Fall of the Soviet Union - Cold War - HISTORY.com Fall of the Soviet Union Fall of the Soviet Union Author Fall of the Soviet Union URL A+E Networks Introduction On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. A few days earlier, representatives from 11 Soviet republics (Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) met in the Kazakh city of Alma-Ata and announced that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union. Instead, they declared they would establish a Commonwealth of Independent States. Because the three Baltic republics (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) had already declared their independence from the USSR, only one of its 15 republics, Georgia, remained. The once-mighty Soviet Union had fallen, largely due to the great number of radical reforms that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented during his six years as the leader of the USSR. However, Gorbachev was disappointed in the dissolution of his nation and resigned from his job on December 25.

It was a peaceful end to a long, terrifying and sometimes bloody epoch in world history. Google The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet State The Soviet state was born in 1917. That year, the revolutionary Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian czar and established a socialist state in the territory that had once belonged to the Russian empire. In 1922, Russia proper joined its far-flung republics in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The first leader of this Soviet state was the Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin . Did You Know? In 1988, Time magazine selected Mikhail Gorbachev to be its “Man of the Year” for his work toward ending the Cold War. The next year, it named him its “Man of the Decade.” In 1990, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Soviet Union was supposed to be “a society of true democracy,” but in many ways it was no less repressive than the czarist autocracy that preceded it. It was ruled by a single party–the Communist Party–that demanded the allegiance of every Russian citizen.

After 1924, when the dictator Joseph Stalin came to power, the state exercised totalitarian control over the economy, administering all industrial activity and establishing collective farms. It also controlled every aspect of political and social life. People who argued against Stalin’s policies were arrested and sent to labor camps or executed. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet leaders denounced his brutal policies but maintained the Community Party’s power. They focused in particular on the Cold War with Western powers, engaging in a costly and destructive “arms race” with the United States while exercising military force to suppress anticommunism and extend its hegemony in Eastern Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika In March 1985, a longtime Communist Party politician named Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the leadership of the USSR He inherited a stagnant economy and a political structure that made reform all but impossible. Gorbachev introduced two sets of policies that he hoped would help the USSR become a more prosperous, productive nation. The first of these was known as glasnost, or political openness. Glasnost eliminated traces of Stalinist repression, like the banning of books and the omnipresent secret police, and gave new freedoms to Soviet citizens.

Political prisoners were released. Newspapers could print criticisms of the government. For the first time, parties other than the Communist Party could participate in elections. The second set of reforms was known as perestroika, or economic restructuring. The best way to revive the Soviet economy, Gorbachev thought, was to loosen the government’s grip on it. He believed that private initiative would lead to innovation, so individuals and cooperatives were allowed to own businesses for the first time since the 1920s. Workers were given the right to strike for better wages and conditions. Gorbachev also encouraged foreign investment in Soviet enterprises. However, these reforms were slow to bear fruit. Perestroika had torpedoed the “command economy” that had kept the Soviet state afloat, but the market economy took time to mature. (In his farewell address, Gorbachev summed up the problem: “The old system collapsed before the new one had time to begin working.”) Rationing, shortages and endless queuing for scarce goods seemed to be the only results of Gorbachev’s policies. As a result, people grew more and more frustrated with his government.

The Revolutions of 1989 and the Fall of the Soviet Union Gorbachev believed that a better Soviet economy depended on better relationships with the rest of the world, especially the United States. Even as President Reagan called the USSR the “Evil Empire” and launched a massive military buildup, Gorbachev vowed to bow out of the arms race. He announced that he would withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, where they had been fighting a war since 1979, and he reduced the Soviet military presence in the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. This policy of nonintervention had important consequences for the Soviet Union–but first, it caused the Eastern European alliances to, as Gorbachev put it, “crumble like a dry saltine cracker in just a few months.” The first revolution of 1989 took place in Poland, where the non-Communist trade unionists in the Solidarity movement bargained with the Communist government for freer elections in which they enjoyed great success. This, in turn, sparked peaceful revolutions across Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall fell in November; that same month, the “velvet revolution” in Czechoslovakia overthrew that country’s Communist government.

(In December, however, violence reigned: A firing squad executed Romania’s Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu, and his wife.) This atmosphere of possibility soon enveloped the Soviet Union itself. Frustration with the bad economy combined with Gorbachev’s hands-off approach to Soviet satellites to inspire a series of independence movements in the republics on the USSR’s fringes. One by one, the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) declared their independence from Moscow. Then, in early December, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine broke away from the USSR and created the Commonwealth of Independent States. Weeks later, they were followed by eight of the nine remaining republics. ( Georgia joined two years later.) At last, the mighty Soviet Union had fallen. Tags BBC - History - World Wars: The Soviet Union's Last Stand The Soviet Union's Last Stand By Malcolm Brinkworth Last updated 2011-02-17 The events of August 1991 led to the Soviet Union, and President Gorbachev, being consigned to the history books. Malcolm Brinkworth explains what really happened during those final days.

