The Fall of the Soviet Union

The End of the Soviet Union

By the end of the 1980's, Gorbachev was blamed for the decline of the Soviet Union. In an attempt to regain power, he began reversing some of his reforms, and attempted to return to hard-line communism. His biggest critic, Boris Yeltsin, called on the nationalistic pride of Russians and demanded Gorbachev's resignation.

Following Yeltsin's lead, many of the satellite states called for independence. Gorbachev was close to giving in, which terrified conservative communists still in the government. These hard-liners attempted a military coup d'état (over-through of a government) in 1991, but failed after a total lack of support on the part of the military and the public. Yeltsin saw this as his opportunity and denounced the leaders of the coup in what is known as the Russian Revolution of 1991.

Yeltsin went on to declare Russia an independent state. The authority of the Soviet Union was discarded, and communism came to an abrupt end in Eastern Europe. Yeltsin was elected president of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States, which included Russia and many of the former republics of the Soviet Union.

Results of the Fall of the Soviet Union

The power vacuum left in the world without the Cold War and the Soviet Union, created a climate of uncertainty for third world countries formerly supported by the Soviet Union. The United States became the sole supper power in the world. This would lead to problems with terrorism. When the Cold War was still raging, both sides fought for the hearts and minds of these countries, without that conflict keeping the so-called peace in check, terrorism on different scales was allowed to proliferate throughout the world. This would culminate in the attacks on the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, USS Cole in 2000, and Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. These were the prelude to the start of the War on Terrorism resulting from the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack in 2001.