Gorbachev concluded that the Cold War arms race was bankrupting the USSR and that confrontation with the West served no Soviet interest. He launched bold diplomatic initiatives.

• Summits with Reagan: Gorbachev met Reagan at Geneva (1985), Reykjavik (1986), and Washington (1987)
• INF Treaty (1987): Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. First arms control agreement that actually eliminated a class of nuclear weapons.
• Withdrawal from Afghanistan (1988-1989): Ended the disastrous Soviet war

Renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine

Gorbachev announced that the USSR would no longer use military force to keep Eastern European communist regimes in power. This decision proved decisive.

The Eastern European revolutions of 1989

Once Eastern Europeans understood that Soviet tanks would not roll in to save communist regimes (as had happened in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968), the regimes collapsed in succession.

• Poland (June 1989): Solidarity, the independent labor union founded by Lech Walesa in 1980 and suppressed under martial law in 1981, won partially free elections. A non-communist prime minister took office in August.
• Hungary (May-October 1989): The Hungarian government opened its border with Austria, allowing thousands of East Germans to flee west through Hungary.
• East Germany (October-November 1989): Mass protests in Leipzig and East Berlin. On November 9, 1989, an East German official mistakenly announced that border crossings to West Berlin would be opened immediately. Crowds rushed to the Berlin Wall; guards stood aside; the Wall opened. East and West Berliners climbed onto the Wall and began tearing it down.
• Czechoslovakia (November-December 1989): The Velvet Revolution. Mass protests led to the resignation of the communist government. Playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel became president.
• Romania (December 1989): The most violent revolution. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were arrested, tried, and executed on December 25.
• Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia: Communist regimes fell or transformed at various points.

Why the Berlin Wall mattered

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to stop East Germans from fleeing to the West, was the most visible symbol of the Iron Curtain and of Cold War division. Its fall on November 9, 1989 was therefore the most visible symbol of the Cold War ending. The images of crowds tearing it down are among the iconic images of the twentieth century. Maria should treat the fall of the Wall as both a real event and as the moment most people mark as the end of the Cold War, even though the Soviet Union itself would not collapse for two more years.

Reunification of Germany (1990)

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl moved quickly to reunify Germany. The major powers (U.S., USSR, UK, France) negotiated the Two Plus Four Agreement that ended their occupation rights. On October 3, 1990, East Germany ceased to exist as the five Eastern Länder were absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany. The post-WWII division of Germany ended.