It all started when Fidel Castro took over Cuba in January 1959. The Soviet Union began to take an interest in Cuba and Castro, needing friends developed a friendship with Khrushchev. Fast forward to August 1961, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, Fidel Castro had formally asked USSR for assistance against an invasion from the US. USSR publicly promised and agreed to send weapons to defend Cuba against the US, and by 25 September, the first U-2 missions revealed that most of the Soviet forces were in place, with 42 nuclear warheads in Cuba. A further reconnaissance mission on 14 October confirmed missile bases and missile pads under construction. On 16 October, Kennedy is advised about the missile sites in Cuba and establishes the Ex Comm, and thus began the "Thirteen Days" of the crisis. On 18 October, it is decided that a quarantine is the best option, but however after more U-2 flights over Cuba showing more missiles, Kennedy is advised that bombing is the best option. Kennedy, not wanting to trigger a nuclear war, rejects the first-strike option and announces a quarantine instead on 22 October. On 26 October, Khrushchev sends two letters to Kennedy, the second more aggressive than the first. Kennedy accepted the first, friendlier message and agrees to dismantle its missiles in Turkey and not invade Cuba. On 28 October, The Soviets also agree to dismantle their missile pads in Cuba and the immediate crisis ends.

The Berlin Wall had made its mark forever in history, as the physical icon of the Cold War. However, while many people wanted to see the collapse of the wall and make it happen, there was opposition in many places as well.

The fall of the Wall caused anxiety more than joy at the highest levels of authority. The US government and the Allied bloc were anxious about what would happen with a reunited Germany. For instance, solidarity hero Lech Walesa felt that events were taking place too fast and should the wall collapse, much emphasis would be placed in helping GDR (East Germany) and therefore will leave Poland in the background.

Also, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had told Mikhail Gorbachev that "Britain and Western Europe are not interested in the unification of Germany. The words written in the NATO communiqué may sound different, but disregard them." Having known this, top Gorbachev aide Anatoly Chernyaev concluded that Thatcher wanted to prevent unification "with our hands" and not her own.

Finally, after the collapse of the Wall, then French President Francois Miterrand warned Thatcher that Europe had to bear its consequences, especially since a unified Germany would be able to cover more ground than what Adolf Hitler did.

However, one of the few highest-level expressions of joy over the fall of the Wall occurred in Moscow. In the diary of Gorbachev aide Chernyaev, he wrote on November 10that "The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the socialist system is over… That is what Gorbachev has done. And he has indeed turned out to be a great leader. He has sensed the pace of history and helped history to find a natural channel." This sentiment was shared with by many other citizens in Europe, especially in East and West Berlin, where many people wanted the collapse of the Wall and the reunification of Germany without such a forced physical barrier.

The Berlin Wall was the physical symbol of the Cold War, built on Aug 13, 1961. This border symbolised the physical separation between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc and enclosed the city of West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany, including East Berlin.

The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany for several reasons. Firstly, there was a huge brain drain in East Germany, as many skilled East Germans fled to West Germany knowing that life in the West is much better than life in the East. Also, there were two different currencies in Germany, especially in Berlin. West Germany currency can be exchanged with East Germany currency at the rate of 1:4, allowing people with West Germany currency to get goods very cheaply in East Berlin. This led to the agreement to build up the Wall at midnight, with much protection from East Germany troops to prevent any interference.

The immediate effect was the fact that many families were split as East Germans could not travel or move to West Germany. This eventually prevented anybody from West Berlin to leave, a fact proven when the Wall was structurally reinforced, for a total of four versions. The fourth version is the most advanced version, consisting of many anti-escape methods, especially the reinforced parts of the Wall to prevent cars of escapees from driving through. About 5000 East Germans tried to defect to West Berlin, some of the more famous being Conrad Schumann, who was the first East German guard to defect, and Thomas Krüger, who succeeded an airborne escape.

