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I considered the latter stages of Glasnost or the Fall of the Berlin Wall to be the end. But history seems to place it later.
If you were old enough at the time to be aware of it, what was your thought. If not what are your thoughts or what were you taught?
I think of it kind of like the decline of the Western Roman Empire: it was a gradual process, and when exactly it ended depends entirely on how you define it. The fall of the Berlin Wall, like the fall of Rome in 476CE, is arbitrary but as good a place as any to end a texbook chapter and start the next one.
I'll be a cold day in hell before I.......Anyway, when the USSR dissolved it really meant that they weren't coming back and the rest of it was just a hiccup. However since my globe only shows the USSR, I do not recognize former Soviet republics. I also only recognize the Guianas as existing as French, British and Dutch. I probably need a new globe.
It's not over yet. The Soviets have just had a strategic withdrawal that's all. In another 100 years the lull from 1990 to 2015 will be called the Millennial Peace or somesuch.
1990. It ended where it began. The first free elections in East German history quickly followed by an agreement on reunification. When the Soviets couldn't stop that it was over.
When the people took to the streets of Moscow. It showed that when enough people have taken all they can take, there is nothing any government can do short of wholesale slaughter. Iran has had a couple of close calls. But because of the religious component of their government they haven't yet reached critical mass. Here's hoping.
I picked the fall of the Wall. By the 80's it was NATO vs. the Soviet Bloc nations. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was clear that Russia/USSR no longer was able to project its power into Europe, and similarly would be unable to do so globally. That the USSR would fall apart a few years later wasn't unsurprising, but by then there was no threat. Or rather the threat and fear was that it would collapse too quickly, and allow for something worse to take over, with the nuclear arsenal still in place.
The "Fall of (Soviet) Communism" would be marked to the breakup of the Soviet Union. It's (barely) possible that it could have continued after losing political power in Europe, it just would be unable to be the superpower it was. NATO countries did not need to be concerned in at all the way they were during the Cold War.
I'm going with the break up of the Soviet Union - that was when I started to believe that the central figures in the Party weren't going to try to deal with their loosening hold on the whole house of cards by trying to start a short victorious war.
Pretty much my take on it. Remember Yeltsin stopping the coup? For a while, it seemed quite possible the Old Guard would stop everything.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
And we may never know just how close we came.Quote:
Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday
After the USSR broke up, if it wasn't the end, it was the driving of the last nail in the Cold War's coffin.
The breakup of the USSR, I'd say. Gorbachev was still trying to hold things together, but when the fall of the Wall was followed by a failed coup and the near-complete loss of credibility of the Soviet government, well, comrades, it was all over. The new Russian Federation couldn't (at the time, at least) compete militarily with the US and NATO, and didn't seem to want to. Yeltsin and Clinton were good buddies. The Commonwealth of Independent States was a mere figleaf for an ex-communist empire that only idiots and thugs could feel nostalgic for. Eastern Europe swung dramatically pro-West, and communist enclaves like North Korea and Cuba became even more isolated and contemptible.
The end of the Cold War, of course, does not mean - and has not meant - the dawning of a new era of global peace, happiness and kittens for all. But it has transformed modern geopolitics, mostly for the better I'd say, in ways that we're still figuring out.