On this page Print this page Emerging crisis Just over ten years ago the unthinkable happened. The Soviet Union - the world's first communist state - was consigned to the pages of history. Just a few months before, in August 1991, there had been an attempted coup and the world held its breath as tanks rolled onto the streets of Moscow. President Gorbachev was held a virtual prisoner by his own government. It seemed that the bad old days were back, with communist hard-liners in charge. So what drove Gorbachev's government to rebel against him, provoking a chain reaction of events which brought about the disintegration of one of the great forces of the 20th century? On the morning of 3 August 1991, President Gorbachev held his last Cabinet meeting before he went on holiday to his luxury villa in the Crimea. US President George Bush had just departed after another superpower summit and a new treaty with all the Soviet Union republics was in its last stages of negotiation. In the West, Gorbachev was a legendary figure, an icon of our times, who had reshaped the world order and who had ended the Cold War.

Under Gorbachev the threat of nuclear war had diminished, totalitarian control had been abandoned, a free press had been established together with elections and major economic reforms. He had won the Nobel Peace Prize and was viewed as one of the great leaders of modern times. In the West, Gorbachev was a legendary figure, an icon of our times... But inside the Soviet Union, the picture was very different. It was in crisis. Soviet troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan, from the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Wall had fallen and perestroika had not led to communism's reform but to its rejection across Eastern Europe. The economy was in a nosedive, there were food shortages, rising crime and a wave of populist nationalism swept the entire country. Boris Yeltsin had been elected as President of the Russian Republic and the challenge he provided to the old order was clear. He wanted Russia to be independent from the Soviet Union. Separatism now posed the most immediate threat. In fact the fate of the Soviet Union was in the balance.

Top New treaty unveiled Valentin Pavlov in the Supreme Soviet, 14 January 1991 © For many outside observers, the crisis in the Union stemmed directly from a lack of faith in communism as an ideology. Once there was no longer a historic battle between communism and capitalism, the ties that bound the Union together, with its 15 different republics, began to loosen. Communism had always overridden nationality but now, with many ceasing to be communists, there was an ideological vacuum: issues of nationality rose to the fore. At that last Cabinet meeting Gorbachev told his largely conservative Cabinet not to be overly concerned; he had the situation under control. If it worsened, he would be ready to take immediate action and implement secret plans for a state of emergency, drawn up some months before. Reassured, they all went on holiday. But two weeks later, according to them, they received the shock of their lives. On the morning of 15 August, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov received a revised text of Gorbachev's new Union treaty. This was to be a landmark agreement, involving the devolution of power, which would redefine the relationship with all the Soviet republics for the future.

According to Pavlov, the text had changed substantially to the one he had last seen and which the Supreme Soviet, the Union's highest law-making body, had approved. He called together his Cabinet colleagues, circulated the draft and, because the treaty would be signed in just a few days' time, he decided to leak it to the press. ...the ties that bound the Union together, with its 15 different republics, began to loosen. At the highest levels of the Soviet government there was turmoil. Most of the senior ministers and officials were traditional communists who believed in the Union and believed that the text spelt the death of the Union as they knew it. Instead of being the best solution to separatism, to them the treaty now seemed like a disaster. It seemed that the independence movement, championed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, had won. Their response was immediate. As Gorbachev had personally led these negotiations, some of which had taken place behind closed doors, they had to talk to him and get him to change his mind.

Top Meeting with Gorbachev The Kremlin and the Moskva River © Stunned, they all returned from holiday for a crisis meeting and resolved to send a delegation down to plead with Gorbachev to stop the treaty. Their trust in him had disappeared but he was still the President. This was their last chance, their last stand. In the Crimea, Gorbachev had already received his ministers' views on the treaty but had not replied. But when the delegation arrived with a representative from the Communist Party, the Army, industry and finally his own administration, Gorbachev was surprised. They hadn't told him they were coming. As General Medvedev, the head of Presidential Security, announced that they wanted to see him, Gorbachev picked up his phone. But the line was dead. In fact, every one of Gorbachev's phones inside his luxury villa had been cut off from the moment the delegation arrived. The results of their meeting have always been disputed. According to Gorbachev, the delegation demanded that he resign and transfer all his powers to Vice President Gennadi Yanaev, and that he told them to go to hell.

According to the delegation members, they asked him to return to Moscow, postpone the signing of the treaty and act resolutely to resolve the crisis by declaring a state of emergency. They claim that he refused to travel, blaming a bad back, but that he told them to act as they saw necessary. ...every one of Gorbachev's phones inside his luxury villa had been cut off... Whatever the truth of their conversation, Gorbachev remained at the villa and remained isolated without telephone communications for the next three days. They had effectively stopped Gorbachev from being President and from signing the Union treaty. The group returned to Moscow, knowing that they had taken an irretrievable step, and went to the Kremlin to meet other senior government officers. In a heated debate, they faced a stark choice. Valery Boldin, Gorbachev's Chief of Staff, was at the meeting in the Crimea and inside the Kremlin. 'For us it was the moment of truth. There had to be a point where we took responsibility and stopped merely reporting what was going on. Some were saying we don't need this - let Gorbachev sort it out for himself. We can just leave the stage. But others were saying that's cowardice.

