CW collapse of soviet control

• In December 1988, Gorbachev announced that ideology should play a smaller role in foreign affairs, meaning that Soviet troops would no longer intervene in Eastern Europe to support communism.
• Gorbachev's announcement weakened the communist governments in Eastern Europe, resulting in many revolutions between 1989 and 1990.
• Of all these revolutions only the Romanian revolution was violent.
• In all the old Eastem bloc countries non-communist governments now came to power.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 led to the reunification of Germany and the end of Soviet control in Eastern Europe.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall was preceded by public demonstrations in many East German cities, especially Leipzig, where the East German leader, Eric Honecker, received no assurances from Mikhail Gorbachev that he would support any attempt to deal with these protests using force.
• Honecker resigned and was replaced by the more moderate Egon Krenz.
• The growth of democracy in Hungary meant that East Germans could now travel to West Germany through Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
• On 9 November the East German government announced that East Germans could now travel to West Germany.
• Soviet influence in Eastern Europe declined between 1989 and 1990.
• The collapse of Soviet control led to the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union.
• The fall of the Soviet Union led to the end of the Cold War as the Soviet Union no longer existed and there was no ideological conflict between East and West.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall had two effects: it marked the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Eastern bloc.
• The break-up of the Soviet Union resulted in the Soviet Union being divided into different states, including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
• The meeting of Bush and Gorbachev in December 1989, the Malta Summit, declared an end to the Cold War, paving the way for the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, which was formally dissolved in July 1991.
• The Soviet Union became the Commonwealth of Independent States in January 1992, with many Soviet states seceding and becoming independent states, including Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Asian Republics such as Kazakhstan.
• In December 1991, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union and resigned, marking the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union.
• Crowds of jubilant East and West Germans now began to chip away at the wall leading to its collapse.
• German reunification: East Germany ceased to exist and became part of a united Germany in 1990, with Berlin as its capital.
• The Soviet Union withdrew its troops from what was East Germany.
• British, French and US troops remained in western Germany.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall gave further momentum to the 'thaw' in the Cold War.
• The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Agreement (1990) set limits on non-nuclear forces deployed in Europe.
• At the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) (1991), the USA and Soviet Union agreed to reduce nuclear warheads by about a third, with an additional undertaking to reduce them further.