The Collapse of Communism

The causes of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe were that it had no popular support, political downfall, and economic problems.The fact that the USSR had gained all of its money from the Eastern European states (after world war 2), Stalin's paranoia of the West forced him to put all that money into defensive arms and therefore none of that money was being channeled into the country. Many historians would argue that it was at this point that the USSR began its downward spiral and this is were the country began its snowball effect.

They did because they wanted to reunify Germany.Germany was split into four sectors-the Soviet, American, French, and English after WWII. Germany had fallen apart. The Soviets ran their sector as a communist one. The wall was built in 1961 to prevent the Soviets' people in the east from escaping into the West which was better. People still tried to get over. They dug tunnels and jumped out of windows. People died trying to cross-a total of 239 deaths from the wall. There were about 5000 escapes. Ronald Reagan had came over to the Brandenburg gate to give a speech to the Soviet Leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the West Berliners. East Berliners heard the speech through their radios. He wanted the wall down since their was tension between the US and USSR with the Space Race and Nuclear Weapons that had happened in the past. He wanted to be on better terms with the Soviets and realized the struggle of the people. He wanted Germany reunified.

And later in 1989 things heated up. East Berliners held demonstrations against their communist government. Authorities had to handle the situation with matters of force. East Berliners were beaten and arrested that night, some even took sledgehammers and tried to break apart the wall to get into east Berlin. Finally in like Nov they started to take the wall down. Families that were separated were reunited after not seeing each other for years. All was better but it took a while for things to be cleaned up. In 1991 the USSR fell. Also Gorbachev had made peace with Reagan and Gorbachev had won the Nobel peace prize.


Soviet labor did not allow the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favorable terms. This low productivity, and this is where a profound connection between the internal and external life of the Soviet Union existed, could only have been boosted by the energy and initiative of the masses. Such input was not forthcoming.