On March 11, 1985, after Chernenko's death, Mikhail Gorbachev (only 54 years old!) came to power in the Soviet Union. Soon after, he launched the policies of glasnost and perestroika.
* The search for disarmament:Gorbachev wants to get his country out of the Cold War which is ruining the Soviet Union, which devotes about 16% of its GNP to it, compared to 6.5% for the United States (M. Vaïsse, 2004). On October 11 and 12, 1986, Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, which inaugurated a new "detente" marked by the resumption of dialogue, interrupted in 1979:the United States refused to abandon the IDS, but an agreement is almost concluded on the reduction of strategic weapons, while Gorbachev evokes the “Common European House”, denuclearized and neutralized. Thus, on December 8, 1987, in Washington, Reagan and Gorbachev decided to eliminate all the missiles present in Europe within three years:this was the "zero option", the first real disarmament treaty:
o Europe is emptied of the nuclear missiles of the Big Two;
o This is the end of the “euromissile crisis”;
o It's the end of the arms race (even if only 4% of nuclear warheads have disappeared).
* The "Velvet Revolution" and the end of the "people's democracies" (1988-1990):On December 7, 1988, from the UN platform, Gorbachev announced the reduction of Soviet armed forces in the GDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which which means the end of the “doctrine of limited sovereignty”:the Soviet Union disengages from Eastern Europe. This speech inaugurates the "Velvet Revolution", that is to say the smooth transition of the countries of Eastern Europe between a communist regime and a multiparty democratic regime by new constitutional laws from 1988 to 1990, without hardly any fighting or bloodshed. In the GDR, the inhabitants begin to migrate to the FRG via Free Hungary (summer 1989). Then, under the pressure of the population, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 and Germany was reunited the following year (October 3, 1990). In Romania, the autocratic regime of Ceauşescu was the last to fall, on December 26, 1989, and the dictator was assassinated along with his wife. In 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
* The settlement of peripheral conflicts:Little by little, due to the disengagement of the Soviet Union and the end of the communist threat, a wind of freedom is blowing over the world and several peripheral conflicts are being settled. For example, Vietnamese troops leave Cambodia (September 29, 1989) and Cuban troops leave Angola and Nicaragua. Many dictatorships in Latin America, supported by the United States as a bulwark against communist temptation, fell:Argentina (1984), Brazil (1985), Chile (1989), Paraguay (1989). In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is released (February 12, 1990), which will put an end to apartheid (1991). In Afghanistan, the Red Army leaves the country (1988-1989) but the civil war continues between the moderate Islamists of Commander Massoud and the hard Islamists supported by Pakistan.
* Hope in the Middle East? :During the Iran/Iraq war (1980-1988), the West officially arms Iraq, and sells them to Iran in secret. The Soviet Union supports both sides. On August 20, 1988, the UN reached a ceasefire without a real winner. However, in Lebanon, the Taif agreements submit the country to Syria. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while the first Intifada is in full swing, secret negotiations are carried out.