The fall of the Berlin Wall began in Aug 1989, when Hungary removed its physical border defences with Austria, causing many East Germans to flee to Austria. This triggered a similar incident in neighbouring Czechoslovakia. More and more people attempted to leave East Germany for the West through Czechoslovakia, which was tolerated by the new Krenz government and in agreement with the Czechoslovakia communist government. Due to much miscommunication regarding new regulations of the Berlin Wall that were about to be implemeneted, Günter Schabowski, a spokesperson for the politburo, incorrectly announced certain details of the new regulations, including when it was supposed to take effect. A German channel broadcasted incomplete information during the conference as well, stating that the borders are open to everyone. As such, the guards, seeing so many people going towards the borders and having no superior to refer to, yielded and let many people through. This paved the way for the eventual downfall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.

Since Gorbachev's policies did not directlty cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, than what caused it?

Factor 1 - Collapse of the Eastern bloc
With the liberal policies of Gorbachev implemented in Russia, citizens of the Eastern bloc gained the courage to criticize against their governments. If we look at the history of the eastern bloc, most if not all of the nations have had at least one attempt to overthrow their communist or pro-Soviet govenrments, howvever, the attempts eventually failed due to intervention of the Soviet trooops. Therefore, when Gorbachev ordered his troops not to intervene in the nations of the eastern bloc as he wanted more freedom for those nations, the situation got out of hand. In many cases, the citizens protested peacefully against their communists governemnts and one by one, the governments fell. This cuased the eventual breakup of the Warsaw pact. With the collapse of the eatern bloc, Russians also gained courage to protest against Gorbachev and demanding for a new govenrment, this eventually led to collapse of the Soviet Union.

Factor 2-Influence of Gorbachev
Gorbachev's polices were not always in full support by his officers. In many cases, the governmental officers reluctantly agreed to or even refused to carry our his policies. This is due to the fact that they viewed Gorbachev's policies to be too liberal and that they themselves are more conservative. Therefore, Gorbachev was never truly fully supported by his officials. This was even so after the August coup, when Gorbachev was kidnapped by conservative Soviet leaders, whereby officers in the Soviet government actually supported Boris Yeltsin instead of Gorbachev. This led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev played quite a major role in the collpase of the Soviet Union, even his intentions were to let Soviet Union continue on, however in many cases, his policies backfired. Faced with an uncooperative government and the lack of support of his people, the Soviet Union offically collapsed in 1991.

Was Gorbachev responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union?

It has been much debated that Gorbachev was fully responsible for the collapse of the Sovet Union. We feel that this might not necessarily be so.

Gorbachev was blamed to cause the collapse of the Soviet Union due to his policies. The policies og Gorbachev aimed to reform the nation, however, in many cases the aimes of the policies were not fully achieved and there were even some consequences of his policies.

If we look into Gorbachev's policy of freedom of speech, media and the press, the policy did indeed achieve its aims, which was for the freedom of speech, media and the press. However, many people say that this actually cause the nation to be in chaos, since the media were no longer under the control of the government which eventually led to the collapse of the Sovet Union. Even though the freedom of speech, media and the press might have caused the government to lose control of the media, however, the government were able to know what the people really wanted and what the people actually feel about the nation, government, leadership and the polices. The freedom of speech, media and the press might have not caused the collapse of the Sovet Union but instead to allow the leaders of Sovet Union, including Gorbachev, to be able to know what the people wanted and thought. The leaders can therefore implement policies accrding to what the people wanted.
This, instead of causing the collapse of the Sovet Union, might caused the Soviet Union to be existence for a longer time.

If we look into Gorbachev's way of Government spending, it was argued that the reduction in military spending caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, we think otherwise. The previous leaders before Gorbachev increased the military spending of Soviet Union, hoping that the Soviet Union could take the lead or at least catch up with America in terms of its military, this was especially so during the Soviet invasion of Afganistan. However, in many cases the military spending was far too much and caused spending for other parts of the economy was greatly limited, one such example would be for the production of consumer goods. Therefore Gorbachev reduced the military spending of Soviet Union to be used in the other sectors. We feel that Gorbachev's way of military spending increased the spending on the other sectors and greatly increased the living standards in the Soviet Union.

If we look at the economy of the Soviet Union under the time of Gorbachev, many capitalist features were introduced into the economy, such as private ownership of the businesses. This actually caused more people to be able to break free of the poverty cycle as people were able to own businesses and the running of the various enterprises would be also alot faster as compared to the running of the enterprises under state control.