Instead of doing all we could within our power, we would be rats leaving a sinking ship.' Top Political stand-off After a heated discussion the group decided not to resign. They decided to use Gorbachev's backache and his refusal to travel to Moscow as a way of justifying their actions. They persuaded a reluctant Yanaev to sign the state of emergency decree and told Prime Minister Pavlov to be ready to meet Boris Yeltsin and make him an extraordinary offer. According to Pavlov, they hoped to lure Yeltsin into co-operating with them by offering him not just the leadership of the Emergency committee but their backing to become leader of the Soviet Union. For reasons that are unclear, face-to-face negotiations with Yeltsin never occurred. Instead, at 6am on 19 August, a state of emergency was announced by sombre newsreaders. The tone was funereal, as was the rhetoric. The ballet Swan Lake replaced the normal programmes and tanks, troops and armoured cars poured into Moscow and other major cities, supposedly to 'protect and secure' government buildings against any unrest. The free press was shut down and the marks of a repressive regime were everywhere.

...tanks, troops and armoured cars poured into Moscow and other major cities... The committee had to hope that the rest of the population would agree to their strong-arm tactics. But with Yeltsin and his fellow Russian nationalists able to organise their opposition, they made full use of what media attention they could gather. For Yeltsin, this was an unconstitutional coup and he threatened any officials or army officers who carried out any of the Committee's orders with prosecution and the sack. But over the next few days the war of words became a war of nerves. Protestors took to the streets, confronting the troops, and the army was caught in the political stand-off. The Russian Republic's Parliament building, nicknamed the White House, became the centre of resistance. Fearing an attack, a human chain of protesters surrounded the building. They gambled on the fact that the troops would not open fire on their own people. Tension boiled over on the night of 20 August. There were rumours of an assault on the White House. Planned inside the KGB, Operation Thunder involved clearing the building of protesters and disarming many who now carried rifles and handguns.

But following a recce trip by the Head of the KGB's elite Alpha unit, General Karpukhin, the plan was abandoned. It was clear that the assault would result 'in many deaths and a sea of blood'. Karpukhin felt that 'it would have been inhuman of us to act in that way'. Top Yeltsin's challenge The next morning, the Soviet Union's Defence Minister, Marshall Yazov, gave the order for the troops and tanks to withdraw. Within 24 hours Gorbachev was back in Moscow and the Emergency Committee members and many other senior government and army officials had been arrested. But more significantly, the political balance of power in the Soviet Union had changed. Most of the rebels were Gorbachev's appointees; the Communist Party hierarchy had also tacitly approved of the committee's actions. With them and the party discredited, Yeltsin - widely perceived to be the hero of the hour, who had stood up to the old guard - was in the ascendancy and he wasted no time in showing Gorbachev the new political reality. Yeltsin's carefully calculated plan to humiliate Gorbachev was seen by the world.

Two days after his return to Moscow, Gorbachev went to the Russian Republic's Parliament for a joint session with Yeltsin. Expecting a sympathetic hearing about how he was held hostage, Gorbachev instead stood like a defendant in the dock with Yeltsin, the prosecutor, on the attack. Television cameras and MPs watched every move. Yeltsin's carefully calculated plan to humiliate Gorbachev was seen by the world. But the session went beyond personal politics. Unbeknown to Gorbachev, Yeltsin had prepared a decree banning the activities of the Communist Party on Russian soil and seizing all its assets. As his coup de grace, he announced and signed it; Gorbachev could only stammer his opposition. It was a direct challenge to Gorbachev as head of the Communist Party; a party that Gorbachev still believed could be reformed. However, by banning the Communist Party in Russia, Yeltsin had made it powerless across the Union overnight. Yeltsin's message was clear - power had moved from Gorbachev to him, from the Soviet Union to Russia; and communism wasn't wanted any more.

Top Final decision Gorbachev now faced a momentous decision. He either had to fight for communism or to resign as head of the party that he had supported since he was an adolescent, and which had steered the Soviet Union since its inception. Within 24 hours he bowed to the pressure and resigned, also recommending that the party disband itself. Communist control was over. On Christmas day, the red flag was lowered over the Kremlin... It was a historic moment, like the voluntary winding up of a religion, an abdication of something with which people had grown old, for all of their lives. Gorbachev had hoped to reform communism, to rescue the system and drag it into the modern world. Now the dream lay in ruins, the empire in the process of dissolution. The very thing that the Emergency Committee had tried to prevent had happened. In just seven days, 74 years of communist power had crumbled. Within months most of the Soviet republics would declare their independence. A new confederation would be formed, with Russia and Yeltsin at its centre. Gorbachev, like the Soviet Union itself, was being consigned to history.

On Christmas day, the red flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and Gorbachev said his goodbyes to the world. An era had ended.

