The History Book

323

The fall of the Berlin Wall meant

liberation for many people. German

reunification, the collapse of the Soviet

Union, and the end of communism in

Eastern Europe followed soon after.

See also: The October Revolution 276–79 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The Berlin

Airlift 296–97 ■ The Long March 304–05 ■ The Cuban Missile Crisis 308–09 ■ The launch of Sputnik 310 ■

The Red Army Faction’s terrorist activity 341

THE MODERN WORLD

Ruling the Eastern Bloc

At the end of World War II, the USSR

had banned anti-communist parties

in every Eastern European country,

and created a bloc of satellite states

under Soviet leadership, ruthlessly

suppressing any opposition. In

the fall of 1956, Hungary rose

against its communist government,

only to be crushed by Soviet tanks,

and in 1968, the USSR invaded

Czechoslovakia to remove a

government it found too liberal.

In the 1960s, Germany was still

divided between East and West,

and its former capital Berlin split

into the Allied-operated West and

the Soviet-controlled East. Each had

its own German administration:

democratic in the West, communist

in the East. Thousands of East

Germans escaped to the West,

and the country hemorrhaged

its skilled workers. On August 13,

1961, the government sealed off

East from West Berlin with a fence,

which, over time, became a heavily

fortified barrier dividing the city,

the nation, and family and friends.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev

was appointed as General Secretary

of the Soviet Communist Party.

Aiming for warmer relations with

the West, he set out new reforms:

glasnost (political “openness”)

and perestroika (liberal economic

“restructuring”). Critically, he lifted

the ban on Eastern Bloc countries

reforming their political systems.

Collapse of communism

With the threat of Soviet military

intervention removed, citizens in all

Eastern Bloc countries protested to

end communist rule. In June 1989,

Poland’s Solidarity, originally a

banned trade union, was elected to

lead a coalition government. As the

push for reform gathered pace, the

East German government declared

that its citizens would be able to

visit West Berlin through any border

crossing, including the Berlin Wall.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was

a momentous event. It marked an

era that saw the end of the Cold

War and the dissolution of the

Soviet Union. It allowed millions to

travel more freely, and previously

stifled economies across Eastern

Europe and the Former Soviet

Union opened up to the world.

Many former communist countries

were welcomed into NATO and

joined the European Union.

The world changed course in

1989. Communism was dead in
      the East, and a reunified Germany
      was about to take its place at the
      heart of Europe. ■

The break-up of the Soviet Union

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev

became leader of a stagnating

Soviet Union. He laid out

radical reforms—glasnost and

perestroika—and in July 1989

he announced that countries

within the Warsaw Pact could

hold openly contested elections.

Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, and

others opted for democratic

governments, destabilizing the

Soviet Union itself.

In July 1991, the anti-

communist Boris Yeltsin was

elected president of Russia. A

month later, with Gorbachev

weakened by an attempted coup

by hardline communists, Yeltsin

took advantage. He banned the

Communist Party in Russia and

met secretly with the leaders

of Ukraine and Belarus, who

agreed to secede from the

Soviet Union. On Christmas

Day 1991, Gorbachev resigned,

leaving Yeltsin as president

of the new Russian state. The

former empire split into 15 new

independent states, and the

USSR was no more.

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