Khrushchev initiated 'The Thaw', a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the

country. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and
economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing a dramatic rise in living
standards while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well.
Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. In
1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear
missiles in Cuba. An agreement was made with the United States to remove nuclear missiles
from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much
embarrassment and loss of prestige, resulting in his removal from power in 1964.
Era of Stagnation (1964–1985)
Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982) and Era of Stagnation

Nikolai Podgorny visiting Tampere, Finland on 16 October

1969 Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US

President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979.
Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of collective leadership ensued, consisting of
Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary, Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as
Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the
preeminent Soviet leader.
In 1968, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague
Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion and previous military
interventions, as well as any potential military interventions in the future, by introducing
the Brezhnev Doctrine, which proclaimed any threat to Soviet rule in a Warsaw Pact state as a
threat to all Warsaw Pact states, therefore justifying military intervention.
Brezhnev presided throughout détente with the West that resulted in treaties on armament control
(SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) while at the same time building up Soviet military
might.
In October 1977, the third Soviet Constitution was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of
the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The
long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of 'standstill', with an ageing and
ossified top political leadership. This period is also known as the Era of Stagnation, a period of
adverse economic, political, and social effects in the country, which began during the rule of
Brezhnev and continued under his successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.
In late 1979, the Soviet Union's military intervened in the ongoing civil war in neighboring
Afghanistan, effectively ending a détente with the West.
Perestroika and Glasnost reforms (1985–1991)
Main articles: Cold War (1985–1991), History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991), and 1991 Soviet
coup d'état attempt
Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President Ronald Reagan (left), 1985
Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of
the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to
reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in Beyond Oil that the Reagan
administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets
could not make a profit selling their oil, and resulted in the depletion of the country's hard
currency reserves.[85]

The Pan-European Picnic took place in August 1989 on the

Hungarian-Austrian border.
Brezhnev's next two successors, transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition, did not last
long. Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power;
both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the
Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. In addition to the failing
economy, the prolonged war in Afghanistan led to increased public dissatisfaction with the
Communist regime. Also, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 added motive force to Gorbachev's
reforms.[86] He made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called perestroika.
His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government
censorship. Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the USSR abandoned its war
in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the following year, Gorbachev refused to
interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet satellite states, which paved the way for
the Revolutions of 1989. In particular, the standstill of the Soviet Union at the Pan-European
Picnic in August 1989 then set a peaceful chain reaction in motion, at the end of which the
Eastern Bloc collapsed. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East and West
Germany pursuing re-unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-occupied regions
came down.[87][88][89][90]
At the same time, the Soviet republics started legal moves towards potentially
declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing the freedom to secede in Article 72 of the USSR
constitution.[91] On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-
thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum.[92] Many held their first free elections in the
Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to
produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the 'War of Laws'. In 1989,
the Russian SFSR convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was
elected its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its
territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the Soviet laws. After a
landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11
March 1990, citing the illegality of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Soviet forces
attempted to halt the secession by crushing popular demonstrations in Lithuania (Bloody Sunday)
and Latvia (The Barricades), as a result of which numerous civilians were killed or wounded.
However, these actions only bolstered international support for the secessionists. [93]

T-80 tank on Red Square during the August Coup

A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (the
remainder having boycotted the vote), with the majority of the population in those republics voting
for preservation of the Union in the form of a new federation. The referendum gave Gorbachev a
minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the country
into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics. The signing of the treaty,
however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline members of
the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the
central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Russian president
Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively
ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia
and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence (following Lithuania's
1990 example). Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August, and soon afterwards,
the party's activities were indefinitely suspended—effectively ending its rule. By the fall,
Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was being challenged even
there by Yeltsin, who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991.
Dissolution and aftermath
Main articles: Commonwealth of Independent States and Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold

War Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-

Karabakh, 1993 Country emblems of the Soviet Republics
before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative
Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and
the emblem is unofficial.)
The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union.
However, by December all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence.
During this time, Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government, including
the Moscow Kremlin. The final blow was struck on 1 December when Ukraine, the second-most
powerful republic, voted overwhelmingly for independence. Ukraine's secession ended any
realistic chance of the country staying together even on a limited scale.
On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (formerly Byelorussia),
signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the
authority of the accords to do this, on 21 December 1991, the representatives of all Soviet
republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the accords. On 25
December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR, declaring the office extinct.
He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin. That night, the
Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolour was raised in its place.
The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body, voted both itself and the
country out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of
the Soviet Union as a functioning state, and the end of the Cold War.[94] The Soviet Army initially
remained under overall CIS command but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of
the newly independent states. The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over
by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991.
Following the dissolution, Russia was internationally recognized[95] as the USSR's legal
successor on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign
debt and claimed Soviet overseas properties as its own. Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, Russia
also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet
republics. Since then, the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union's rights and
obligations, and is widely viewed as the USSR's successor state.[96] Ukraine has refused to
recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the USSR and claimed such status for
Ukraine as well, which was codified in Articles 7 and 8 of its 1991 law On Legal Succession of
Ukraine. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against Russia
in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the
USSR.