A major reference
resource for the piece below was a work entitled “The Cold War” by John Lewis
Gaddis, published 2005. Other freely available online resources have also been
utilised.
COUNTDOWN TO THE
END OF THE
COLD WAR
The
so-called “Cold War” had spanned forty-two years before collapsing when its most
notorious manifestation, the Berlin Wall, began to be demolished on the night of
9 November, 1989. The wall had divided the city of Berlin, Germany’s capital,
into western and eastern sectors since 1961 and was representative of the
political division splitting the whole of Europe. Germany itself was divided
into two separate nations, West and East Germany with Berlin located well inside
the eastern sector. The purpose of the wall was to block the exodus of East
Germans to West Berlin and thence to western Europe which had open borders with
West Berlin. Travel from eastern countries to the west was severely restricted.
The
ideological conflict had begun when United States President Harry S Truman
declared what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” – which effectively divided
the entire world between supporters of democracy and supporters of communism.
The United States and the Soviet Union (allies in the Second World War) led the
two opposing factions. Truman’s speech to Congress declaring the doctrine was
delivered on 12 March, 1947.
While the conflict was centred in Europe with the United States supporting the
west and the Soviet Union the east, in due course its tentacles spread to
Africa, South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia. Its most
dangerous flash-point throughout was Berlin, with West Berlin a thorn in the
side of the Soviet bloc. Its most tense moment was a stand-off between the
Soviet and US leadership over Cuba in 1962, and there were nervous moments
between India and Pakistan and between Egypt and Israel in the 1970s.
The
cold war was driven by the existence since 1945 of nuclear weapons, with the
respective arsenals rapidly escalating as time went on. Since the attack by the
United States on Japan in August, 1945 no nuclear weapons had ever been fired
(hence the term “cold war”) but the threat was constant and ever increasing. By
the 1970s Britain, France, Israel, China, India and Pakistan had joined the
United States and Soviet Union in the nuclear-weapon wielding fraternity with
other nations beating on the door. It was a disturbingly dangerous game they
were playing. The attack in Japan in 1945 had resulted in a death toll of at
least 200,000. By 1954 nuclear weapons 1,000 more powerful had been developed.
Several treaties were negotiated to limit or reduce the world-wide nuclear
arsenal but with minimal effect.
Berlin Wall (1961-1989):
divided a city and symbolised the cold war which threatened the peace of the
entire world.
The
timeline below deals only with the events which finally brought the cold war to
a close.
August, 1980
The
first independent self-governing trade union in a communist state was
established. The union, known as Solidarity, was set up by Lech Walesa to
represent shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland. This was a ground-breaking event.
January, 1981
Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as United States President. He was considered
likely, as a Republican, to react strongly if the Soviet Union were to intervene
in Poland and suppress Solidarity. Reagan’s predecessor, Democrat Jimmy Carter,
had set a precedent by imposing sanctions in response to the Soviet intervention
in Afghanistan. Reagan’s administration
was considerably more “hawkish” and fears of nuclear exchange were
revived.
13 May, 1981
An
attempt was made on the life of Polish-born Pope John Paul II, who had shown
quiet but unmistakable support for Solidarity. The would-be assassin had
connections with Bulgarian intelligence, implying a degree of nervousness over
union activity within the Soviet bloc.
Throughout 1981
There was ongoing Soviet discomfort over Poland’s reluctance to suppress
Solidarity but there were also signs of anti-Soviet sentiment among workers
within the Soviet Union. Wages were low and the economy in bad shape. In 1968
there had been an anti-Soviet demonstration by another satellite state,
Czechoslovakia, but on that occasion it was the country’s elite leadership who
had shown defiance. In Poland it was the workers – the very people the Soviet
system was supposed to represent and support. This could explain Soviet
reluctance to intervene. The Soviets had conducted a brutal invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968.
By
the end of 1981 the Soviet leadership had decided not to intervene in Poland.
Had this fact been widely known, the entire communist system in Europe could
well have collapsed then rather than eight years later. But it was kept secret
and the Polish leader, General Jaruzelski, was constantly under the impression
that Soviet tanks could roll in at any moment.
1982
Reagan was regularly extolling the evils of communism and predicting its demise.
He would later escalate military spending with the aim of bringing the Cold War
to an end, rather than cement it in place (and contain it) as the Détente
agreements negotiated by Presidents Nixon and Carter had done. A further danger
sign, perhaps.
November, 1982
Death of Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet leader since 1964.