Books Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000 by Stephen Kotkin (Oxford University Press, 2001) Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin by Michael McFaul (Cornell University Press, 2001) The Gorbachev Factor by Archie Brown (Oxford University Press, 1996) Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War by Robert D English (Columbia University Press, 2000) Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup edited by Victoria E Bonnell, Ann Cooper and Gregory Freidin (ME Sharpe, 1994) The Struggle for Russia: Power and Change in the Democratic Revolution by Ruslan Khasbulatov, edited by Richard Sakwa (Routledge, 1993) Top About the author Malcolm Brinkworth is the producer and director of 'The Soviet Union's Last Stand', a BBC documentary examining the events which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He has made many acclaimed and award-winning programmes, ranging from the observational to the investigative, and is managing director of Touch Productions, an independent production company. Milestones: 1989–1992 - Office of the Historian Milestones: 1989–1992 The Collapse of the Soviet Union After his inauguration in January 1989, George H.W. Bush did not automatically follow the policy of his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, in dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union. Instead, he ordered a strategic policy re-evaluation in order to establish his own plan and methods for dealing with the Soviet Union and arms control. Boris Yeltsin makes a speech from atop a tank in front of the Russian parliament building in Moscow, U.S.S.R., Monday, Aug. 19, 1991. (AP Photo) Conditions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, however, changed rapidly. Gorbachev’s decision to loosen the Soviet yoke on the countries of Eastern Europe created an independent, democratic momentum that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and then the overthrow of Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe.

While Bush supported these independence movements, U.S. policy was reactive. Bush chose to let events unfold organically, careful not to do anything to worsen Gorbachev’s position. With the policy review complete, and taking into account unfolding events in Europe, Bush met with Gorbachev at Malta in early December 1989. They laid the groundwork for finalizing START negotiations, completing the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, and they discussed the rapid changes in Eastern Europe. Bush encouraged Gorbachev’s reform efforts, hoping that the Soviet leader would succeed in shifting the USSR toward a democratic system and a market oriented economy. Gorbachev’s decision to allow elections with a multi-party system and create a presidency for the Soviet Union began a slow process of democratization that eventually destabilized Communist control and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Following the May 1990 elections, Gorbachev faced conflicting internal political pressures: Boris Yeltsin and the pluralist movement advocated democratization and rapid economic reforms while the hard-line Communist elite wanted to thwart Gorbachev’s reform agenda.

Facing a growing schism between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, the Bush administration opted to work primarily with Gorbachev because they viewed him as the more reliable partner and because he made numerous concessions that promoted U.S. interests. Plans proceeded to sign the START agreement. With the withdrawal of Red Army troops from East Germany, Gorbachev agreed to German reunification and acquiesced when a newly reunited Germany joined NATO. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the United States and the Soviet leadership worked together diplomatically to repel this attack. Yet for all of those positive steps on the international stage, Gorbachev’s domestic problems continued to mount. Additional challenges to Moscow’s control placed pressure on Gorbachev and the Communist party to retain power in order to keep the Soviet Union intact. After the demise of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the Caucasus demanded independence from Moscow. In January 1991, violence erupted in Lithuania and Latvia. Soviet tanks intervened to halt the democratic uprisings, a move that Bush resolutely condemned. By 1991, the Bush administration reconsidered policy options in light of the growing level of turmoil within the Soviet Union. Three basic options presented themselves.

The administration could continue to support Gorbachev in hopes of preventing Soviet disintegration. Alternately, the United States could shift support to Yeltsin and the leaders of the Republics and provide support for a controlled restructuring or possible breakup of the Soviet Union. The final option consisted of lending conditional support to Gorbachev, leveraging aid and assistance in return for more rapid and radical political and economic reforms. Unsure about how much political capital Gorbachev retained, Bush combined elements of the second and third options. The Soviet nuclear arsenal was vast, as were Soviet conventional forces, and further weakening of Gorbachev could derail further arms control negotiations. To balance U.S. interests in relation to events in the Soviet Union, and in order to demonstrate support for Gorbachev, Bush signed the START treaty at the Moscow Summit in July 1991. Bush administration officials also, however, increased contact with Yeltsin. The unsuccessful August 1991 coup against Gorbachev sealed the fate of the Soviet Union. Planned by hard-line Communists, the coup diminished Gorbachev’s power and propelled Yeltsin and the democratic forces to the forefront of Soviet and Russian politics.

Bush publicly condemned the coup as “extra-constitutional,” but Gorbachev’s weakened position became obvious to all. He resigned his leadership as head of the Communist party shortly thereafter—separating the power of the party from that of the presidency of the Soviet Union. The Central Committee was dissolved and Yeltsin banned party activities. A few days after the coup, Ukraine and Belarus declared their independence from the Soviet Union. The Baltic States, which had earlier declared their independence, sought international recognition. Amidst quick, dramatic changes across the landscape of the Soviet Union, Bush administration officials prioritized the prevention of nuclear catastrophe, the curbing of ethnic violence, and the stable transition to new political orders. On September 4, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker articulated five basic principles that would guide U.S. policy toward the emerging republics: self-determination consistent with democratic principles, recognition of existing borders, support for democracy and rule of law, preservation of human rights and rights of national minorities, and respect for international law and obligations. The basic message was clear—if the new republics could follow these principles, they could expect cooperation and assistance from the United States.

