91�ȱ�

The decline of communism was not a result of American policies and the Cold War, but more to do with the problems faced by the USSR at home and abroad.

In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as leader of the USSR.

He was one of a new generation of well-educated communists who were too young to remember the grim pre-war years under Stalin.

Gorbachev recognised many of the key problems in the USSR and he was determined to introduce reforms.

In 1985, Gorbachev tried to reform the USSR by introducing two new policies, Glasnost and Perestroika.

Furthermore, Gorbachev also ended the Brezhnev Doctrine – telling the Eastern bloc states in March 1989 that the Soviet Army would no longer support them.

He realised that the USSR could not afford the arms race with the US anymore and instead opened the START 1 (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) with the USA.

He also signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987 which called for all short and medium-range nuclear weapons to be dismantled, and pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States.

He was a committed anti-communist who referred to the Soviet Union as ‘that evil empire'.

He actively began a new Cold War; doubling US defence spending, deploying cruise missiles in Europe and developing the neutron bomb.

In 1983, work started on the Strategic Defence Initiative (known as "Star Wars") which was a plan for destroying Soviet missiles in flight by firing lasers at them from space.

However, in reaction to Gorbachev’s actions, Reagan soon moved to a position of negotiation with the USSR and engaged in Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START 1) with them.

In 1987, the two superpowers signed a deal to limit the production of intermediate range nuclear missiles.

Gorbachev hoped that his reforms would ‘save’ the USSR and keep the ruling Communist Party in power.

Instead, they unleashed a flood of unrest and a desire for change in Eastern Europe.

Like the domino theory in reverse, country after country in Eastern Europe secured their independence from the USSR.

The most dramatic event during this period for people in the West was the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was the symbol of the ‘Iron Curtain’ and a lasting reminder of the division of Germany and its importance in the Cold War.

The fall of the wall gave hope to others fighting to end communism and sped up the pace of change across Eastern Europe.

While the communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed, the Soviet Union did not intervene.

In 1990 and 1991, one by one the former Soviet Republics of the USSR (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Georgia) declared themselves independent.

Even Russia declared itself a republic in 1991, and elected Boris Yeltsin as its leader.

Gorbachev and Reagan had held a series of summit meetings which saw both sides agree to a reduction in weaponry.

This was contained in the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Soon after this, Gorbachev announced the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan and a huge reduction in the size of the Soviet armed forces.

Troops were also withdrawn from other 'Iron Curtain' countries.

US President George H W Bush met with Gorbachev in Malta in 1989 and both leaders declared the Cold War to be over.

In July 1991, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.