Download End of the Cold War - Scott County Schools

End of the Cold War
Arms Race Gets Crazy!
• US President Reagan increases funding
for arms (example: “Star Wars” missile
defense system)
• USSR, going broke, throws more $ into
nukes
• US & USSR arms build up again!
• USSR economically, begins to unravel
– Could not sustain weapons build up AND
make consumer goods (centrally planned
economy= communism)
1985 - Gorbachev
comes to power
• Gorbachev ushered in an era of reform
(change).
• Once the door to criticism was cracked
open, it couldn’t be cut off again
– Glasnost (openness)
• allowed greater free expression and criticism of
Soviet policies
Perestroika (restructuring)
• Economic reforms (more market based – could
suggest improvements, etc.)
• Gorbachev's reforms led many Soviet
citizens to demand more freedoms and an
immediate move to capitalism.
• Throughout the late 80's Eastern
European nations had movements against
the Communist governments. The Soviet
Union did not stop them.
Velvet
Revolution 1989
Czechoslovakia
• Gorbachev and President
George H. Bush held a summit
meeting at Malta
and negotiated important
reductions in intermediate range
Nuclear weapons
*Late in 1991 there was a coup
in the Soviet Union. Hardcore
communist Soviet leaders held
Gorbachev hostage.
• Parliament elects Yeltsin President.
• Gorbachev resigns as President of the
USSR, a country that ceased to exist.
74 years
• 1917, a successful coup
toppled Czar Nicholas II and
established a communist Russia
(U.S.S.R).
• 1991, the communist party
collapsed due to a failed
coup.
1989 - Berlin Wall falls
• The Berlin Wall came down signaling the
end of the Cold War.
• Hungary opened its border with Austria,
allowing East Germans to flee to the
West.
• Massive public demonstrations; East
Germany and Eastern Europe;
• The Berlin Wall fell on November 9.
End of the USSR
• Various Soviet republics protested to
be free of the system
• The Soviet and home nations’ armies
were unwilling to fire upon citizens any
longer
• The power of the Soviet political elites
crumbled.
• 1992 – USSR officially ceases to exist.
The forty years of the Cold War were
costly in resources.
We spent 3.5 trillion,
and for what?
We spent 5.5 trillion
dollars on nuclear
arms, and we won!
How much
is a trillion
dollars?
George H.W. Bush
Michail Gorbachev
A trillion dollars is enough to give each
family in the U.S. $100,000.