For 26 years, the Berlin Wall stood as a physical and ideological boundary between two visions of society. Anywhere between 130-200 people attempted to cross the wall and died trying. Many Presidents and Soviet Leaders came and went, until two very divisive figures showed up. One of them was the aforementioned Ronald Reagan of the Republican Party, a film star turned Governor of California and later President, who had a notably tougher stance on communism than his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. Reagan proved both highly popular and deeply controversial. His optimism, communication style, and emphasis on restoring American confidence earned him broad public appeal, particularly during a period of economic recovery and renewed national self-image.
At the same time, critics argued that his policies increased inequality, expanded deficits, and at times bypassed legal and constitutional norms. His foreign policy style was explicitly confrontational in its approach toward the Soviet Union, famously describing it as an “evil empire.” He significantly increased defence spending and launched initiatives such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposal to develop a space-based shield to protect the United States from Soviet nuclear missiles. However, this hardline stance was accompanied by controversial actions, most notably the Iran-Contra affair, in which members of his administration secretly facilitated arms sales to Iran, despite an embargo, in order to fund anti-communist Contra forces in Nicaragua. While this reflected Reagan’s determination to contain communism globally, it also raised serious questions about executive overreach and the rule of law.
Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness—pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Ronald Reagan, National Association of Evangelicals, 1983
Many within Soviet leadership interpreted Reagan’s military expansion as preparation for war. Whilst tensions rose, the unthinkable happened. Brezhnev died. He was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who also died. He was replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who also died. He was replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev, who, shockingly, lived.
Gorbachev, unlike his predecessors, realised where the issues of the Soviet Union had come from, as he was the only leader to have been born and grown up after the revolution. Much of government economic policy was centred around a command economy, in which many economic activities were planned centrally by the government, who prioritised machinery and large projects over consumer goods and quality. The inefficiency and bureaucracy of the Soviet economy also began to show. Many Soviet projects involved the government setting a goal and throwing as much money at it until it happened. This meant that less efficient, and thus longer, processes received more funding over the quicker ones, even if they both achieved the same goal. Under the planning system, factories were rewarded for meeting government production targets rather than producing goods efficiently or responding to consumer demand. Managers therefore had little incentive to innovate or reduce costs, while shortages of everyday goods became increasingly common.
They also spent far too much on weapons in order to compete with the United States as a superpower whilst also prioritising policies that were “communist” regardless of whether it worked or not. This disregard for pragmatism and solely prioritising ideological loyalty meant mass housing projects had extremely poor living standards, a free healthcare system was notoriously poor and cheaper food came at the cost of an unhealthy diet. Gorbachev was one of the only few to realise this, and began implementing mass reforms, constraining the power of the secret police, known as the KGB, significantly expanding freedom of speech, relaxing censorship, and returning power to the people instead of the tight grip on power at the top. His reforms became known as Perestroika (“restructuring”) and Glasnost (“openness”). Perestroika attempted to modernise the Soviet economy by introducing limited market reforms, while Glasnost relaxed censorship and encouraged greater freedom of speech and public debate. What was important to note was that Gorbachev was not opposed to communism, but instead believed that the Soviet system, established by Lenin, tightened by Stalin and enforced by Brezhnev, was a bastardisation of communism and had become nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy that did not serve the people like the initial ideology was founded upon.
One of the key steps in delivering his change was replacing the hardline Stalinists in government with those more open to change. One notable member of this group was Boris Yeltsin, the chair of the Communist Party in Moscow. He began improving diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, by opening up foreign investment, opening up trade opportunities and reducing military expenditure while pursuing arms-control agreements with the United States – strongly contrasting with American policy of increasing military spending to combat the “evil empire”. He also transformed the Soviet economy from the command economy to a mixed economy, which incorporated more free market elements. Whilst businesses had to make a minimum amount set by the government to give to the state, they could also go above the minimum and sell that for profit. The government stopped propping up failing businesses and introduced limited private ownership and reduced state control over enterprises.
However, this shift from a far-left centralised economy to a left-wing or centre-left mixed economy faced hardships. Whilst many expected this stark change to create a temporary and small economic downturn, the downturn extended much longer than was anticipated. Firstly, Gorbachev overestimated how mismanaged the economy actually was, as when they withdrew funds from failing businesses, wide gaps in the market opened up, leading to rationing of resources and overcrowding of shops and infamous massive queues. In addition, tax breaks combined with increased spending in certain areas led to a massive government deficit. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the transition was faster, but, as Gorbachev stated in his resignation speech, the old system had collapsed too quickly and did not give enough time for the new system to build. In the midst of this economic chaos, Reagan saw an opportunity.
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. . . . Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar. . . . As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. […] General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Ronald Reagan, Brandenburg Gate, 1987
Meanwhile, social reforms were improving too. Many in the Soviet leadership believed that democracy should take a more important factor in communism, holding them to account when they were voted out by the people that communism claimed to serve. With the restriction of the secret police, the publishing of government documents and the permission to publish previously banned books an intellectual renaissance was created within the Soviet Union and its client states. However, this did not go the way the government intended. Instead of people seeing the transparency of the government and thinking of ways to fix the communist system, they instead decided to remove communism altogether.
In Poland, a trade union rebellion instigated the first democratic elections in Poland since the 1930s, in which the anti-Soviet liberal Solidarity Citizens’ Committee won a 99 out of 100 seat majority in the Polish Senate. What proved remarkable was not the election itself, but Moscow’s response. Unlike previous crises in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet leadership chose not to intervene militarily. Unlike prior revolutions in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Soviet Union did not strike back against the trade unionists with military force. The Soviet decision not to intervene shattered what had long been assumed across Eastern Europe: that Moscow would always use military force to preserve communist governments. All of a sudden multiple protests occurred across Eastern Europe in 1989, all of which resulted in democratic elections and the end of communist rule for the first time in nearly 50 years. Most notably Hungary opened up its fenced off border with Austria, allowing the first citizens to cross the Iron Curtain.
One country that did not enact such reforms was Germany, run by hardline Stalinist, Erich Honecker. The still destitute Germans realised that if transport was permitted out of Hungary, then they could get to Hungary and move to the West that way. Tens of thousands practiced this before Honecker stepped in and banned all travel outside of East Germany. Nationwide protests erupted, which were harshly cracked down upon by government forces, who expected the Soviet government to eventually intervene. When they didn’t, Honecker was ousted by the GDR Politburo whilst the unrest continued. One target on the protestors minds was the wall.
On November 9th, 1989, in order to quell the chaos, the East German Government held a press conference led by Günter Schabowski, Secretary of Information Policy for the GDR, where it was announced that the travel ban from East to West Germany would be lifted. Towards the end of this hectic conference, he was asked when this would take effect he said that “As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay.” This was a mistake. The ban was meant to be lifted the next day. But, the German people had heard what they wanted to hear and, later that day, thousands of Germans came to the wall. The guards, overwhelmed, allowed the people through, whereupon the Berlin Wall was torn down.
The fall of the Berlin Wall became the defining symbol of the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe and one of the decisive turning points in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Families and friends who had been separated for nearly 3 decades partied into the night. The following year, East and West Germany reunified into a single German state. For the first time since 1933, all Germans participated together in democratic national elections.