The Causes of the End of the Cold War and the Fall of the Soviet Union

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Recommended: Ronald Reagan's role in the Cold War

The twentieth century was full of a lot of bloodshed and violence which was mainly because of the 2 world wars that occurred. Although there was a lot of fighting during the twentieth century, there was an even amount of non-violence fighting going around the entire world. The main battle of non-violence was going on between the communists and the capitalist governments. This war was called the Cold War, also known as the war of propaganda and words. The Cold War didn’t just end and the Soviet Union didn’t just fall, there were many causes of these events. The main causes were politicians and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There were many politicians that were in the office during the Cold War, but the ones that caused the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union were Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Mikhail Gorbachev was the General Secretary of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991. He affected the Soviet Union by creating many new policies, like the freedom of speech and an improved economic reform. What he did not know what that he was putting together his own downfall. With the freedom of speech the citizens were able to criticise the communist government and Mikhail Gorbachev which lead to more people going against the communist government. That led to the end Soviet Union Gorbachev also tried to strengthen his relationship with Ronald Reagan by signing the INF (intermediate Nuclear Forces Arm Limitation) treaty in 1987. This treaty was a treaty between the Soviet Union and U.S.A. which stated that they both most dispose of all their nuclear missiles. That was how Gorbachev caused the Cold War to come to an end. Gorbachev also was voted to be the executive president of a new Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. This new cong...

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...nification of Germany. That ended the communists rule in Eastern Germany which was one of the causes of the end of the Cold War. That is how the fall of the Berlin Wall ended the Cold War.
After a crazy half a century of bloodshed of violence, there was a small period of non-violence fighting between the communists and the capitalists which was known as the Cold War. There were a couple of causes of the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, but he main ones were the new politicians and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Works Cited

http://library.thinkquest.org/10826/timeline.htm http://history1900s.about.com/od/coldwa1/a/berlinwall_2.htm http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp
http://web.ebscohost.com/hrc/detail?sid=6bf4240e-9973-497a-b857-295a0b724bb3%40sessionmgr4004&vid=2&bk=1&hid=4106&bdata=JnNpdGU9aHJjLWxpdmU%3d#db=khh&AN=39009256

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