The story of the end of the Cold War.

1. Modern Russia History, Year
Five, Class 2, 2012 – 2013,
Today: Russia From Gorbachev to
Putin: The end of the Cold War and
the Collapse of the Soviet Union:
Gulf Coast State College
Adjunct Professor Joe
Boisvert

2. Glasnost and Perestroika
Glasnost (Russian: сность, IPA: [ˈɡlasnəsʲtʲ
] ( listen, literally: Openness)
was a policy that called for increased openness
and transparency in government institutions and
activities in the Soviet Union. Introduced
by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the
1980s, Glasnost is often paired
with Perestroika (literally: Restructuring), another
reform instituted by Gorbachev at the same time.
The word "glasnost" has been used in Russian
at least since the end of the 18th century.

3. The word was frequently used by Gorbachev to specify
the policies he believed might help reduce the corruption
at the top of the Communist Party and the Soviet
government, and moderate the abuse of administrative
power in the Central Committee.
Russian human rights activist and dissident Lyudmila
Alexeyev explained glasnost as a word that "had been in
the Russian language for centuries. It was in the
dictionaries and lawbooks as long as there had been
dictionaries and lawbooks. It was an ordinary,
hardworking, nondescript word that was used to refer to
a process, any process of justice of governance,
being conducted in the open."

4. Gorbachev Irrevocably Changed the
Soviet Union
• Mikhail Gorbachev in
less than seven years
transformed the
world turning the
Soviet Union upside
down. Mikhail
Gorbachev, March
29th, 2011 (introduced
by Kevin
Spacey and Sharon
Stone at celebrations
for his eightieth
birthday, and for
the Mikhail Gorbachev
Award and gala
concert

5. Gorbachev Woke the Sleeping Giant
• He woke the Sleeping Giant and he gave the
people freedoms they had never dreamed of
having. He also told them the Brutal Truths
about their horrific Past especially about
Stalin.
• Whole periods of recorded Soviet history were
changed by glasnost. Stalin, Brezhnev and
Cherenkov previously great leaders were
unmasked as the brutal oppressive murders
they really were. Only Lenin remained
sacrosanct.

7. Quotes by Mikhail Gorbachev
• Surely, God on high has not refused to
give us enough wisdom to find ways to
bring us an improvement in relations
between the two great nations on earth.
• It is better to discuss things, to argue
and engage in polemics than make
perfidious plans of mutual destruction.
• Mikhail Gorbachev

8. Soviet Eastern Block
• He tosses away and cut all ties and
immediately pulled out all Soviet Troops from
the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe.

9. Ended the Communist Party
• His final and most dangerous
step was to diminishes the
power of the entire Soviet
Communist Party.
• He Changed the Power
Structure of the Soviet Union
in the Government, Military
and in the Spy Community.
• He tried to end the KGB and he
succeeded in changing Russian
forever. The old Soviet Union
Collapsed.

10. Gorbachev ended the Cold
War that had dominated
World Politics for over fifty
years. It had consumed the
wealth of many of the
World’s Nations especially
the Soviet Union.

12. KGB and Old Guard Start Coup
• Gorbachev finally lost control
of the Revolution. A coup
started by the remnants of
the KGB and the Old Guard
of the Army forced him from
Office in 1991 and they tried
to stop the rapid changes
taking place across the
Country.

13. Many Books About the Rivalry
Between CIA and KGB

14. The documents suggest that Gorbachev knew more
about violent crackdowns in the last days of the Soviet
Union than he has admitted. Here, Azerbaijanis look at
the bodies of people killed by Soviet troops in the
streets of Baku (1990 photo).

15. Pro-independence protests in
Lithuania in September 1989. Fourteen
people were killed in a Soviet
crackdown in January 1991. "I am now
under tremendous pressure to
ntroduce presidential control in
Lithuania," Gorbachev said in a
telephone conversation with US
President George Bush a few days
before the military action.

16. In the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Russian soldiers
used sharpened spades and poison gas to break
up a protest march in the city on the night of
April 8-9, 1989.

17. 20 August 1991, The Attempted Coup
to Overthrow Gorbachev Collapsed
• On August 18, 1991 the Chairman of the KGB Vladimir
Kryuchkov and 7 other Soviet leaders, the State
Committee on the State of Emergency, attempted
to overthrow the government of the Soviet Union.
• The purpose of the attempted coup d'état was to
preserve the integrity of the Soviet Union and
the constitutional order.
• President Mikhail Gorbachev was arrested and
ineffective attempts made to seize power.
• Within two days, by 20 August 1991, the attempted
coup collapsed. Gorbachev left Power Yelsin took Over

18. In the Last Days of Gorbachev’s Rule
USSR Run out of Everything, Food, Gas….

19. Old Tactics New Problems
• The old guard tried to bring back the old
solution that had worked so well for the Tsars
and for the Soviet Leaders. They attempted to
enforce their Power to stomp out dissident
behavior and censor nonconformist behavior
and ideas.

20. • Gorbachev often quoted the other Great
Reformer Peter the Great, “Russia is a country
in which things that don’t happen, happen.”

21. The End of Gorbachev Time in Control

22. Conclusions About Gorbachev
In the late 1980s, the Soviet government came under
increased criticism, as did Leninist ideology (which
Gorbachev had attempted to preserve as the
foundation for reform).
Members of the Soviet population were more
outspoken in their view that the Soviet government
had become a failure. Glasnost did indeed provide
freedom of expression, far beyond what Gorbachev had
intended, and changed citizens' views towards the
government, which played a key role in the dissolution
of the Soviet Union.

23. Gorbachev has strong
claims to be regarded
as one of the greatest
reformers in Russian
history and as the
individual who made
the most profound
impact on world
history in the second
half of the 20th
century.

24. Mikhail Gorbachev 'ashamed' of Vladimir Putin
Mikhail Gorbachev has launched a withering personal attack on
Vladimir Putin on the eve of a giant anti-Kremlin protest in
Moscow, saying he is ashamed of the Russian prime minister.