The Cold War

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The Cold War ENDS!
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USSR Leaders Post Stalin
After Stalin Died USSR was led by
Nikita Khrushchev
Leonid Brezhnev
Both continued to pursue Soviet Cold War goals.
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USSR Struggles

• Cold War battles drain resources (money and
  people)
• Increase in independence movements (in buffer
  zone/Warsaw Pact Nations example Lithuania)
• Communist Party looks to a new Young leader
  for reform

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• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Chosen to help solve the problems in
• the USSR
• Began a series of Domestic Reforms
• Glasnost
• openness
• Ended censorship encouraged free speech
• Democratization
• Open elections
• Foreign policy
• End the Cold War
• Signed a treaty with U.S. limiting nuclear
  weapons
• Perestroika
• Restructuring of economy (allowed some private
  business)

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German Reunification

• 1989
• while Soviet communism weakening
• Communist East German government overthrown
• East and West Berliners begin to tear down wall

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• 1990
• German voters approve reunification of Germany
• Helmut Kohl becomes Chancellor of a unified
  (democratic)Germany

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Fall of Communism

• Gorbachevs Reforms
• causes economic political turmoil
• shortages increase, prices and unemployment soar
• Free speech leads critics to call for change

• following Germany's lead More more countries
  begin to rebel against soviet sphere of influence
  
• Gorbachev is forced to resign in 1991

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Effects of Fall of USSR

• Soviet Union breaks up into independent
  countries (with mostly democratic governments)
• New countries have a variety of problems
• civil wars
• corruption
• economic reforms
• ethnic tensions

• U.S. is 1 Superpower but now that we won what
  is our new role in the world?

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Countries outlined in black are all new,
independent countries