After the COLD WAR The USSR Collapses 1989

After the COLD WAR

The USSR Collapses • 1989: Berlin Wall falls • 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev – last Soviet leader – Glasnost: “openness” – Perestroika: “restructuring” • Arms control • economic reforms • pulled Soviet troops out of satellite countries – Led to revolutions in Eastern Europe

Revolutions in Eastern Europe • 1989: Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia • 1989: Hungary opened its border to Austria – Berlin Wall comes down • 1990: Solidarity Movement in Poland – Lech Walesa • 1991: attempted coup against Gorbachev – Fails – Rise of Boris Yeltsin

Hardliners failed Coup • Boris Yeltsin – Russia leader – puts down coup – Commonwealth of Independent States – Cold War is OVER • Shift from Communism to Capitalism – Private ownership – No more gov’t jobs / $

Ethnic Unrest boils • Caucasus Mountains – Chechnya • 1992: Conflict in Yugoslavia – – – – multiple ethnic groups Ethnic Cleansing Bosnians > Muslim Croatians > Catholic Serbs > East Orthodox Kosovo > Muslim NATO to the rescue

Economic Changes and the EU • Positives: – Rise of businesses / entrepreneurs – Skilled labor paid off • Negatives: – Gov’t closings > unemployment – Eastern Europeans migrating to Western Europe • 1992: European Union – one Economic & Political union • one currency • to compete w/t USA – Loss of sovereignty