Collapse of the USSR

JOSEFINA LEIRO, AGOSTINA IACOBACCIO, JULIAN DE LUCA, CLARA ILARI,

PALOMA GRIMALDI, GUADALUPE VARELA
Enter Mikhail Gorbachev

 Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985.

 His realist part knew the USSR was a terrible state. The economy
was weak since lots of money was spent on the arms race due
to the war in Afghanistan.
 His idealist part believed that the Communist rule should make
the life better for the people from the USSR.
 His optimist part was sure that a reformed Communist system of
government could give people pride in their country
Why did he try to change the Soviet Union?

 The Soviet leaders were ignoring the signals that things were going
wrong.
 Work standards were slipping and the attitude of the workers was
concerning.
 Alcoholism was reaching epidemic proportions in the USSR.
Moreover it reduced the life expectancy from 67 to 62.
 Alcoholism was one of the main reasons for the decline of the
Soviet industry.
 Soviet goods didn’t seem to work properly and the standards of
the building work declined.
 The economy was being run by remote bureaucrats.
Gorbachev’s reforms

He faced a great opposition from hardliners in his own government.

The two different ideas were the glasnost (openness) and
perestroika (restructuring).
 Glasnost: he called an open debate on government policy which
meant a huge radical change.
 In 1987, his perestroika program allowed market forces to be
introduced into the Soviet economy. In addition it was legal to buy
and sell for profit.
 He began to cut spending on defense and armament expenditure.
 The USSR and the USA signed a treaty to remove their missiles from
Europe.
 He withdrew the Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
 Rather than confrontation, international trust and co-operation was
talked about.
Gorbachev was popular but his policies were not successful.
After two years of perestroika, the economy could not be
modernised as quickly as people wanted.
By 1989, Soviet people, asked to entrust the aircraft to a pilot
who did not know where he was going. Gorbachev' s reforms
had released a pent-up lnging for freedom across all of the
Communist World,
In easter Europe, the leders of other countries in the Communis
block looked on in confussion. Twenty years earlier, the Soviets
had sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to crush the development
of the vary ideas that Gorbachev was now proposing.
In March 1989 Gorbachev made it clear to them that they
would no longer be propped up by the Red Army and that they
would have to listen to their peoples.
 The collapse of Communism in eastern Europe
June
May1989 In Poland, free elections are held for September
Hungarians begin the first time since the Second World
War,Solidarity wins almost all the Thousands of East
dismantling the Germans on holiday
barbed-wire fence seats it contests.Eastern Europe gets
its first non-Communist leader. in Hungrary and
between Hungary Czechoslovakia
and non-Commnuist The crack in the Soviet domination of refuse to go home.
Austria Eastern Europe begin to appear and They escape Through
the complete collapse of the Red Austria into West
Empire begins witg the people of Germany
East Germany.
October
There are enormous demonstrations in East Germans
cities when Gorbachev visits the country. He tells the
East German leader Erich Honecker to reform.
November Honecker orders tropos to fire on demonstrators but
they refuse.
Gorbachev makes it clear that Soviet tanks will nott
move in to “restore order”
 The collapse of Communism in eastern Europe

November November December

There are huges In Romania there is a short but very bloody
East Germans march
demonstrations in revolution that ends with the execution of
in their thousands to
Czecholosvakia. Communist discator Nicolae Ceausescu.
the cheackpoints at
The Czech The Communist Party in Hungrary renames
the Berlin Wall. The
governmenrt itself ther Socialist Party and
guardas throw down
opens its bordeers declares that free elections will be held in
trheir weapons and
with the West, and 1990. In Bulgaria, there are huge
join the crowds. The
allows the Demonstrations against The Communist
Berlin Wall is
formation of other government.
dismantled.
parties

March 1990
Latvia leads the
Baltic republics in
declaring
Independence
From the USSR
 Reunification of Germany

With Berlin Wall down, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl

proposed a Speedy reunification of Germany, which was accepted
by Germans in both countries.

Despite his idealism, Gorbachev was less enthusiastic. He expected

that a new united Germany would be more friendly to the West than
to the East; but after many months of hard negotiations, Gorbachev
accepted German reunification and even accepted that the new
Germany would become a member of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization). This was no small thing for Gorbachev to accept as
he, like all Russians, lived with the memory that it was German
aggression in the Second World War that had cost the lives of millions
of Soviet citizens.
On 3 October 1990, Germany became a united country once again.
 The collapse of the USSR
1990:
MARCH: Gorbachev visited Lithuania; there his leaders told him
they were willing to become independent since they refused to
continue being part of the USSR. Gorbachev was against this,
however in March his leaders did it anyway. When he returned to
Moscow he received a similar demand from the Muslim Soviet
Republic of Azerbaijan. In order to stop this situation Gorbachev
sent troops to both places, but the crisis got worse.
MAY: Boris Yeltsin was elected as the president of the Russian
Republic. He suggested that the republics that made up the USSR
should become independent as he saw no future in the USSR.
JULY: Ukraine declared its independence, after this many
republics did the same. At the same time Gorbachev became an
international star by receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for
contributing in the ending of the Cold War.
The collapse of the USSR

1991:
APRIL: The Republic of Georgia declared its independence.
AUGUST: The USSR started to disintegrate and Gorbachev
struggled to maintain the Communist Party‘s domination of the
government. Gorbachev’s prime minister, Pavlov, and the head of
the armed forces, Dimitry Yazov, as long with other military officers
strived a coup to take over the USSR. They held Gorbachev as a
prisoner and sent troops to Moscow. However an opposition group
lead by Boris Yeltsin emerged. Due to the resistance the
conspirators lost their faith and the coup collapsed, Gorbachev
returned to Moscow.
DECEMBER: Though Gorbachev resisted the coup it was time for
him to admit the USSR was finished as well as him. On December
25, 1991, he announced through a televised speech the end of
the Soviet Union.