Page 150 - NS-2 Textbook

THE COLD WAR ERA 143

Much of this state of affairs resulted from restrictive democracy that, once set in motion, rapidly engulfed the
Commmustic policies concerrling private property and Soviet Union. The populations of the satellite states took
the accmnulation of personal wealth and an emphasis on advantage of the erosion of Soviet control to press for-
military spending. These, in conjunction with years of "vard successful self-determination movements. 111ese
cold war military poshrring and provocative foreign pol- eventually resulted in complete independence of all
icy had severely limited any infusion of money and tech- the former satellite states by 1990. Perhaps the most
nology from the West. important and surely the most emotional symbol of the
Both as a means of internal economic reform and to new European order occurred in November 1989 with
try to win favor with Western nations, soon after he came the demolition of the Berlin Wall. It had divided East
to power in 1985, the Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and West Berlin in Germany for tlUrty years and symbol-
initiated a series of liberal reforms and policies collec- ized the repression of the satellite nations behind the
tively called glasnost (new openness in foreign relations) so-called iron curtain. Germany itself was formally re-
and perestroika (internal political and economic reforms). united a year later. The Warsaw Pact alliance between the
In 1987 an important bilateral arms-reduction agreement USSR and the former satellite nations was disbanded ill
called the INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces) February 1991.
Treaty was negotiated between the United States and But most amazing to most Western analysts was the
USSR that reduced many tensions. It eliminated interme- rapid rise of the democratic movement within the Soviet
diate-range nuclear missiles (those with ranges between Union itself. Simultaneously with the loss of the satellite
300 and 3,400 miles) in Europe. Relations with Western states, people in most of the republics making up the So-
nations were also inlproved by many state visits, summit viet Union staged their own demonstrations for self-rule.
meetings, and further arms control negotiations con- Quickly rising to the foremost position was the Russian
ducted throughout the late 1980s, and by a looserling of republic, led by Boris Yeltsin, who only a few years ear-
controls over the satellite states of Eastern Europe that lier (1988) had been thrown out of the Soviet Politburo
had been dominated by the Soviet Union since World
War II.
In 1991 the first of several important strategic arms
reduction agreements between the United States and the
Russians was signed. Called the Treaty on the Reduction
and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, or START 1
Treaty, it cut total nmnbers of strategic nuclear warheads
in both countries by 25 to 35 percent. Later that year Pres-
ident Bush announced a unilateral withdrawal of all u.s.
land-based tactical nuclear weapons from overseas bases
and all sea-based tactical nuclear weapons from U.S.
ships, sublnarines j and aircraft.
All of Gorbachev's domestic reforms, however,
proved to be insufficient to hold back a rising tide of

One of the most emotional symbols of the end of the cold war era
Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa during a state was the demolition in November 1989 of the Berlin Wall, which had
visit to the United States in May 1990. divided the city since 1961.