Fall of the Soviet Union
The security mechanisms on which the Soviet regime relied to stay in power, the Party, the security forces, and the military, were weakened by glasnost and perestroika. Due to this and failure to use them when the Soviet regime was threatened, countries in the Soviet Bloc were allowed to remove their communist governments.
Mikhail Gorbachev (Referring to Glasnost). 2011. RT.
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Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987. Wikipedia.org.
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This begun June 1989 in Poland, where a non-communist government was elected. When Gorbachev did not send the military to interfere as expected, other Eastern European dictatorships fell. In November of the same year, the fall of the Berlin Wall began, continuing throughout the Soviet Bloc.
"If people want change, we have to accommodate their wishes rather than act in accordance with the wishes ...of the bureaucracy."
-Mikhail Gorbachev, Interview with PBS, April 23, 2001
This demand for freedom spread to the Soviet Union. Countries soon declared independence. While Gorbachev was strong enough of a leader to implement his policies, he failed as a leader in understanding that the Soviet Union's continued existence was based on fear and the threat of force. After a failed coup attempt, the Soviet Union itself collapsed December 1991. Gorbachev's influence on these events and his legacy are singular and monumental.