The End of the Cold War 1985–1991

In just six years between 1985 and 1991, the Cold War ended. When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1985, the USSR and the USA had 60,000 nuclear warheads between them, Europe was divided by the Berlin Wall, and the Warsaw Pact ruled nearly half the continent. By the end of 1991 the Berlin Wall had been demolished, Germany had been reunified, every communist regime in Eastern Europe had fallen, and the Soviet Union itself had dissolved into 15 successor states. The speed of the transformation astonished almost everybody, Gorbachev included.

This lesson covers the years 1985–1991: Gorbachev's reforms, the arms-control breakthroughs with Reagan, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. The end of the Cold War is one of the richest Question 3 (importance) topics in the Edexcel specification, and the reasons for the Cold War's end — a historiographical debate — lend themselves to Question 2 analytical narrative questions. You should be able to explain Gorbachev's reforms, the main summits with Reagan, the events of 1989 country by country and the debate over who or what ended the Cold War.

Gorbachev comes to power, March 1985

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 11 March 1985, the day after Chernenko's death. At 54 he was the youngest Soviet leader since Stalin. Unlike his predecessors he was in good health, spoke publicly and confidently, and had thought seriously about the problems the USSR faced.

Gorbachev inherited a country in serious trouble:

• A stagnating economy with falling oil revenues and collapsing productivity.
• A military budget consuming 15–20% of GDP.
• A war in Afghanistan that was unwinnable.
• Satellite states in Eastern Europe that depended on Soviet subsidies.
• A population increasingly cynical about official ideology.

He concluded that the USSR could survive only if it reformed, and that reform required ending the enormous burden of the arms race and the Eastern European empire. His programme had three elements:

• Perestroika (restructuring) — economic reform introducing limited market mechanisms, allowing small cooperative businesses, decentralising decision-making away from central planners.
• Glasnost (openness) — greater press freedom, open discussion of past abuses (including Stalin's crimes), public debate of policy. Glasnost was intended to mobilise public support for perestroika by exposing the failures of the old system.
• New Thinking in foreign policy — rejecting the "class struggle" view of international relations in favour of common human interests (peace, survival, environment). This underpinned Gorbachev's search for arms-control agreements and his eventual willingness to let Eastern European regimes fall.

Reform	Meaning	Main effect
Perestroika	Economic restructuring	Limited market reforms; accelerated shortages
Glasnost	Openness	Press freedom; discussion of abuses
New Thinking	Foreign policy shift	Arms control, non-intervention in Eastern Europe
Uskorenie	Acceleration	Attempted industrial speed-up (1985-86, largely failed)

Geneva, Reykjavik and Washington summits

Between 1985 and 1988 Gorbachev and Reagan met four times, transforming superpower relations.

Geneva, November 1985

The two leaders met for the first time at Geneva, 19–21 November 1985. No substantive agreement was reached, but personal relations were established. Reagan reported that Gorbachev was "a different kind of Russian". They agreed a statement that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." Further summits were agreed.

Reykjavik, October 1986

The second summit, at Reykjavik on 11–12 October 1986, came close to a startling breakthrough. The two leaders discussed deep cuts to nuclear arsenals and even briefly entertained the possibility of eliminating all ballistic missiles, or even all nuclear weapons, within ten years. The summit collapsed on the last day over SDI: Gorbachev demanded that SDI research be confined to the laboratory, Reagan refused. Both left frustrated, but Reykjavik had redefined what arms control could aim for.

Washington, December 1987 — INF Treaty

On 8 December 1987 at a summit in Washington, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This was a milestone:

• It eliminated, not merely limited, an entire class of nuclear weapons — ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500–5,500 km.
• The USSR destroyed 1,846 missiles; the USA destroyed 846 (including the Pershing II and GLCMs deployed in Europe since 1983).
• It included detailed on-site verification provisions — a fundamental concession from a USSR that had traditionally resisted inspections.

The INF Treaty was the first treaty to actually reduce nuclear stockpiles, rather than limiting the rate at which they grew. For ordinary citizens in Europe, it ended the most immediate nuclear threat.

Moscow, May 1988

The fourth summit, in Moscow on 29 May – 2 June 1988, was largely symbolic. Asked by a reporter whether he still considered the USSR an "evil empire", Reagan replied: "No, I was talking about another time, another era." A decade after Brezhnev had launched the invasion of Afghanistan, a US president walked through Red Square as a guest.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Gorbachev inherited a war he understood to be unwinnable. The mujahideen, armed with US Stinger missiles from 1986, were inflicting heavy casualties on Soviet forces. Soviet veterans returning home were disillusioned. Afghan civilian deaths ran into the hundreds of thousands.

In April 1988 the Geneva Accords were signed between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the USA and USSR as guarantors. Soviet withdrawal began in May 1988 and was completed on 15 February 1989, when General Boris Gromov walked across the Friendship Bridge at Termez as the last Soviet soldier to leave. The USSR had lost approximately 15,000 dead, spent enormous sums, and gained nothing. For Soviet citizens, Afghanistan became "our Vietnam".

From Brezhnev Doctrine to Sinatra Doctrine

The single most consequential Gorbachev decision was his renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine. As early as 1987 Gorbachev told Eastern European leaders privately that Soviet tanks would not be used to prop up their regimes. In a speech to the UN General Assembly on 7 December 1988 he announced substantial unilateral reductions in Soviet conventional forces in Europe (500,000 troops, 10,000 tanks) and affirmed "freedom of choice" for all nations.

In October 1989, Soviet foreign ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov coined the phrase "Sinatra Doctrine" to describe the new policy: each Eastern European satellite state could do it "its way", a reference to Frank Sinatra's song "My Way". The USSR would not intervene militarily to preserve its empire. This single change opened the door to the Revolutions of 1989.

The Revolutions of 1989

flowchart TD
  A[Mar 1985: Gorbachev General Secretary] --> B[Nov 1985: Geneva Summit]
  B --> C[Oct 1986: Reykjavik Summit]
  C --> D[Dec 1987: INF Treaty, Washington]
  D --> E[Feb 1989: Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan]
  E --> F[Jun 1989: Solidarity election victory in Poland]
  F --> G[May-Sept 1989: Hungary dismantles border with Austria]
  G --> H[9 Nov 1989: Berlin Wall falls]
  H --> I[Nov 1989: Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia]
  I --> J[Dec 1989: Ceaușescu overthrown and executed in Romania]
  J --> K[Oct 1990: German reunification]
  K --> L[Dec 1991: USSR dissolved]

Across Eastern Europe, the year 1989 produced a sequence of revolutions extraordinary for their speed and (mostly) their peacefulness.

Poland — Solidarity wins elections, June 1989