The Cold War defined the second half of 20th-century geopolitics. With two opposing ideologies it seemed destined to run and run. What contributed to the End of the Cold War? Let's look at the events and causes that resulted in a new post-Soviet era.
Date of the End of the Cold War
On 26th December 1991, flag bearers lowered the emblem of the Soviet Union in the Moscow skies. The three colours of the Russian Federation replaced it. What led to the downfall of this monolithic empire?
Let's examine a timeline of events before digesting how this fall came about.
End of Cold War: Timeline
The issues within the Soviet Union were present as far back as the 1970s, but it was during the 1980s that these accelerated and culminated in its demise. Here we chart the important events that contributed to its downfall and the end of the Cold War.
| Date | Event |
| Dec 1979 | Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan to the fury of United States President Jimmy Carter. |
| Aug 1980 | In Gdansk, Polish shipyard workers formed the Solidarity trade union, led by Lech Walesa. |
| Mar 1983 | New US President Ronald Reagan introduced the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) and plans for new modern nuclear weapons to combat Soviet aggression, known as 'Star Wars'. |
| Mar 1985 | Succeeding a series of hardline communists, Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet Premier. He quickly set about implementing 'openness' (glasnost) and 'restructuring' (perestroika). |
| Oct 1986 | At the Reykjavik Summit, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to remove all nuclear warheads from Europe, marking a significant step towards de-escalating the Arms Race. |
It was in 1989 when the end of the Cold War was truly in sight, given the mass revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe.
1989: Timeline
But what else contributed to the end of the Cold War?
| Month | Event |
| January | Under international pressure, Soviet troops fully withdrew from Afghanistan after a draining and fruitless military campaign. |
| June | Poland was the first state behind the Iron Curtain to topple their Soviet-backed communist regime and hold democratic elections. |
| September | Hungary followed Poland in declaring its independence from the Soviet Union. |
| November | Guards pulled down the Berlin Wall allowing for free movement between East and West Berlin and East and West Germany. Widespread migration occurred. |
| December | Revolutions in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania continued to undermine Soviet authority. |
The 'Iron Curtain' was a phrase made popular by Winston Churchill at the beginning of the Cold War to refer to the divide in Europe between the West and the Soviet-controlled East.
Post-1989
1989 led to the speeding up of the end of the Cold War, with the destruction of the weakened Soviet Union now imminent.
Sovereignty
The ability of a country to govern itself without outside influence.
In 1990, East and West Germany reunited. Boris Yeltsin replaced Mikhail Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union and Soviet republics began to declare their independence. Finally, on Boxing Day in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and with that, countries such as Ukraine and Lithuania gained their own sovereignty.
Fig. 1 - East German leader Erich Honecker was powerless to halt the fall of the Berlin Wall
Causes of the End of the Cold War
Now we have sketched an idea of the key events that contributed to the End of the Cold War, we can examine the key factors that led to the ending of the decades-long sparring between the two superpowers.
Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan
Until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, both nations had pursued the moderately successful Cold War policy of détente.
Brezhnev Doctrine
The foreign policy of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982) stated that he would intervene through military means if there was a threat to socialism near his borders.
Détente
A time during the Cold War during the 1970s when the United States and the USSR came to the negotiating table and attempted to reduce tensions. The crowning achievement of this period was the SALT I agreement.
However, the use of the Brezhnev Doctrine led to a breach of this newfound thaw and resulted in a furious President Carter. The campaign itself was equally as detrimental to the Soviet Cold War effort and could have acted as a harbinger for the future United States invasion.
Guerrilla warfare
Non-conventional warfare characterised by small-scale attacks and ambushes.
Despite initially installing a pro-Soviet leader, the USSR's troops were met with stiff resistance from Islamic groups known as the Mujahideen who received training from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Soviet Red Army and their allied Afghan Army found it difficult to combat these groups who used their knowledge of the mountainous terrain and guerrilla warfare to limit military progress.
Fig. 2 - Molvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, a prominent Afghan Mujahideen leader during the Soviet invasion
As the stalemate dragged on, it became increasingly unpopular with the Muslim populations in the Central Asian Soviet republics. On top of this, during the 1980s, Gorbachev came under pressure from Reagan and Bush to sign a peace treaty. They eventually withdrew in 1989, the year when everything truly unravelled. This failed invasion was emblematic of their dwindling power.
Crumbling Satellite States
Alongside the failed military campaign in Afghanistan, there were whispers of discontent in the USSR's satellite states during the early 1980s. These originated in Poland, grew into clamours as the decade wore on and became positively deafening by the end of 1989.
Solidarity
The Polish trade union Solidarity was formed in 1980 and mushroomed in membership and popularity quickly. Workers demanded better rights as the economic situation in Poland was dire (mirroring much of the Soviet bloc). The organisation proved such a threat that by 1982, the pro-Soviet Polish government had to act. They introduced martial law and outlawed Solidarity. Now the military was in control and all protests were illegal. Though this was effective for a time, unrest resurfaced once more in 1988 in the form of illegal strikes. A year later, in June 1989, democratic elections resulted in the first anti-communist government behind the Iron Curtain!
