Why did the Cold War end? And what followed it? Historians have identified both longer-term, systemic causes as well as the triggers that contributed to a cascade of change in the late 1980s, led by leaders and citizens. The longer-term causes have their roots in the changes wrought by détente in the 1970s, including the opening of borders to ping pong players, academics, and diplomats that generated more understanding across the Iron Curtain divide. Pressure also came from Europeans, such as in the Helsinki Accords, in which trade, stability of borders, and human rights become part of the conversation between East and West.
But why did things change all at once in the late 1980s? “Because,” asserts historian Jeremi Suri, “leaders on both sides and citizens on both sides came to see that change was better than stagnation” (Suri “Lecture”). Citizens from Beijing to the Philippines to Chile and Czechoslovakia joined their voices to the crescendo for change. Polish workers and the Solidarity movement played a big role, as did East and West Germans on the climactic night of November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall--erected in 1961--finally came down.
According to Suri, the diplomatic relationship between leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev made this change possible. “Citizens who no longer believed in their regime no longer feared; they hoped,” he notes. “When they hoped, they moved.”
But why did things change all at once in the late 1980s? “Because,” asserts historian Jeremi Suri, “leaders on both sides and citizens on both sides came to see that change was better than stagnation” (Suri “Lecture”). Citizens from Beijing to the Philippines to Chile and Czechoslovakia joined their voices to the crescendo for change. Polish workers and the Solidarity movement played a big role, as did East and West Germans on the climactic night of November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall--erected in 1961--finally came down.
According to Suri, the diplomatic relationship between leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev made this change possible. “Citizens who no longer believed in their regime no longer feared; they hoped,” he notes. “When they hoped, they moved.”