1. Lecture 17: Dо svidaniya (до свидания), Cold War
May 5, 2010

2. Why the Cold War Ended Structural factors Leadership:
Economic stagnation in USSR
Control over Eastern Europe
Afghanistan
Oil prices
Leadership:
Gorbachev
Reagan?

3. The Reagan Agenda Foreign policy Confrontational rhetoric
Defense spending
“Star Wars”
Support for 3rd-world insurgencies
“Reaganomics”
Low taxes (“supply-side” economics/trickle down theory)
De-regulation, free enterprise
“Washington Consensus” abroad
Social conservatism

4. Problems in the Bloc

5. How did the USSR Maintain Control?
Subversion of elected governments
Install loyal local leaders
Secret police
Occasional military intervention

6. Hungarian Revolution, 1956

7. Berlin Wall, 1961

8. Brezhnev Doctrine
We cannot ignore the assertions, held in some places, that the actions of the five socialist countries run counter to the Marxist­Leninist principle of sovereignty and the rights of nations to self­determination.
The peoples of the socialist countries and Communist parties certainly do have and should have freedom for determining the ways of advance of their respective countries.
However, none of their decisions should damage either socialism in their country or the fundamental interests of other socialist countries, and the whole working class movement, which is working for socialism.
The sovereignty of each socialist country cannot be opposed to the interests of the world of socialism, of the world revolutionary movement. Lenin demanded that all Communists fight against small nation narrow-mindedness, seclusion and isolation, consider the whole and the general, subordinate the particular to the general interest.
Each Communist Party is free to apply the basic principles of Marxism, Leninism and of socialism in its country, but it cannot depart from these principles

9. Soviet Gerontocrats

10. Change

11. Gorbachev’s Plans Perestroika (restructuring the economy)
Glasnost (openness)
“New Thinking” in foreign policy
Common values over ideology
Interdependence of capitalism and socialism
Understanding of the security dilemma
December 7, 1988 UN speech signaled the end of the Cold War

12. Results of “New Thinking”
Skepticism on American Right
Arms reduction treaties with Reagan
Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Hands off Eastern Europe

13. Poland Throws Off Soviet Control

14. Berlin Wall Falls