How the Cold War Ended
Reform designed to preserve
- Following a long period of economic stagnation, Mikhail Gorbachev's internal reforms of perestroika and glasnost, designed to make the Soviet system more flexible, failed to stave off the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of its hegemonic control over Eastern and Central European satellites.
- The CED states the purpose — to make the system more flexible — before stating the outcome.
- So this is not a reform intended to end the system; it is one that failed to save it.
Perestroika and glasnost were designed to make the Soviet system...
They failed to stave off collapse; that was not their purpose.
Echoes of 6.6's Russian pattern
- 6.6: autocratic reform, including the emancipation of the serfs, gave rise to revolutionary movements and eventually 1905.
- 9.7: reform designed to preserve the system failed to stave off its collapse.
- The CED does not draw the parallel, but the shape is the same and noticing it is legitimate analysis.
The collapse of the USSR in ____ ended the Cold War.
One of the few dates the CED states outright.
Five consequences, dated
- The collapse of the USSR in 1991 ended the Cold War and led to the establishment of capitalist economies throughout Eastern Europe. Germany was reunited, the Czechs and the Slovaks parted, Yugoslavia dissolved, and the European Union was enlarged through the admission of former Eastern bloc countries.
- Five outcomes in two sentences, and they run from peaceful to violent along the same list.
- 1991 is one of the few dates the CED states outright, so it is worth carrying.
A cause, an outcome for the system, or a change to the map?
Sort each element of the Cold War's end.
Select all four changes to the map the CED names.
They run from peaceful to violent along the same list.
Perestroika and glasnost were designed to make the Soviet system more flexible. The CED states the purpose before the outcome — these were reforms that failed to stave off collapse, not reforms intended to end the system, and reversing that reads the ending back into the intention.
6.6's Russian pattern — reform producing what it meant to prevent — has the same shape.
The CED does not draw the parallel, but noticing it is legitimate analysis.
Why the same forces gave different outcomes
- 9.4 already said it: new nationalisms brought peaceful revolution in most countries but resulted in instability in some former Soviet republics.
- Reunification, separation and dissolution are three answers to one question — who does this state belong to?
- Writing that sentence explains four of the five outcomes at once.
Reunification, separation and dissolution are three answers to...
9.4 already said new nationalisms produced both peaceful and unstable outcomes.
Causes and effects of an ending
- Causes: a long period of economic stagnation, and reforms that failed to make the system flexible enough.
- Effects: the Cold War ended, capitalist economies established, and four changes to the map.
- The CED supplies both halves in full, so this is a subtopic where quoting closely is the efficient strategy.
Four states face the same question in the same few years and give four different answers: one joins itself back together, two agree to part, and one comes apart in violence. The question was identical. Only the arrangements inside each state were not.
Following a long period of economic stagnation, Gorbachev's internal reforms of perestroika and glasnost, designed to make the Soviet system more flexible, failed to stave off the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of its hegemonic control over Eastern and Central European satellites. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 ended the Cold War and led to the establishment of capitalist economies throughout Eastern Europe. Germany was reunited, the Czechs and the Slovaks parted, Yugoslavia dissolved, and the European Union was enlarged through the admission of former Eastern bloc countries.