the end of the Cold War, including the role of Gorbachev (glasnost and perestroika), the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe (1989), the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany (1990), and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)

What this dot point is asking

VCAA expects you to explain how the Cold War, which had structured world politics for 45 years, ended almost peacefully in the six years between Gorbachev's appointment (March 1985) and the Soviet dissolution (December 1991). Strong responses pair Gorbachev's reforms with the Reagan administration's pressure, the deep Soviet economic stagnation, the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, and a named historian.

The answer

The Brezhnev stagnation and the second Cold War

Leonid Brezhnev (General Secretary 1964 to 1982) presided over economic stagnation, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (24 December 1979), and the deterioration of relations with Washington. Soviet GDP growth fell from around 5 per cent (1960s) to below 2 per cent (early 1980s). Oil and gas exports masked the decline until the 1986 oil price collapse.

The "second Cold War" began with the Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe (from 1977) and the American response. NATO's Dual-Track Decision (12 December 1979) committed to deploying Pershing II and Cruise missiles in Western Europe while pursuing arms control. Ronald Reagan became US President on 20 January 1981. His Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars," 23 March 1983) and "evil empire" speech (8 March 1983) defined a more confrontational tone.

Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982. His successors Yuri Andropov (died February 1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (died March 1985) were briefly in office. Politburo leadership transferred to Mikhail Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.

Gorbachev and the reforms (1985 to 1988)

Gorbachev was 54 when appointed; the youngest Politburo member. His advisers (Alexander Yakovlev, Eduard Shevardnadze) shaped a reform program with three pillars.

Glasnost (openness). Media censorship was relaxed. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster (26 April 1986) was initially concealed, but the international fallout forced the Politburo into greater openness. By 1988, Pravda was publishing criticism of Stalin and the historical novels of Anatoly Rybakov.

Perestroika (restructuring). Economic reforms aimed at decentralisation and limited market mechanisms. The Law on State Enterprises (June 1987) gave factory managers more autonomy. The Law on Cooperatives (May 1988) legalised small private enterprise. The reforms disrupted central planning without creating a working market; output fell.

Demokratizatsiya (democratisation). The 19th Party Conference (June to July 1988) proposed an elected Congress of People's Deputies. Elections in March 1989 produced the first partially competitive Soviet legislature; televised debates (Andrei Sakharov, Boris Yeltsin) transformed Soviet political discourse.

Foreign policy and arms control

Gorbachev and Reagan met four times: Geneva (19 to 21 November 1985), Reykjavik (11 to 12 October 1986), Washington (8 to 10 December 1987), and Moscow (29 May to 3 June 1988). Reykjavik nearly produced agreement on eliminating all nuclear weapons but collapsed on SDI.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF, signed in Washington on 8 December 1987) eliminated all US and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. It was the first arms control treaty to abolish a class of nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev announced the unilateral withdrawal of 500,000 Soviet troops from Eastern Europe in a speech at the UN General Assembly on 7 December 1988. Soviet forces left Afghanistan from 15 May 1988, completing on 15 February 1989.

The Sinatra Doctrine and the 1989 revolutions

Gorbachev privately abandoned the Brezhnev Doctrine (the 1968 commitment to intervene to preserve socialism in Warsaw Pact states). On 25 October 1989, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, in a quip to a US reporter, called it the "Sinatra Doctrine": Eastern European states could "do it their way."

Poland. Round Table talks (6 February to 5 April 1989) between the communist government and the banned Solidarity trade union (under Lech Walesa) produced agreement on partially free elections. Solidarity won 99 of 100 Senate seats and all the contested Sejm seats on 4 June 1989. Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first non-communist prime minister in the bloc on 24 August 1989.

Hungary. The communist government had begun its own reforms in 1988. On 2 May 1989 Hungary began dismantling the barbed-wire fence on its border with Austria. From August 1989, thousands of East Germans on summer holiday in Hungary used the open border to flee west. The communist party dissolved itself on 7 October 1989.

East Germany. The mass exodus through Hungary, large weekly Leipzig demonstrations ("We are the people"), and Gorbachev's visit to East Berlin on the 40th anniversary (7 October 1989) destabilised Erich Honecker. Honecker resigned on 18 October 1989; Egon Krenz replaced him. The new Politburo drafted travel regulations to release pressure.

