End of biplolarity

• Berlin Wall


  Symbolised the division between the capitalist and the communist world
• Building of the Berlin Wall

  1. Built in 1961 to separate East Berlin from West Berlin

  2. Stood for 28 years

  3. Broken by the people on 9 November 1989
• Breaking of the Berlin Wall marked the unification of the two parts of Germany and the beginning of the end of the communist bloc
• Pictures depicting the Berlin Wall


  • People making a tiny hole in the wall
  • A section of the wall opened to allow free movement
  • The Berlin Wall as it stood before 1989
• Soviet system

  • Came into being after the socialist revolution in Russia in 1917
  • Inspired by the ideals of socialism and the need for an egalitarian society
  • Gave primacy to the state and the institution of the party
  • Economy was planned and controlled by the state
• After the Second World War, the east European countries that the Soviet army had liberated from the fascist forces came under the control of the USSR
• Second World or the 'socialist bloc'


  • Group of countries whose political and economic systems were modelled after the USSR
  • Held together by the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance
• Soviet Union after the Second World War

  • Became a great power
  • Had a complex communications network, vast energy resources, machinery production, and an efficient transport sector
  • Had a domestic consumer industry that produced everything from pins to cars, though their quality did not match that of the Western capitalist countries
  • Ensured a minimum standard of living for all citizens and subsidised basic necessities
• Soviet system


  • Became very bureaucratic and authoritarian, making life very difficult for its citizens
  • Lacked democracy and freedom of speech, stifling people's dissent
• Russia dominated everything in the USSR, and people from other regions felt neglected and often suppressed
• Mikhail Gorbachev


  • Became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985
  • Sought to reform the Soviet system through policies of economic and political reform and democratisation
• Gorbachev's reforms

  Normalised relations with the West and democratised the Soviet Union, leading to protests against communist governments in the East European countries
• Unlike in the past, the Soviet Union, under Gorbachev, did not intervene when the disturbances occurred, and the communist regimes collapsed one after another
• Reforms initiated by Gorbachev


  Led to a rapidly escalating crisis within the USSR that hastened its disintegration
• Disintegration of the Soviet Union

  1. A coup took place in 1991 that was encouraged by Communist Party hardliners

  2. Boris Yeltsin emerged as a national hero in opposing this coup

  3. The Russian Republic, where Yeltsin won a popular election, began to shake off centralised control

  4. Power began to shift from the Soviet centre to the republics

  5. In December 1991, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared that the Soviet Union was disbanded

  6. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was banned

  7. Capitalism and democracy were adopted as the bases for the post-Soviet republics
• The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 weakened the system even further
• The Soviet economy was faltering in the late 1970s and became stagnant
• The exclusion of the Central Asian republics from the initial declaration on the disintegration of the USSR was quickly solved by making them founding members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
• Russia was accepted as the successor state of the Soviet Union, inheriting its seat in the UN Security Council and international treaties and commitments
• Reasons for the disintegration of the Soviet Union

  • Internal weaknesses of Soviet political and economic institutions that failed to meet the aspirations of the people
  • Economic stagnation for many years leading to severe consumer shortages and a large section of Soviet society doubting and questioning the system
  • Huge economic burden of maintaining a nuclear and military arsenal and the development of satellite states
  • Ordinary citizens becoming more knowledgeable about the economic advance of the West and the disparities between their system and the systems of the West
  • Stagnation in the administrative and political sense, with the Communist Party not being accountable to the people and ordinary people being alienated by slow and stifling administration, rampant corruption, and centralisation of authority
• Gorbachev's reforms


  Set in motion forces and expectations that were difficult to control, leading to a 'tug of war' where Gorbachev lost support on all sides
• The rise of nationalism and the desire for sovereignty in the Soviet republics was another key factor that contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union
• Gorbachev's reforms set in motion forces and expectations that few could have predicted and became virtually impossible to control
• There were sections of Soviet society which felt that Gorbachev should have moved much faster and were disappointed and impatient with his methods
• Others, especially members of the Communist Party and those who were served by the system, felt that their power and privileges were eroding and Gorbachev was moving too quickly
• In this 'tug of war', Gorbachev lost support on all sides and divided public opinion
• Even those who were with Gorbachev became disillusioned as they felt that he did not adequately defend his own policies
• The rise of nationalism and the desire for sovereignty within various republics including Russia and the Baltic Republics, Ukraine, Georgia, and others proved to be the final and most immediate cause for the disintegration of the USSR
• Nationalist urges and feelings were very much at work throughout the history of the Soviet Union and that whether or not the reforms had occurred there would have been an internal struggle within the Soviet Union
• Gorbachev's reforms speeded up and increased nationalist dissatisfaction to the point that the government and rulers could not control it
• Nationalist dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union was strongest in the more "European" and prosperous part – in Russia and the Baltic areas as well as Ukraine and Georgia
• Ordinary people here felt alienated from the Central Asians and from each other and concluded also that they were paying too high an economic price to keep the more backward areas within the Soviet Union
• Consequences of the disintegration of the Soviet Union

  • End of Cold War confrontations
  • Change in power relations and influence of ideas and institutions
  • Emergence of many new countries with their own aspirations and choices
• The collapse of communism was followed in most of these countries by a painful process of transition from an authoritarian socialist system to a democratic capitalist system
• Shock therapy


  The model of transition in Russia, Central Asia and east Europe that was influenced by the World Bank and the IMF
• Shock therapy involved a drastic change in the external orientation of these economies, a sudden and complete switch to free trade, openness to foreign investment, financial opening up or deregulation, and currency convertibility
• The transition also involved a break up of the existing trade alliances among the countries of the Soviet bloc, and each state was now linked directly to the West and not to each other in the region
• The shock therapy administered in the 1990s did not lead the people into the promised utopia of mass consumption, but instead brought ruin to the economies and disaster upon the people of the entire region
• In Russia, the large state-controlled industrial complex almost collapsed, as about 90 per cent of its industries were put up for sale to private individuals and companies
• The restructuring was carried out through market forces and not by government-directed industrial policies, which led to the virtual disappearance of entire industries