March, 1983
Reagan announced his Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). It was dubbed “Star
Wars” as it involved creating a nuclear shield in space, capable of intercepting
missiles launched by the Soviets at United States targets. The objective, apart
from defence, was to eventually render nuclear weapons obsolete. While SDI was
widely criticised for its potential to escalate the arms race, it could well
have set in motion a process which led to the Soviet Union’s demise. The Soviets
were bluffed into believing the initiative was further advanced than it actually
was and saw themselves facing the enormous task of catching up, with their
economy still unsound.
February, 1984
Death of Yuri Andropov, Brezhnev’s successor.
March, 1985
Death of Konstantin Chernenko, Andropov’s successor. Mikhail Gorbachev was
appointed to lead the Soviet Union. He shows a geniality none of his
predecessors had possessed.
1985-88
Western pressure was increasingly exerted on the Soviet Union to allow their
citizens greater freedom. Partially in response to this and partially on his own
initiative, Gorbachev carried out reforms known as Glasnost (freeing up the
press); and Perestroika (greater freedom to the people). The disastrous 1986
Chernobyl nuclear accident was a major factor in the desire of the Soviet
population to avoid nuclear war at all costs and to become more compatible with
the west. Reagan’s famous “Tear down this wall” speech in Berlin took place on
12 June, 1987.
January, 1989
George HW Bush was inaugurated as US President. Bush and Gorbachev did not take
steps to end to the Cold War – both were wary of each other. Events which led to
the collapse of communism in Europe were set in train by the people of the
communist states – not their leaders.
April, 1989
Sections of the barbed wire border between communist Hungary and neutral Austria
were removed. The western press was invited to film and report on the event. Two
months later the respective Foreign Ministers of each country ceremonially cut
through the wire. These events were of great significance and a recap of the
history of Austrian and Hungarian relations is justified. The two nations were
part of the sprawling Habsburg Empire for six centuries and had been joined at
the hip as a dual monarchy since 1855. Throughout the cold war the border they
shared was probably the softest point in the so-called “Iron Curtain”, which
descended across Europe after World War II. Austria’s post-war division into
four sectors (British, French, American and Russian) ended when the victorious
allies terminated their occupation in 1955 and it was left to the Austrians to
determine their allegiance. Geographically they fitted into the Soviet sphere
but politically and culturally joining up with the western powers was more
logical. In the event they chose strict neutrality. They did not join NATO, the
western alliance established in 1949, nor would they sign up to the Warsaw Pact,
to be set up in 1955 by Russia and its satellite states in response to West
Germany joining NATO the previous year. The eastern bloc was particularly wary
of West German re-armament and its close ties with the USA. The admission of
West Germany into NATO and the establishment of the Warsaw Pact were significant
factors in the escalation of the cold war. Battle lines had been drawn.
Hungary was never a good fit within the Soviet sphere of influence. After the
second world war its people were strongly anti-communist. Their military had
fought loyally alongside Hitler against the Russians and they felt no urge to
cosy up to their former enemy, nor were they particularly enamoured by Soviet
philosophy and their form of socialism. But it was the leadership that dragged
the reluctant Hungarian population into the Soviet camp. The victorious Russians
had occupied Hungary and appointed its first post-war leader after Budapest
surrendered in February, 1945. Hungary endured an immediate decline in living
standards. Russia’s puppet leadership of Hungary was brutal in its application
of Soviet-style collectivisation, militarisation and industrialisation and it
came down heavily on any form of political dissent. Six hundred thousand were
deported to Soviet labour camps with one third of them dying. Things softened a
little in Russia with the death of Stalin in 1953 but the hard line remained in
Hungary and the nation signed onto the Warsaw Pact when set up in 1955.
Dissatisfaction among the population steadily built up and came to a head in
1956 when Soviet tanks entered the country to quell what had become an
anti-Soviet revolution following Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.
Order was restored but an anti-Soviet mindset continued forcing the Soviet
military to return to complete the job of pulling Hungary into line once and for
all lest the entire Soviet bloc became unstable. 150,000 troops and 2,500 tanks
entered the country.
Eventually a more liberal leader was appointed by Russia and the standard of
living rose. Hungary became the least oppressive nation in the Soviet bloc
throughout the 1960s and 70s. By the 1980s communism was beginning to fail
economically in comparison with the west with the late 80s world-wide recession
proving the final straw. It was in this context that the memorable “cutting of
the wire” at the Austrian border took place. Hungary was ready to turn its back
on its Soviet masters, open itself to the west through Austria and assert its
independence. The rise of Solidarity and associated events in Poland had been an
extra incentive. No Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary this time.
May, 1989
Contrasting with Hungary, “elections” in hard-line East Germany produced 98.95
support for their pro-Soviet Government.