On 9 November 1989, Politburo spokesman Gunter Schabowski announced the regulations at a televised press conference. Asked when they took effect, he replied "as far as I know, immediately." East Berliners crowded the checkpoints. The Bornholmer Strasse crossing opened first around 11.30 pm; within hours, the Wall was open at multiple points. The Wall was physically dismantled over the following weeks and months.

Czechoslovakia. Riot police beat student protesters on 17 November 1989 (the trigger of the Velvet Revolution). General strikes followed. Vaclav Havel was elected President on 29 December 1989. The communists left government without violence.

Bulgaria. A Politburo coup removed Todor Zhivkov on 10 November 1989. Multi-party elections in June 1990.

Romania. The most violent transition. Protests in Timisoara (16 December 1989) spread. Nicolae Ceausescu was booed at a Bucharest rally on 21 December and fled. He and his wife Elena were captured, summarily tried, and executed by firing squad on 25 December 1989.

The reunification of Germany (3 October 1990)

The free Volkskammer elections in East Germany on 18 March 1990 produced a CDU government under Lothar de Maiziere committed to rapid reunification on Western terms. Currency union came on 1 July 1990.

The "Two Plus Four" talks (the two German states plus the four wartime occupying powers: the US, USSR, Britain, France) negotiated the international settlement. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed on 12 September 1990. Germany was reunified at midnight on 3 October 1990. United Germany remained in NATO; Soviet troops were to withdraw from East German territory by 1994.

The end of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet collapse

The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991. COMECON dissolved on 28 June 1991. Soviet troops left Hungary (June 1991), Czechoslovakia (June 1991), and Poland (1993).

Within the USSR, the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) declared independence (Lithuania on 11 March 1990 first). Soviet special forces killed 14 unarmed Lithuanians at the Vilnius TV tower on 13 January 1991. Boris Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian SFSR on 12 June 1991 by direct popular vote, an authority Gorbachev never had.

The August Coup (19 to 21 August 1991) by hardline Communists (Gennady Yanayev, Vladimir Kryuchkov of the KGB) detained Gorbachev at his Crimean dacha. Yeltsin climbed onto a tank outside the Russian White House and rallied resistance. The coup collapsed in three days; Gorbachev returned to Moscow but Yeltsin had emerged as the real power.

Ukraine voted for independence on 1 December 1991 (90.3 per cent in favour). On 8 December 1991, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords dissolving the USSR. Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991; the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin. The Cold War was over.

Historiography

John Lewis Gaddis (The Cold War: A New History, 2005) credits Reagan's military pressure and Gorbachev's reforms in combination, and emphasises the role of individual leaders.

Mary Sarotte (1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, 2009) emphasises the contingent diplomacy of 1989 to 1990, particularly the rush to lock united Germany into NATO before the Soviet position hardened.

Vladislav Zubok (A Failed Empire, 2007; Collapse, 2021) emphasises Soviet structural decline (economy, ideology, nationalities) and Gorbachev's miscalculations. He treats the 1991 dissolution as more avoidable than the 1989 revolutions.

Stephen Kotkin (Armageddon Averted, 2001) argues the USSR collapsed because the elite, not just dissidents, lost faith in the system. The economy could have limped on; the loss of ideology could not.

Archie Brown (The Gorbachev Factor, 1996) emphasises Gorbachev's personal agency. Without Gorbachev, the system might have lasted longer with traditional methods.

Common exam traps

Saying Reagan won the Cold War alone. Reagan's military build-up created pressure, but Soviet decline was largely self-inflicted (Afghanistan, oil price collapse, structural stagnation) and Gorbachev's choices were decisive.

Treating the 1989 revolutions as identical. Poland was a negotiated transition through Solidarity; East Germany was a state collapse; Czechoslovakia was a velvet revolution; Romania was a violent overthrow. Pin the differences.

Confusing the fall of the Wall with German reunification. The Wall fell on 9 November 1989. Reunification came almost 11 months later, on 3 October 1990, after the Two Plus Four negotiations.

Calling the August coup a Politburo coup. It was led by senior officials (Vice President, KGB chief, Defence Minister, Interior Minister), but the Communist Party as an institution had largely dissolved as a political force by August 1991. The coup's failure showed the regime had no remaining base.

In one sentence

The Cold War ended between 1985 and 1991 because Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, his abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine (the Sinatra Doctrine, October 1989), and his refusal to use force allowed the 1989 revolutions in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania to topple the Eastern bloc, after which the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, Germany reunified on 3 October 1990, the failed August Coup of 1991 broke the central Soviet authority, and the USSR dissolved on 25 December 1991.