End of the Cold War

On this day, American President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals. This phrase would gain fame as indicative of Ronald Reagan's strong stand against the Soviet Union toward the end of the Cold War.

After the death of Yuri Andropov and then Konstin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev emerged as the new General Secretary of the CPSU. His policies of perestroika and glasnost brought a new openness to the Soviet Union. It also exposed the many failings of the communist system. Gorbachev would oversee the eventual breakup of the Soviet Empire

In a speech in West Berlin, President Ronald Reagan says, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” 

Soviet Premier Gorbachev announces to the United Nations that the Soviet Union would cease to militarily interfere with communist states in Eastern Europe. This declaration makes clear that the Soviet Union would not prevent the rise of non-communist parties in Eastern Bloc countries, prompting the growth of support for oppositions parties.

George Bush was inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States. President Bush will be the last President of the United States to fight the Cold War, and the Soviet Union will dissolve during his tenure.

The last Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afgahnistan. Gorbachev demanded that the retreat be orderly and dignified--he did not want television images reminiscent of the chaotic 1975 US pullout from Vietnam. "We must not appear before the world in our underwear or even without any," he told the Politburo inner circle. "A defeatist position is not possible." 

Calling for government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the restoration of workers' control over industry, the student-led movement of spring 1989 is suppressed by hardline leaders who order the military to enforce martial law. The scale of military mobilization and the resulting bloodshed are unprecedented and lead to China’s diplomatic isolation in the early 1990s.

Gorbachev tells the Strasbourg based Council of Europe that USSR will not block East European reforms, stating the "the sovereign right of each people to choose their own social system." Gorbachev's statements amount to an unofficial repudiation of the Brezhnev Doctrine.

The first non-communist government in Eastern Europe since 1948 was elected in Poland. The Solidarity union led by Lech Wałęsa was legalized and allowed to participate in elections. A Solidarity victory in the elections in April of 1989 led the way for a succession of peaceful revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, and led to Lech Wałęsa's election as president, and a Solidarity led coalition government in August of 1989.

On May 3, 1989, Hungarian soldiers removed the barbed wire fence on the border with Austria. The Hungarian government called the fence "outdated" and superfluous, given the existence of Hungary's new (1988) liberal passport law. East Germans touring Hungary in the summer of 1989 took advantage of the newly opened border to flee to Austria. By the beginning of October, more than 35,000 had left the country to go to West Germany.

After a misunderstanding, Günter Schabowski announced in a press conference the opening of all border crossings within Berlin and with the Federal Republic of Germany. Tens of thousands of people immediately went to the Wall, where the border guards opened access points and allowed them to cross.

Bush and Gorbachev met at Malta in the so-called shipboard summit. The summit opened the way for the successful conclusion of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty in 1990 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) in 1991. A press spokesman for Gorbachev declared: "We buried the Cold War at the bottom of the Mediterranean."

The regime Nicolae Ceauşescu collapsed after he ordered regular military forces and the Securitate to fire on anti-Communist demonstrators in the city of Timişoara on December 17, 1989. The demonstrations were triggered by the government-sponsored attempt to evict a popular church minister. The rebellion spread to Bucharest, and on the same day Ceauşescu and his wife Elena Ceauşescu fled the presidential palace in a helicopter.

On December 29, 1989, Vaclav Havel, the head of the Civic Forum, was elected president by the Federal Assembly. In the following free elections of 1990 he retained the presidency.

Bush and Gorbachev opened their second summit in Washington, and Gorbachev said during the course of the summit: "Germans should decide whether or not they're in NATO."

Following a treaty signed by the four occupying powers and the two German states in Moscow on September 12, the two Germanys were officially reunited as one into the Federal Republic of Germany. The first free elections of a unified Germany were held on December 2, 1990.

Warsaw Pact members abrogated all military agreements, but would retain political ties. At the same time pro-reform demonstrators marched in Moscow.

Presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus met secretly at Belovezhskaya Pushcha (Belorussia) to sign the Minsk agreement. The agreement abolished the USSR and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Gorbachev branded the agreement as "dangerous and illegal."

Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost seven years, resigned as the President of the Soviet Union. The federal Russian flag replaced the Soviet flag over the Kremlin, and marked the final dissolution of the Soviet Union.