4 June, 1989
Genuine free elections in
Poland saw Solidarity, now a political entity as well as a trade union, sweep to
power.
16 June, 1989
Imre
Nagy, the leader of Hungary executed in 1956 for initiating the uprising against
Soviet influence, was reburied in a state funeral with the approval of Hungarian
authorities. Hungary’s economy was now healthy and its leaders, with popular
support, were experimenting with further political liberalisation. A huge
movement away from hard-line communism in Eastern Europe had begun. Much
earlier, in 1948, Yugoslavia had been the only communist country in Europe to
break its allegiance with Russia and later was critical of both NATO and the
Warsaw Pact. It joined India and some other countries in establishing the
non-aligned movement.
Summer, 1989
Large numbers of East Germans “spent their holidays” in Hungary, and from there
travelled through the open border to Austria, thence to the west. At about the
same time East Germans also travelled to Prague in Czechoslovakia where they
climbed the fence of the West German Embassy to escape to the west. These were
further signs that people in increasing numbers were rejecting communist rule.
October, 1989
Protesters confronted security forces in Leipzig, East Germany. A mere four
months earlier a similar situation had occurred in Beijing, China. The
authorities there had fired on the protesters resulting in a huge massacre. The
fact that a similar result did not ensue in Leipzig was further evidence of the
softening of communist rule in what had been the toughest regime outside the
Soviet Union.
9 November, 1989
The
East German government decided to relieve tension by relaxing the rules
restricting travel to West Germany. A hastily drafted order was handed to a
Politburo member who had not been at the decision-making meeting but whose task
it was to announce the move to the press. He misunderstood the order and
declared publicly that East German citizens were free to leave through any of
the border crossings. Word spread rapidly that the Berlin wall was now open (it
was not), but the guards at check points had not been briefed and did not know
what to do as swarms of people headed for the wall. Eventually they took it upon
themselves to relieve the pressure and opened the gates. People flooded through;
later in the night they began dancing on top of the wall and then began knocking
it down. The wall had been in place since August, 1961 and its destruction on
the night of 9/10 November, 1989 came with virtually no build-up or warning. The
wall was attacked, not by government authorities on either side, but by local
residents - while soldiers and officials looked on. Gorbachev heard of the
events the following morning and advised the East German authorities they had
“done the right thing” in opening the gates. Pictures of the dismantling of the
wall were the most powerful and enduring symbol of the thawing of the cold war.
East and West Germany were officially re-united on 3 October, 1990 – after
intensive negotiations involving George HW Bush, Gorbachev and West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
17 December, 1989
Demonstrators in the Romanian town of Timisoara were fired on. Public response
resulted in the overthrow, arrest, trial and execution of Romanian dictator
Nicolai Ceausescu and his wife – all by the end of the year.
May, 1990
Elections involving opposition parties were allowed in USSR for the first time.
19 February, 1991
The
fragmentation of the Soviet Union itself began with the declaration of
independence by the Baltic state of Lithuania. The two other Baltic states
(Estonia and Latvia) quickly followed.
June, 1991
Russia elected its own president (Boris Yeltsin)
18-22 August, 1991
Attempted coup to depose Gorbachev as Soviet leader foiled, largely by the
dramatic stance taken by Yeltsin when he stood on a tank and declared the coup
to be unworkable.
September/October, 1991
Yeltsin disbanded the legislative body Gorbachev had set up, replacing it with a
council composed of representatives of the remaining USSR republics. This
council recognised the independence of the Baltic states, which prompted
Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan to also declare independence. These actions in
effect meant that it was Yeltsin rather than Gorbachev who finally dissolved the
Soviet Union.
25 December, 1991
Gorbachev signed the decree officially terminating the existence of the Soviet
Union. That moment brought the Cold War to a close. It can be traced back to the
1917 Bolshevik Revolution, intensified at the conclusion of World War II, and
reached its most dangerous point with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962.
Its demise was sealed within the startlingly short four month period between
January, 1989 (when communism was still firmly in place throughout Eastern
Europe) and May (when its imminent collapse was first signalled).
Conclusion
Communist governments in all seven other Warsaw Pact countries were overthrown
between 1989 and 1991. The Pact was dissolved at a ceremony in Hungary in
February, 1991. East Germany had withdrawn the previous year when Germany was
reunited.
The
world had survived the threat of global annihilation. By the 21st
century communism prevailed in North Korea and Cuba. China and Vietnam continued
to be led by communist parties although heavily regulated and state controlled
capitalist enterprises were allowed. Tensions remained, and continue, between
the United States and Russia. The number of nuclear-armed nations has not
decreased since 1991.