim to fix the problems they see as created by a Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Married in , New York City residents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were devoted communists who allegedly headed a spy ring that passed military secrets to the Soviets.

The scheme got underway sometime after , when Julius became a civilian Communism as an ideology arose in the wake of the first Industrial Revolution when overworked, underpaid workers felt exploited and sought better representation in government. Pilot Charles Maultsby was supposed to use As the Cold War heated up in the s, the U.

Perestroika involved restructuring and modernizing the Soviet economy, reducing government control of industries and allowing some privatization. However, the rapid institution of both Glasnost and Perestroika was a bit of a shock to U. The Soviet Socialist Republics used their new freedom to feed growing independence movements. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuanian were the first to demand freedom in Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia quickly followed suit.

In , the Communist Party voted to end one-party rule, opening the government to direct political opposition, and the newly created legislative body, the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic voted to officially leave the Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPSU and declare Russian sovereignty.

In a final attempt at keeping the Soviet Union together, CPSU hardliners staged a coup in August , kidnapping Gorbachev and ordering the military to suppress all protests. When the military refused to violently engage with its own people, the coup failed. Russia replaced the now-irrelevant Soviet Union at the United Nations, and took over its seat on the Security Council.

The book adds new insights on Reagan's understanding of the Cold War and on his relations with Gorbachev, on his methods, and on what Reagan wanted to accomplish from some of his meetings with Gorbachev. Prior to the meeting in Geneva, Matlock told the audience, Reagan dictated to his secretary his goals.

At the end, he added that "whatever we accomplish, we must not call it victory, since [the Soviets] must understand they are doing this in their own interest," Matlock paraphrased the president. Other new evidence deals with the meeting in Reykjavik, which at the time was considered a failure, only to be better understood later. Gorbachev, for example, considered the meeting in Reykjavik the turning point in the relations with the US and his relations with Reagan.

Followed by Reagan's visit to Moscow, relations between the too leaders really took off. The Cold War really ended by December , Matlock suggested; what happened after that was "clean-up diplomacy.

Bush Administration deftly carried it out, but nevertheless, it was no longer Cold War diplomacy. Blanton suggested that the book shows once again that the end of the Cold War was in itself a miracle. Jack Matlock, Blanton said, combines the "supply and demand" historians depend on, that of documents and eyewitness; Reagan and Gorbachev is an example of just such work.

The book is a success in terms of creating an interactive history—bringing in his former interlocutors and taking them seriously, both then and now. Yet, ever the diplomat, Matlock was always too uncritical to some of his peers, Blanton told the audience. The reader, he concluded, is left wanting more of the inside details, of the conflicts and the turf-wars within the Administration. The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War.

Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies.