- The Second World War allowed the Soviet Army to take most of Central and Eastern Europe and gradually, all the states liberated by the Red Army fell into a regime of people's democracy (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the GDR).
- Until 1989, people tried in vain to emancipate themselves from totalitarian regimes (Berlin workers' riots in 1953, Budapest uprising in 1956, Prague Spring in 1968).
- The arrival in 1985 of the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev changed the situation. In order to save the political system, he undertakes vast political (Glasnost) and economic (Perestroika) reform. A new foreign policy is put in place and disarmament negotiations are initiated with the USA.
- The 1987 Washington Treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Forces ensures a mutual reduction of armed forces in Europe, which will lead in November 1990 to the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty.
- The USSR loosened its grip on Eastern Europe and Gorbachev implicitly renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty by stating that the Warsaw Pact would no longer interfere in the internal affairs of brotherly countries and that the Red Army will leave the territories of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1988.
December 1991
Characters
Mikhail Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin
Wojciech Jaruzelski
John Paul II
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Lech Walesa
Janos Kadar
Karoly Grosz
Erich Honecker
Helmut Kohl
Gustav Husak
Vaclav Havel
Alexander Dubcek
Todor Zhivkov
Nikolai Mladenov
Nicolae Ceausescu
Procedure
The reactions to the policy pursued by Gorbachev in the 6 DPs are not the same.
It was in Poland and then in Hungary that the reformist influence changed the situation. Since December 13, 1981, General Jaruzelski has been maintaining order through a state of siege and repressing the free trade union Solidarnosc. But economic difficulties and the support of the Catholic Church (John Paul II) forced Jaruzelski to open negotiations with the Solidarnosc trade union (led by Walesa) in January 1989. Free elections were organized in 1989 and Mazowiecki took over as of a coalition government with the Communists, it is the first government with a non-Communist leadership in a DP. The economic and political transition can begin.
Similarly, the Hungarian regime gradually liberalized and free elections were organized in 1990. The border with Austria opened:this was the first breach in the Iron Curtain. In the GDR, the inflexibility of the Honecker regime led to the uprising in the streets and the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Helmut Kohl proposed reunification which would take effect on October 3, 1990. velvet” led to the fall of the communist regime of Czechoslovakia on November 27, 1989 and Romania rejected its leader Ceausescu on December 21, 1989. The latter left power.
These events will also have a profound influence on the development of the USSR. Gorbachev failed to reform the economic system, but Glasnost gave people hope for reform and nationalist centrifugal forces want to overthrow the political centralism of the USSR. The Baltic republics were the first to claim independence in 1989, soon followed by the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became President of the Republic of Russia. After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in July 1991, the conservatives tried to oust Gorbachev by means of a coup, but Yeltsin managed to defeat him:he thus confirmed his position as the leader of the reformists. On December 8, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine created the Commonwealth of Independent States and on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev, president of a state that no longer exists and secretary general of a party declared illegal, resigned. It is the implosion of the USSR.
Consequences
- The Cold War ends with the disappearance of one of the two protagonists:only the United States remains. Hubert Védrine, Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1997 and 2002, spoke about "the American hyperpower".
- The end of a bipolar world paves the way for what George Bush calls "the new world order" and the victory of liberal democracies.