Baker met with Gorbachev and Yeltsin in an attempt to shore up the economic situation and develop some formula for economic cooperation between the republics and Russia, as well as to determine ways to allow political reforms to occur in a regulated and peaceful manner. In early December, Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus met in Brest to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), effectively declaring the demise of the Soviet Union. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state. People all over the world watched in amazement at this relatively peaceful transition from former Communist monolith into multiple separate nations. With the dissolution of Soviet Union, the main goal of the Bush administration was economic and political stability and security for Russia, the Baltics, and the states of the former Soviet Union. Bush recognized all 12 independent republics and established diplomatic relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

In February 1992, Baker visited the remaining republics and diplomatic relations were established with Uzbekistan, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Civil war in Georgia prevented its recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States until May 1992. Yeltsin met with Bush at Camp David in February 1992, followed by a formal state visit to Washington in June. Leaders from Kazakhstan and Ukraine visited Washington in May 1992. During his visits to Washington, politics, economic reforms, and security issues dominated the conversations between Yeltsin and Bush. Of paramount concern was securing the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union and making certain nuclear weapons did not fall into the wrong hands. Baker made it clear that funding was available from the United States to secure nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union. The Nunn-Lugar Act established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in November 1991 to fund the dismantling of weapons in the former Soviet Union, in accordance with the START and INF Treaties and other agreements.

Bush and Baker also worked with Yeltsin and international organizations like the World Bank and IMF to provide financial assistance and hopefully prevent a humanitarian crisis in Russia. END OF THE SOVIET UNION - The Soviet State, Born of a Dream, Dies - NYTimes.com END OF THE SOVIET UNION END OF THE SOVIET UNION; The Soviet State, Born of a Dream, Dies By SERGE SCHMEMANN, Published: December 26, 1991 MOSCOW, Dec. 25— The Soviet state, marked throughout its brief but tumultuous history by great achievement and terrible suffering, died today after a long and painful decline. It was 74 years old. Conceived in utopian promise and born in the violent upheavals of the "Great October Revolution of 1917," the union heaved its last in the dreary darkness of late December 1991, stripped of ideology, dismembered, bankrupt and hungry -- but awe-inspiring even in its fall. The end of the Soviet Union came with the resignation of Mikhail S.

Gorbachev to make way for a new "Commonwealth of Independent States." At 7:32 P.M., shortly after the conclusion of his televised address, the red flag with hammer-and-sickle was lowered over the Kremlin and the white-blue-red Russian flag rose in its stead. No Ceremony, Only Chimes There was no ceremony, only the tolling of chimes from the Spassky Gate, cheers from a handful of surprised foreigners and an angry tirade from a lone war veteran. Reactions to the death varied widely, according to Pravda, the former mouthpiece of the empire: "Some joyfully exclaim, 'Finita la comedia!' Others, heaping ash on their heads, raise their hands to the sky in horror and ask, what will be?" The reaction depended somewhat on whether one listened to the ominous gunfire from Georgia, or watched spellbound the bitter if dignified surrender of power by the last leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mr. Gorbachev. Most people vacillated. The taboos and chains were gone, but so was the food.

The Soviet Union had given them pitifully little, but there was no guarantee that the strange-sounding "Commonwealth of Independent States" would do any better. As for Mr. Gorbachev, public opinion polls indicated a virtually universal agreement that it was time for him to move on -- not because he had failed, but because there was nothing more he could do. It was perhaps a paradox that the ruler who presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union was the only one of its ill-starred leaders to leave office with a measure of dignity intact. It was possible that history would reach a different verdict, but among many thoughtful Russians, it was to his undying credit that he lifted the chains of totalitarian dictatorship. Whether he could also have saved the economy was another question. "Gorbachev was unable to change the living standards of the people, but he changed the people," Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote in a sympathetic farewell that seemed to capture the dominant mood. He didn't know how to make sausage, but he did know how to give freedom. And if someone believes that the former is more important than the latter, he is likely never to have either." Another man might have done things differently.

But it was difficult to conceive that any of those then available -- the conservative Yegor K. Ligachev, the rough-hewn Boris N. Yeltsin, the bureaucratic Nikolai I. Ryzhkov or the scholarly Eduard A. Shevardnadze -- possessed just that blend of reformer and ideologue, of naivete and ruthlessness, that enabled Mr. Gorbachev to lead the Communists to the edge of the cliff. "Gorbachev was a true instrument of fate," declared Viktor Yerofeyev, a writer and literary critic. "He had just enough intelligence to change everything, but not enough to see that everything would be destroyed. He was bold enough to challenge his party, and cautious enough to let the party live until it lost its power. He had enough faith in Communism to be named its head, but enough doubts about it to destroy it. If he had seen everything clearly, he would not have changed Russia." Mr. Gorbachev struggled to the end, and beyond it, to keep the union alive.

