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In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. He was a committed anti-communist who referred to the Soviet Union as ‘that evil empire'. He increased US defence spending by $32.6 billion and planned to spend it on:

• ‘Star Wars’, or the Strategic Defence Initiative, which was a plan to create a system using satellites and lasers to shoot down any missiles that might be launched by the USSR against the USA. This plan, had it been initiated, would have swung the nuclear balance strongly in the USA’s favour.
• The US military developed a neutron bomb. The Soviet Union described the neutron bomb as ‘a capitalist weapon’ because it was designed to destroy people while leaving their property intact. While the USSR did not have a neutron bomb of its own, it did upgrade the armor on its tanks and armored personnel carriers in order to deal with the threat.
• Realising the USSR could never out-spend the USA, Gorbachev began to cut spending on nuclear weapons. He engaged in Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) with the USA and signed a deal, in 1987, to limit the production of Intermediate Range Nuclear Missiles.
• Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika kicked off the slow reform of the Soviet Union’s political system.

Impact of Gorbachev’s Reforms in Eastern Europe

• Hungary: Following years of dissapointment with communism, Hungarians begin to dismantle the barbed wire barriers between themselves and Austria. Many East Germans used this route to make their way to West Germany.
• Poland: After years of protest against communism, led by the Solidarity Trade Union, free elections in Poland in 1989 brought the Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, to power.
• German Democratic Republic: The East German leader, Erich Honecker, tried to shore up communism and ordered troops to fire on demonstrators. The troops refused to shoot at their compatriots and Gorbachev refused to send Soviet troops to support Honecker. In November 1989 the Berlin Wall was torn down by demonstrators and Germany was reunited. The fall of the Wall was massively symbolic of the end of the Cold War. “Only today”, one Berliner spray-painted on a piece of the wall, “is the war really over.” We could say that the fall of the Wall gave hope to others fighting to end communism and that it speeded up the pace of change across Eastern Europe.
• Czechoslovakia: There were anti-communist demonstrations in Czechoslovakia, which opened its borders with the West. The playwright, Vaclav Havel, was democratically elected leader in 1990.
• Romania: At the end of 1989, a short, bloody revolution overthrew the communist leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, who, together with his wife, was executed on Christmas Day.
• Soviet Republics: In 1990 and 1991, one by one the former Soviet Republics of the USSR (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia) declared themselves independent. Even Russia declared itself a republic in 1991 and elected Boris Yeltsin at its leader.

In August 1991, some hard-line communists attempted to stage a military coup in Moscow, arresting Gorbachev and holding him under house arrest at his dacha in the Crimea. There was huge popular opposition to the coup which collapsed, and Gorbachev was released. This was the coup de grace for the USSR and by the end of 1991 it had been dissolved.