Two years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union buckled. The Communist party was broken because the Russian Republic hindered to eject Gorbachev from office. In December 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) included Russian Republics. “The Russian Republic assumed leadership of the CIS, but the Soviet Union was no more.” The Cold War was a long drawn out battle between Democracy and Communism. The United States believed that a country should have the ability to choose its government; not be feared of it.
(1992). A History of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. London: Fontana Press. • Bottomore, Tom. (1991).
The division of Germany into four regions of interest and also the division of Berlin resulted in an attempt by Stalin to make the Western Allies relinquish control of their sectors. This materialized in the form of the Berlin Blockade in 1848 that resulted in the Allied Berlin Airlift which supplied West Berlin for an amazing ten months solely by plane. Although Stalin relented, he felt resentment toward the Westerners. This accelerated the formation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1949 which resulted in a Soviet counterpart called the Warsaw Pact. The promises on the part of reunification of Germany and free elections in Poland had not materialized by the time of his death in
It it over-simplistic to state that opposition was successful or unsuccessful in Russia from 1855 and 1964. The effectiveness of opposition in Russia had to be evaluated according to the regime in power. For example, the opposition to Tsarism under Alexander II was unsuccessful as his assassination led to reactionary Tsarist rule for thirty six more years. However, the opposition under Nicholas II’s rule was highly successful, helping to lead to a communist government. All Russian governments in this period faced strong opposition to their regime with the period as a whole punctuated by riots, disturbances and revolutions.
Since he missed the meeting he didn’t know the details of the proposal and only read the note that he was given. In the meeting they agreed that the proposal was to start the following day on November 10th but he said that it was to start immediately on November 9th and therefore all the East rushed toward the borders to go through. So that very night, the most potent symbol of the cold war division of Europe, the Berlin Wall came down. Thousands of Eastern Germans streamed into the west and people, along with the Berlin Wall guards, began to tear it down. On December 21st, 1989 there was a crane that started removing a section of the Berlin Wall near Brandenburg gate.
The Soviets cut off the western side of Berlin and prevented the Americans, British and French from accessing the city. It made the dispute between them public and was the first military confrontation of the USSR towards America. The western part of Germany had to supply West Berlin from the air for around a year, causing Russia to eventually give up. This was a triumph for the USA and the rest of Western Europe as they managed to outwit the Soviets, and due to their peaceful defeat the USSR looked increasingly aggressive. However this made Stalin and the Soviet Union despise the capitalist Europe even more.
Germany thought that Russia would take six weeks to mobilize but they were stunned because Russia only took ten days to mobilize and this was a big problem for Germany. Then, by the time the German army reached the France-Belgium border, the British army had arrived and blocked their advance into France easily. Also, while this was happening in the north in Belgium, the German army had taken over Alsace, but were again stopped by the French at the Battle of the Marne. This battle was another reason of why a stalemate took place. Neither side could encircle each other, to entrap each other's armies.
Then the Provisional Government, having only held power for a matter of months, was swept aside by the Bolsheviks, again as a direct consequence of the Provisional Government’s precarious and undefined stance over the escalating crisis of the First World War, as well as the skilled way in which the Bolsheviks harnessed this frustration to gain support from naval bases and ultimately seize power. Arguably Khrushchev’s ousting from power also came as a result of the Cold War through the unpopularity he gained following his backing down over the Cuban Missile Crisis and unsatisfactory living standards due
To what extent was the deterioration in Sino-soviet relations in the years 1958-69 due to personal rivalries? Tensions between China and Russia had long existed but the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China had produced a profound shift in the dynamics of the cold war. From a position of greatly strengthening the power and position of the communist bloc in the period from 1949 to 1956, China had by 1972, split irrevocably with the USSR and brought about a rapprochement with its former enemy the USA. Although this change seemed on the face of it to be a dramatic turn, it was largely the result of continuity in Chinese foreign policy; the desire to protect Chinese national security against foreign powers. The change in Chinese policy was to shatter the perception of a bipolar world that existed since the beginning of the cold war.
In 1985, Mikhael Gorbachev came to power, and claimed to have a different view on communism (Smitha, The Soviet Union). Gorbachev knew the country needed fundamental reform, because it has not shown positive growth for nearly a decade (Smitha, The Soviet Union). He introduced Perestroika, to restructure the economy (Smitha, The Soviet Union).