But in the end, it was by letting the union die and by stepping aside that he gave a new lease on life to the great Eurasian entity, whatever its name. The Union Epic Achievement And Epic Failure Measured against its own ambitions, the U.S.S.R. died a monumental failure. It had promised no less than the creation of a "Soviet new man," imbued with selfless devotion to the common good, and it ended up all but crushing the initiative and spirit of the people, making many devoted only to vodka. It had proclaimed a new humanitarian ideology, and in its name butchered 10 million of its own. It envisioned a planned economy in which nothing was left to chance, and it created an elephantine bureaucracy that finally smothered the economy. Promising peace and freedom, it created the world's most militarized and ruthless police state. Promising a people's culture, it created an anti-culture in which mediocrity was glorified and talent was ruthlessly persecuted. An entire department of the K.G.B. existed to wrestle with art, trying first to co-opt any rising talent "to the service of the state" and if that failed, to muzzle or exile it.

The roll-call of repressed or exiled artists is a stunning indictment: Mandelstam, Malevich, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Rostropovich, Brodsky, and so many more. In the end, promising a new life, it created an unspeakably bleak society -- polluted, chronically short of everything, stripped of initiative and spirituality. While the bulk of the nation stood in line or guzzled rot-gut vodka, the Communist elite raised corruption to new heights: The likes of Leonid I. Brezhnev and his cronies pinned endless medals on one another and surrounded themselves with a peasant's notion of luxury -- grandiose candelabras, massive cars, vast hunting estates, armies of sycophants, secret hospitals filled with the latest Western technology. And yet the Soviet Union was also an indisputable superpower, a state and a people that achieved epic feats in science, warfare, even culture.

1 Mikhail Gorbachev - The Last General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev The Last General Secretary of the Soviet Union Picture of President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signing the INF Treaty in the East Room of the White House. (December 8, 1987). Picture courtesy the U.S. National Archives & Records Administration. Updated March 29, 2016. Who Was Mikhail Gorbachev? Mikhail Gorbachev was the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union. He brought about massive economic, social, and political changes and helped bring an end to both the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Dates: March 2, 1931 -- Also Known As: Gorby, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev Gorbachev's Childhood Mikhail Gorbachev was born in the small village of Privolnoye (in the Stavropol Territory) to Sergei and Maria Panteleyvna Gorbachev. His parents and his grandparents had all been peasant farmers before Joseph Stalin's collectivization program.

With all farms owned by the government, Gorbachev's father went to work as a driver of a combine-harvester. Gorbachev was ten years old when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. His father was drafted into the Soviet military and Gorbachev spent four years living in a war-torn country. (Gorbachev's father survived the war.) Gorbachev was an excellent student in school and worked hard helping his father with the combine after school and during the summers. continue reading below our video Overview of Gorbachev and Russia At age 14, Gorbachev joined the Komsomol (the Communist League of Youth) and became an active member. College, Marriage, and the Communist Party Rather than attend a local university, Gorbachev applied to the prestigious Moscow State University and was accepted. In 1950, Gorbachev traveled to Moscow to study law. It was at college where Gorbachev perfected his speaking and debating skills, which became a major asset to his political career. While at college, Gorbachev became a full member of the Communist Party in 1952.

Also at college, Gorbachev met and fell in love with Raisa Titorenko, who was another student at the university. In 1953, the two married and in 1957 their only child was born - a daughter named Irina. The Beginning of Gorbachev's Political Career After Gorbachev graduated, he and Raisa moved back to the Stavropol Territory where Gorbachev got a job with the Komsomol in 1955. In Stavropol, Gorbachev quickly rose up in the ranks of the Komsomol and then obtained a position in the Communist Party. Gorbachev received promotion after promotion until in 1970 he reached the highest position in the territory, first secretary. Gorbachev in National Politics In 1978, Gorbachev, age 47, was appointed as the secretary of agriculture on the Central Committee. This new position brought Gorbachev and Raisa back to Moscow and thrust Gorbachev into national politics.

Once again, Gorbachev quickly rose up in the ranks and by 1980, he had become the youngest member of the Politburo (the executive committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union). Having worked closely with General Secretary Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev felt that he was ready to become General Secretary. However, when Andropov died in office, Gorbachev lost the bid for office to Konstantin Chernenko. But when Chernenko died in office just 13 months later, Gorbachev, only 54 years old, became the leader of the Soviet Union. General Secretary Gorbachev Presents Reforms On March 11, 1985, Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Strongly believing that the Soviet Union needed massive liberalization in order to revitalize both the Soviet economy and society, Gorbachev immediately began implementing reforms. He shocked many Soviet citizens when he announced the ability for citizens to freely voice their opinions ( glasnost ) and the need to entirely restructure the Soviet Union's economy ( perestroika ).

