COLLAPSE OF THE

U.S.S.R
Rieley Flore

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

The Russian civil war teared Russia apart. The civil war was between the
red army that was created by Vladamir Lenin and the white army. The red
army (Bolsheviks) wanted to have a communist government while the
white army was completely anti-communist. Unfortunately for the white
army the red army won the war and then Russia went through many
issues involving the government. They were taking over people's
farmland and causing people to starve.

CREATION OF THE POLITBURO

The politburo is the body of the Russian communist party. It was first
founded in 1917 but refounded in 1919 by the 8th party congress. The
politburo was only composed of 7 members but it did not play any role in
the no remember uprising.

STALIN'S FIVE YEAR PLAN

Stalins main focus through creating his five year plans was to modernize
the Soviet Union. The plan was concentrated on the industry of oil, iron
coal and electricity. Although it helped women tremendously In becoming
more equal and having more opportunities it caused starvation. Farming
land was taken from the kulaks and were made into collective farms that
were runed by the government.

WORLD WAR 2
This war involved every part of the world and had an effect on each
nation. It was started because of an issue that was still unresolved
during the First World War. The German dictator Adolf Hitler had wanted
to invade Poland. Hitler thought that he could invade Poland without any
problems involving the Soviet Union but that was not the case . It caused
Germany to challenge the Soviet Union.

JOE 1
After the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the program accelerated
into high gear. The soviets began construction of a near copy of the fat
man bomb. They created a replaca of the bomb that they called the "Joe
1" . A couple weeks after the construction of the bomb the U.S flew close
to the bomb and realized that there was a radar that went off suggesting
that there was an atomic weapon near by. This gave the Sovites more
power and threat to the whole world.

HYDROGEN BOMB
The successful test of RDS-1 in August of 1949 inspired the Soviet government to
institute a major, high-priority program to develop the hydrogen bomb. The Soviets,
who received information from Klaus Fuchs regarding the American hydrogen bomb
program throughout the late 1940s, knew that thermonuclear weapons were
theoretically possible. They also knew that the hydrogen bomb would have to be
developed in order to counter the perceived "American threat" abroad.

WARSAW PACT
The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the
Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the
defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military
command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. The introduction to the
treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact indicated the reason for its existence. This
revolved around Western Germany

SPUTNIK
The successful launch of the unmanned satellite Sputnik I by the Soviet Union in
October 1957 shocks and frightens many Americans. As the tiny satellite orbited
the earth, Americans reacted with dismay that the Soviets could have gotten so far
ahead of the supposedly technologically superior United States. There was also fear
that with their new invention, the Soviets had gained the upper hand in the arms
race. In addition, such a show of technological prowess could only help the USSR in
its efforts to achieve closer economic and political relations with third world nations
in Africa and Asia.

LAIKA AND SPUTNIK 3

the Soviet Union launched the first-ever living animal into orbit: a dog
named Laika. The flight was meant to test the safety of space travel for
humans, but it was a guaranteed suicide mission for the dog, since
technology hadnt advanced as far as the return trip. Laika was a stray,
picked up from the Moscow streets just over a week before the rocket was
set to launch.

CREATION OF THE BERLIN WALL

The building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 divided families and
neighborhoods in what had been the capital of Germany. The Berlin Wall was
both the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to
1989 and the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during
the Cold War. It kept East Germans from fleeing to the West.

1968 INVASION OF
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in a invasion on
Czechoslovakia. the nation of Czechoslovakia had been a strong democracy in
Central Europe, but beginning in the mid 1930s it faced challenges from both the
West and the East. In 1938, the leadership in Great Britain and France.Soviet
leaders were concerned over these recent developments in Czechoslovakia.

SALT 1
In January 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announced that the Soviet Union had
begun to construct a limited Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defense system around
Moscow. The development of an ABM system could allow one side to launch a first
strike and then prevent the other from retaliating by shooting down incoming
missiles.Johnson therefore called for strategic arms limitations talks (SALT).