The progress of Solidarity was not the only catalyst that drove the power of the USSR to the brink. For much of the 1980s, the Berlin Wall was no longer effective after Ostpolitik and the cooling of tensions between East and West Germany. This meant that people were migrating from East to West. East German leader Erich Honecker's campaigns of repression and hysteria were beginning to fall on deaf ears. The population realised the opportunities that the west provided. East Germany, an extension of the Soviet arm, was also suffering from economic stagnation. Ultimately the Soviet system could not modernise and keep up an Arms Race with socialism and their economy slowed due to a lack of reforms from Brezhnev in the 1970s.
Once the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, a series of revolutions in other satellite states in December demonstrated the loss of Soviet power. Some of these were peaceful such as the 'Velvet Revolution' in Czechoslovakia. This was in stark contrast to the violent murder of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu!
Reagan: End of Cold War
Although the shortcomings of the Soviet Union and socialism, in the face of capitalism, contributed to the End of the Cold War, the role of the superpower leaders cannot be underestimated. Ronald Reagan, the American President from 1981 played a key role in exploiting the weakness of the Soviet regime and going on the offensive.
Reagan famously branded the Soviet Union an 'evil empire' in March 1983. During that speech, he unveiled the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), vowing to eliminate the Soviet threat in Europe. When the USSR leadership changed in 1985 with the entrance of a reformer after a chain of party loyalists (Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko), Reagan seized the opportunity.
Relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev
The reformer in question was Mikhail Gorbachev. British Prime Minister Margeret Thatcher met him in 1984 and already detected a seed change in the behaviour of a USSR leader to western nations. Once Reagan met Gorbachev they established a working diplomatic relationship. Gorbachev recognised the need for transparency with the west, allowing for the de-escalation of the Soviet-Afghani War. In addition, the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between the two leaders resulted in the elimination of nuclear weapons in Europe. It is arguable that Gorbachev played a bigger role at the end of the Cold War than Reagan. His willingness to engage with the west and refusal to clamp down on dissent in 1989 was of huge importance.
This excerpt from a recent article epitomises the duo's relationship:
At a White House meeting in 1987, Reagan remarked: “We have listened to the wisdom in an old Russian maxim. And I’m sure you’re familiar with it though my pronunciation may give you difficulty. The maxim is: Dovorey no provorey—trust, but verify.”
Gorbachev said: “You repeat that at every meeting.”
Reagan replied: “I like it.”1
- David Smith, 'Gorbachev and Reagan: the capitalist and communist who helped end the Cold War', 2022
Fig. 3 - Reagan (left) and Gorbachev in Red Square, Moscow
Perhaps the two leader's most telling contribution was Gorbachev's allowance of the Berlin Wall to fall, after Reagan's instruction.
Facts about the End of the Cold War
Given the length and breadth of the Cold War, almost all-encompassing in its global nature, here are some facts to put it into context.
Proxy war
Wars started by superpowers which they are not directly involved in, or is not fought on their soil.
- During the proxy wars of the Cold War, 11 million people lost their lives.
- There were more bombs dropped in the Vietnam War than in World War II. 3.5 million people lost their lives during this conflict.
- George Orwell coined the term Cold War in its early stages.
- Gorbachev believed that the Cold War result was a common victory for all, though it is often argued that the Soviet Union lost.
The effects of such a conflict are still reverberating around the world today. Now we will dig into them with a critical eye!
Effects of the Cold War
It may have ended more than 30 years ago, but the effects of the Cold War continue, and will do for many more decades. The world is now as polarised as ever, with Vladimir Putin's Russia and their 2022 'Special Operation' in Ukraine symptomatic of a 'New Cold War'. It signifies the requirement for an alternative to capitalism and communism according to Halliday,
The need for critical, radical and imaginative ideas, expressed in intelligent critique, and articulated by political parties and movements remains as necessary as ever.2
- Fred Halliday, 'Cold War: Lessons and Legacies', 2010
Time will tell if and when a new prevailing political philosophy will spread.
End of Cold War - Key takeaways
- A series of events during the 1980s contributed to the end of the Cold War.
- These included the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the crumbling satellite states and the role of Ronald Reagan.
- Reagan's Cold War tactics would only be effective when used in conjunction with Soviet reformer Mikhail Gorbachev.
- The Solidarity union in Poland helped trigger the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
- Finally, after the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet republics began to declare their independence. The Soviet Union ceased to exist on 26th December 1991.
References
- David Smith, 'Gorbachev and Reagan: the capitalist and communist who helped end the Cold War', The Guardian (31 Aug 2022).
- Fred Halliday, 'Cold War: Lessons and Legacies', Government and Opposition, Vol. 45, No. 1 (January 2010), pp. 1-28.
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