Gorbachev's policies seem to be very feasible if we look at it in the modern context. However, is it necessarily feasible during that time?

We feel that Gorbachev's policies aimed to reform his nation and we think that he truly hoped to do so. However, the question still remains, were his policies feasible at that time? Looking at his various policies, most of them did success to achieve their aimes to a limited extent, even though there were some consequences as a result of his policiesm however we feel that his policies were indeed feasible at that time.

However, we also feel that some policies did not truly achieve its aims due to the fact that the policies were implemented too fast. The government and the people had insufficient time to adapt to the changes. This is also caused by the difference in the new policies as compared to the old policies that were implemented by the previos leaders. This might be one of the reasons to why some of Gorbachev's policies did not fully achieve its aimes.

In conclusion, we feel that Gorbachev's policies were feasible.

If you were an American citizen, how will you view Gorbachev?

If I were an American citizen, I would view Gorbachev as a very liberal and "western" leader. This is due to the fact that many of Gorbachev's policies, such as the freedom if press, media and speech and also his economic and political policies were very "western" so as to speak. Gorbachev's policies were very different from those who were before him, his policies were not "hardcore communist" but was liberal and western. The policies of Gorbachev were more similar to that of other western nations as compared to the previous Soviet policies. I would also view Gorbachev as a peace-keeper who wanted to ensure peace between the USSR and the USA.

In conclusion, I would view Gorbachev as a good leader.

If you were a Russian citizen, will you like Gorbachev?

Gorbachev was a reformer who reformed the basic lives of the Russian people. however, I were a Russian citizen, I might view Gorbachev as an incapable leader. This is due to the fact that news of the government could be easily avaliable though the use of media. I would able to have access of news of the failures of the government and I would also be able to know the level of corruption in Russia. This would affect my image of the nation and the government, this would also make me feel that Gorbachev is incapable fo runnign the nation. In addition, I would also feel that my life is contantly changing. With the freedom of press, media and speech and with new capitalist features added into the economy, I would feel that insecure as I might lose my job. In addition, the food shortage condition also got worse under Gorbachev.

Therefore, if I were a Russian citizen, I would not like Gorbachev.

Eastern European citizens became bold and spoke against their governments. Gorbachev allowed citizens choose their own government and Soviet troops were not to be involved, causing the collapse of the eastern bloc as the people chose non communist governments. In Soviet Union, without the support of his government, after the August coup, with the internal problems, the people not used to change and losing confidence in the government and leadership, Gorbachev resigned as the president on 25th December 1991 with Soviet Union dissolved the next day.

It all started when Fidel Castro took over Cuba in January 1959. The Soviet Union began to take an interest in Cuba and Castro, needing friends developed a friendship with Khrushchev. Fast forward to August 1961, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, Fidel Castro had formally asked USSR for assistance against an invasion from the US. USSR publicly promised and agreed to send weapons to defend Cuba against the US, and by 25 September, the first U-2 missions revealed that most of the Soviet forces were in place, with 42 nuclear warheads in Cuba. A further reconnaissance mission on 14 October confirmed missile bases and missile pads under construction. On 16 October, Kennedy is advised about the missile sites in Cuba and establishes the Ex Comm, and thus began the "Thirteen Days" of the crisis. On 18 October, it is decided that a quarantine is the best option, but however after more U-2 flights over Cuba showing more missiles, Kennedy is advised that bombing is the best option. Kennedy, not wanting to trigger a nuclear war, rejects the first-strike option and announces a quarantine instead on 22 October. On 26 October, Khrushchev sends two letters to Kennedy, the second more aggressive than the first. Kennedy accepted the first, friendlier message and agrees to dismantle its missiles in Turkey and not invade Cuba. On 28 October, The Soviets also agree to dismantle their missile pads in Cuba and the immediate crisis ends.

The Berlin Wall had made its mark forever in history, as the physical icon of the Cold War. However, while many people wanted to see the collapse of the wall and make it happen, there was opposition in many places as well.

The fall of the Wall caused anxiety more than joy at the highest levels of authority. The US government and the Allied bloc were anxious about what would happen with a reunited Germany. For instance, solidarity hero Lech Walesa felt that events were taking place too fast and should the wall collapse, much emphasis would be placed in helping GDR (East Germany) and therefore will leave Poland in the background.

