to the end of the most powerful communist-leaning country in history.

Although it stood as a major opposing force to the United States throughout the second

half of the 20th century, the country’s domestic struggles ultimately led to its downfall.

So, why exactly did the Soviet Union collapse?

Well, the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, can be said to begin with

its last leader: Mikhail Gorbachev (mihk-hah-eel gohr-bah-CHAHF) . He was in power from 1985

to 1991, and implemented a large number of reforms to try and deal with growing unrest

country-wide.

Gorbachev entered office following, what was called, “The Era of Stagnation”, generally

considered to cover the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s.

Although the causes of this stagnation varied, they were largely based on economic, social,

and military issues instituted during the reign of Leonid -,Brezhnev, and several subsequent

leaders.

Although different theories have been proposed, one suggests that the Soviet Union was desperate

to outperform the United States in two major regions: military, and spaceflight.

This led to excessive spending, with the Soviet Union establishing a self-contained military

industrial complex, at the expense of the economy, leading to underproduction and stagnation.

Moreover, after decades of repressive Communist rule, domestic attitudes towards the government

were at an all-time low, leading to greater dissent and unrest.

As the new leader, Gorbachev quickly set out to reverse this stagnation through two massive

programs unlike Russia had ever seen before.

The first was called “Glasnost”, effectively meaning “Transparency”.

The Communist Party had long banned books, operated a secret police force against dissent,

and arrested citizens for political disagreements.

But Glasnost ended all of these practices, and even tacitly encouraged these new freedoms.

The policy also made an effort to reduce the Communist Party’s hold on the entire government,

allowing competitive multi-candidate elections to occur.

The next stage was called “perestroika”, or “restructuring”.

This was an effort to move away from the structured economy, run entirely by the state, allowing

for more private ownership of businesses, and semi-free market access.

These two new efforts completely shifted the focus of Soviet politics and economy, and

closely mirrored the western ideals that had made other countries successful.

Unfortunately, the major shift was unable to undo decades of state-rule, and in the

words of Gorbachev, “The old system collapsed before the new one had time to begin working,

and the crisis in the society became even more acute.”

In this interim period, the economy got considerably worse, as did standards of living for nearly

all members of the Soviet Union and its satellite states.

Slowly, these Eastern European satellite states began to hold free elections, mostly as a

result of the glasnost reform.

The first to shift away was Poland, whose newly free elections instituted a non-Communist

party, and ultimately, independence.

Soon, other satellite states saw their own peaceful transitions of power.

Eventually, these efforts led to widespread unrest throughout the government, and in August

of 1991, a group of hardline Communist Party members attempted a coup d’état against

Gorbachev, who they believed was steering the country into failure.

The coup didn’t work, and Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party which had tried

to overthrow him, and it was ultimately dissolved entirely.

In the midst of the coup, several Baltic states announced their independence, which triggered

a domino effect over the next few months.

By December of 1991, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,

Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan left the Soviet Union.

They formed amongst themselves a new international commonwealth of independent states, removed

from the USSR.

Within a few days, the now powerless USSR government, which technically still only had

power over Georgia, was dissolved by Gorbachev, ending 69 years of world power.

In the past twenty-five years, Russia has managed to somewhat recover its former glory,

as the Russian Federation is the thirteenth largest economy in the world, boasting the

second most powerful military.

Although still lagging behind, Russia’s resurgence as a global power is a testament

to its influence before the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia has played a big role in many world conflicts, most recently the Syrian Civil

War.

Its involvement marks the first time since the end of the Cold War that Russia has stepped

outside of the former borders of the USSR militarily.

Find out more about Russia’s role in Syria in this video.

Since the start of the conflict, the government of Russia has openly supported Syrian President

Bashar al-Assad, originally in the form of political backing in the UN.

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