Gorbachev also opened the door to allow Soviet citizens to travel, cracked down on alcohol abuse, and pushed for the use of computers and technology. He also released many political prisoners. Gorbachev Ends Arms Race For decades, the United States and the Soviet Union and been competing with each other over who could amass the largest, most lethal cache of nuclear weapons. As the United States was developing the new Star Wars program, Gorbachev realized that the Soviet Union's economy was seriously suffering from the excessive spending on nuclear weapons. To end the arms race, Gorbachev met several times with U.S. President Ronald Reagan . At first, the meetings stagnated because trust between the two countries had been missing since the end of World War II . Eventually, however, Gorbachev and Reagan were able to work out a deal where not only would their countries stop making new nuclear weapons, but they would actually eliminate many that they had accumulated. Resignation Although Gorbachev's economic, social, and political reforms as well as his warm, honest, friendly, open demeanor won him accolades from around the world, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, he was criticized by many within the Soviet Union.

For some, his reforms had been too big and too fast; for others, his reforms had been too small and too slow. Most importantly, however, was that Gorbachev's reforms did not revitalize the Soviet Union's economy. On the contrary, the economy took a severe downturn. The failing Soviet economy, the ability of citizens to criticize, and the new political freedoms all weakened the power of the Soviet Union. Soon, many Eastern bloc countries abandoned Communism and many republics within the Soviet Union demanded independence. With the falling of the Soviet empire, Gorbachev helped establish a new system of government, including the establishment of a president and the end of the Communist Party's monopoly as a political party. However, for many, Gorbachev was going too far. From August 19-21, 1991, a group of hard-liners of the Communist Party attempted a coup and put Gorbachev under house arrest. The unsuccessful coup proved the end of both the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

Facing pressures from other groups who wanted more democratization, Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, a day before the Soviet Union officially dissolved . Life After the Cold War In the two decades since his resignation, Gorbachev has remained active. In January 1992, he established and became president of the Gorbachev Foundation, which analyzes the changing social, economic, and political changes happening in Russia and works to promote humanistic ideals. In 1993, Gorbachev founded and became president of the environmental organization called Green Cross International. In 1996, Gorbachev did make one final bid for the presidency of Russia, but he only received a little over one percent of the vote. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev the last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931, in Privolnoje, in the Stavropol region of Russia.

He grew up in the region and began his working and political career in the city of Stavropol, working at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute before entering Moscow State University to study law. Gorbachev first joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952, and acted as First Secretary of the Stavropol Komsomol City Committee from 1955 to 1958. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCCP) in 1971, and served as Secretary for the CCCP with responsibility for agriculture from 1978 to 1985. He became a protï¿½gï¿½ of Yuri Andropov, whose influence secured for Gorbachev full membership in the Politburo in 1980. When Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader in 1982, Gorbachev became his second in command. After Andropov died in 1984, Gorbachev became chief lieutenant to Konstantin Chernenko. Upon Chernenko's death in 1985, Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party.

In 1988, after Andrei A. Gromyko retired as President of the USSR, Gorbachev also assumed that title. Gorbachev sought to reform Soviet society by introducing perestroika (Russian for "restructuring ") and glasnost ("openness") in political and cultural affairs. He also augmented the authority of the Soviet presidency and transferred power from the Communist Party to popularly-elected legislatures in the Union Republics. In international affairs, he withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan , normalized relations with China , signed a series of arms control agreements with the United States , and cooperated with the U.S.-led effort to oust Iraq from Kuwait. For helping to end the "Cold War" and allowing former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe to oust their Communist regimes, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1990. In 1991, with the Russian economy in a serious downturn, Gorbachev faced pressure from hard-line Communists, free-market reformers, nationalists, and secessionists seeking independence for their republics. The hard-liners staged a coup in August and placed Gorbachev under house arrest.

Within three days, however, the reformers restored Gorbachev to power. He immediately resigned as General Secretary, suspended party activities, and placed reformers in charge of the military and KGB. By December 1991, most of the republics of the Soviet Union had either been granted or had declared their independence and the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. On January 1, 1992, Gorbachev officially retired to private life. Although a private citizen, Gorbachev remained publicly active. Openly critical of the government's policies, he advocated a slower economic reform and the formation of a new confederated union to replace the Commonwealth of Independent States (formed after the break-up of the Soviet Union). In September 1992, Gorbachev refused to appear before Russia's Constitutional Court regarding President Boris Yeltsin 's ban on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Yeltsin government forbade Gorbachev from traveling abroad until he appeared before the court, but this restriction was subsequently lifted after a wave of international protests. In June 1992 he was officially expelled from the CPSU for allegedly having contributed to its downfall.

In December 1991, he established the Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Research (aka the Gorbachev Foundation) in Moscow, and has been its president since. Gorbachev has written a number of books, including: A Time for Peace (1985) The Coming Century of Peace (1986) Speeches and Writings (1986) Cold War Museum Back to the 1990s Fall of the Soviet Union In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military alliances all over the globe. What led to this monumental historical event?

