collapse of communism, Eastern Bloc countries from "summary" of The World Was Going Our Way by Christopher Andrew
The collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc countries was a seismic event that reshaped the political landscape of the world. The Soviet Union and its satellite states had long been seen as the vanguard of international communism, but in the late 1980s, cracks began to appear in the facade of their power. One of the key factors contributing to the collapse was the economic stagnation that gripped many Eastern Bloc countries. Years of centralized planning and inefficiency had left these economies in shambles, unable to keep pace with the more dynamic capitalist economies of the West. As living standards plummeted and shortages became endemic, popular discontent grew. At the same time, a new generation of leaders emerged in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, who were more open to reform and less wedded to the orthodoxies of the past. Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost and perestroika, which sought to liberalize and modernize the Soviet system, had unintended consequences, as it emboldened dissidents and reformers throughout the Eastern Bloc. The popular uprisings that swept through Eastern Europe in 1989, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall, marked the beginning of the end for communism in the region. The Soviet Union, under Gorb...
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