SALT 11
Negotiations for a second round of SALT began in late 1972. Since SALT I did not
prevent each side from enlarging their forces through the deployment of Multiple
Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRVs) onto their ICBMs and SLBMs,
SALT II initially focused on limiting, and then ultimately reducing, the number of
MIRVs.

SOVIET AFGHAN WAR

At the end of December 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into
Afghanistan and immediately assumed complete military and political control of
Kabul and large portions of the country. This marked the only time that the Soviet
Union invaded another country. In the summer of 1973, Mohammed Daoud, the
former Afghan Prime Minister, launched a successful fight against King Zahir.

GORBACHEV BECOMES LEADER

Gorbachev is selected as the new general secretary and leader of the Soviet Union,
following the death of Konstantin Chernenko the day before. Gorbachev oversaw a
radical transformation of Soviet society and foreign policy during the next six years.
He was born into a family of a peasant farmer. Even as a young man he joined
communist party youth groups.Gorbachev worked hard to promote his own career
and to support Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev

CHERNOBYL DISASTER
On April 26, 1986, a sudden surge of power during a reactor systems test destroyed
Unit 4 of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the former Soviet
Union. The accident and the fire that followed released massive amounts of
radioactive material into the environment. The Chernobyl accident's severe
radiation effects killed 28 of the site's 600 workers in the first four months after the
event. Another 106 workers received high enough doses to cause acute radiation
sickness. Two workers died within hours of the reactor explosion from nonradiological causes.

PERESTROIKA
Perestroika was a political movement that involved the communist party. Of
the Soviet Union . The leader at the time was Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev
was different then all of the previous leaders of the Soviet Union . He was
thrown into a bad time in the soviet unions economy and standard of living.

GLASNOST
This caused for the Soviet Union to be more open with the people about
their decisions and not be so sneaky about what they are doing and what
they may be changing. Also they became more open with other nations
then they were before which caused more peace for the Soviet Union.
They wouldn't have many problems with other nations.

VOTING REFORMS BY
GORBACHEV
It was the internal reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, that
contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.Gorbachevs reforms touched
all segments of society. It included freeing press restrictions and releasing
political prisoners and dissidents from jail and internal exile.The Soviet Union
collapsed four months after the failed coup attempt.

FREE ELECTIONS IN POLAND,

CZECHOSLOVAKIA, HUNGARY
The economies of eastern Europe have been suffering the same. All three of
the nations were given the right to free elections. This was able to help the
Soviet Union because they werent involved with the elections in the soviet
union.

LITHUANIA AND LATVIA PROTEST

This was the first major problem that happened in the Baltic nations. The soviets
were attacking innocent civilians that had no threat toward them. This was bad
for the soviet union. They were all independent nations but Lithuania tried to
force itself back into the soviet union. They made no economic progress which
was not good for Gorbachev.

FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

The fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise. There had
been signs that the Communist bloc was weakening, but the East German
Communist leaders insisted that East Germany just needed a moderate change
rather than a drastic revolution.None of the citizens agreed with the berlin wall
when it was put up. People were extremely happy when it came down because
they were able to see their loved ones.

GORBACHEV STEPS DOWN

In his speech when he announces that he is resigning from what is left of the
soviet union, Gorbachev indicated that the recent establishment of the CIS was the
primary motive for his resignation, claiming he was concerned about the fact that the
people in this country are ceasing to become citizens of a great power and the
consequences may be very difficult for all of us to deal with. In words that were
sometimes prideful, sometimes resentful.

BORIS YELTSIN BECOMES

PRESIDENT
Yeltsin served as the president for 8 years. He was used to being a
communist member although he also believed in democratic an free
market reforms. He won the presidential election twice but the first time
was when Russia was still a soviet republic.

WHY DID THE SOVIET UNION

COLLAPSE?
There was many reasons and factors that were apart of the collapse of the Soviet
Union. The lacked the amount of money that was needed to make a strong nation
and they did not have any good leaders. The lost a lot of people in the wars and
the costs that they had spent on them. I do not believe that the soviet union could
have been saved because they were never completely in a good situation and
they always had some trouble that they were dealing with. The leaders of the
soviet union had too much power which cause a lot of economic problems.