In fact, the answer is a very complex one, and can only be arrived at with an understanding of the peculiar composition and history of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was built on approximately the same territory as the Russian Empire which it succeeded. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the newly-formed government developed a philosophy of socialism with the eventual and gradual transition to Communism. The state which the Bolsheviks created was intended to overcome national differences, and rather to create one monolithic state based on a centralized economical and political system. This state, which was built on a Communist ideology, was eventually transformed into a totalitarian state, in which the Communist leadership had complete control over the country. However, this project of creating a unified, centralized socialist state proved problematic for several reasons. First, the Soviets underestimated the degree to which the non-Russian ethnic groups in the country (which comprised more than fifty percent of the total population of the Soviet Union) would resist assimilation into a Russianized State. Second, their economic planning failed to meet the needs of the State, which was caught up in a vicious arms race with the United States. This led to gradual economic decline, eventually necessitating the need for reform.

Finally, the ideology of Communism, which the Soviet Government worked to instill in the hearts and minds of its population, never took firm root, and eventually lost whatever influence it had originally carried. By the time of the 1985 rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, the country was in a situation of severe stagnation, with deep economic and political problems which sorely needed to be addressed and overcome. Recognizing this, Gorbachev introduced a two-tiered policy of reform. On one level, he initiated a policy of glasnost, or freedom of speech. On the other level, he began a program of economic reform known as perestroika, or rebuilding. What Gorbachev did not realize was that by giving people complete freedom of expression, he was unwittingly unleashing emotions and political feelings that had been pent up for decades, and which proved to be extremely powerful when brought out into the open. Moreover, his policy of economic reform did not have the immediate results he had hoped for and had publicly predicted. The Soviet people consequently used their newly allotted freedom of speech to criticize Gorbachev for his failure to improve the economy.

Back to Top The disintegration of the Soviet Union began on the peripheries, in the non-Russian areas. The first region to produce mass, organized dissent was the Baltic region, where, in 1987, the government of Estonia demanded autonomy. This move was later followed by similar moves in Lithuania and Latvia, the other two Baltic republics. The nationalist movements in the Baltics constituted a strong challenge to Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost. He did not want to crack down too severely on the participants in these movements, yet at the same time, it became increasingly evident that allowing them to run their course would spell disaster for the Soviet Union, which would completely collapse if all of the periphery republics were to demand independence. After the initiative from Estonia, similar movements sprang up all over the former Soviet Union. In the Transcaucasus region (in the South of the Soviet Union), a movement developed inside the Armenian-populated autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabagh, in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Armenian population of this region demanded that they be granted the right to secede and join the Republic of Armenia, with whose population they were ethnically linked.

Massive demonstrations were held in Armenia in solidarity with the secessionists in Nagorno-Karabagh. The Gorbachev government refused to allow the population of Nagorno-Karabagh to secede, and the situation developed into a violent territorial dispute, eventually degenerating into an all-out war which continues unabated until the present day. Back to Top Once this “Pandora’s box” had been opened, nationalist movements emerged in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Byelorussia, and the Central Asian republics. The power of the Central Government was considerably weakened by these movements; they could no longer rely on the cooperation of Government figures in the republics. Finally, the situation came to a head in August of 1991. In a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union, which was floundering under the impact of the political movements which had emerged since the implementation of Gorbachev’s glasnost, a group of “hard-line” Communists organized a coup d’etat. They kidnapped Gorbachev, and then, on August 19 of 1991, they announced on state television that Gorbachev was very ill and would no longer be able to govern.

The country went into an uproar. Massive protests were staged in Moscow, Leningrad, and many of the other major cities of the Soviet Union. When the coup organizers tried to bring in the military to quell the protestors, the soldiers themselves rebelled, saying that they could not fire on their fellow countrymen. After three days of massive protest, the coup organizers surrendered, realizing that without the cooperation of the military, they did not have the power to overcome the power of the entire population of the country. Back to Top After the failed coup attempt, it was only a few months until the Soviet Union completely collapsed. Both the government and the people realized that there was no way to turn back the clock; the massive demonstrations of the “August days” had demonstrated that the population would accept nothing less than democracy. Gorbachev conceded power, realizing that he could no longer contain the power of the population. On December 25, 1991, he resigned. By January of 1992, by popular demand, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In its place, a new entity was formed.

It was called the “Commonwealth of Independent Republics,” and was composed of most of the independent countries of the former Soviet Union. While the member countries had complete political independence, they were linked to other Commonwealth countries by economic, and, in some cases, military ties. Now that the Soviet Union, with its centralized political and economic system, has ceased to exist, the fifteen newly formed independent countries which emerged in its aftermath are faced with an overwhelming task. They must develop their economies, reorganize their political systems, and, in many cases, settle bitter territorial disputes. A number of wars have developed on the peripheries of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, the entire region is suffering a period of severe economic hardship. However, despite the many hardships facing the region, bold steps are being taken toward democratization, reorganization, and rebuilding in most of the countries of the former Soviet Union. For additional information click here .

Question: Who was the last head of state of the Soviet Union?
Answer: Mikhail Gorbachev