Also, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had told Mikhail Gorbachev that "Britain and Western Europe are not interested in the unification of Germany. The words written in the NATO communiqué may sound different, but disregard them." Having known this, top Gorbachev aide Anatoly Chernyaev concluded that Thatcher wanted to prevent unification "with our hands" and not her own.

Finally, after the collapse of the Wall, then French President Francois Miterrand warned Thatcher that Europe had to bear its consequences, especially since a unified Germany would be able to cover more ground than what Adolf Hitler did.

However, one of the few highest-level expressions of joy over the fall of the Wall occurred in Moscow. In the diary of Gorbachev aide Chernyaev, he wrote on November 10that "The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the socialist system is over… That is what Gorbachev has done. And he has indeed turned out to be a great leader. He has sensed the pace of history and helped history to find a natural channel." This sentiment was shared with by many other citizens in Europe, especially in East and West Berlin, where many people wanted the collapse of the Wall and the reunification of Germany without such a forced physical barrier.

The Berlin Wall was the physical symbol of the Cold War, built on Aug 13, 1961. This border symbolised the physical separation between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc and enclosed the city of West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany, including East Berlin.

The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany for several reasons. Firstly, there was a huge brain drain in East Germany, as many skilled East Germans fled to West Germany knowing that life in the West is much better than life in the East. Also, there were two different currencies in Germany, especially in Berlin. West Germany currency can be exchanged with East Germany currency at the rate of 1:4, allowing people with West Germany currency to get goods very cheaply in East Berlin. This led to the agreement to build up the Wall at midnight, with much protection from East Germany troops to prevent any interference.

The immediate effect was the fact that many families were split as East Germans could not travel or move to West Germany. This eventually prevented anybody from West Berlin to leave, a fact proven when the Wall was structurally reinforced, for a total of four versions. The fourth version is the most advanced version, consisting of many anti-escape methods, especially the reinforced parts of the Wall to prevent cars of escapees from driving through. About 5000 East Germans tried to defect to West Berlin, some of the more famous being Conrad Schumann, who was the first East German guard to defect, and Thomas Krüger, who succeeded an airborne escape.

The fall of the Berlin Wall began in Aug 1989, when Hungary removed its physical border defences with Austria, causing many East Germans to flee to Austria. This triggered a similar incident in neighbouring Czechoslovakia. More and more people attempted to leave East Germany for the West through Czechoslovakia, which was tolerated by the new Krenz government and in agreement with the Czechoslovakia communist government. Due to much miscommunication regarding new regulations of the Berlin Wall that were about to be implemeneted, Günter Schabowski, a spokesperson for the politburo, incorrectly announced certain details of the new regulations, including when it was supposed to take effect. A German channel broadcasted incomplete information during the conference as well, stating that the borders are open to everyone. As such, the guards, seeing so many people going towards the borders and having no superior to refer to, yielded and let many people through. This paved the way for the eventual downfall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.

Since Gorbachev's policies did not directlty cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, than what caused it?

Factor 1 - Collapse of the Eastern bloc
With the liberal policies of Gorbachev implemented in Russia, citizens of the Eastern bloc gained the courage to criticize against their governments. If we look at the history of the eastern bloc, most if not all of the nations have had at least one attempt to overthrow their communist or pro-Soviet govenrments, howvever, the attempts eventually failed due to intervention of the Soviet trooops. Therefore, when Gorbachev ordered his troops not to intervene in the nations of the eastern bloc as he wanted more freedom for those nations, the situation got out of hand. In many cases, the citizens protested peacefully against their communists governemnts and one by one, the governments fell. This cuased the eventual breakup of the Warsaw pact. With the collapse of the eatern bloc, Russians also gained courage to protest against Gorbachev and demanding for a new govenrment, this eventually led to collapse of the Soviet Union.

Factor 2-Influence of Gorbachev
Gorbachev's polices were not always in full support by his officers. In many cases, the governmental officers reluctantly agreed to or even refused to carry our his policies. This is due to the fact that they viewed Gorbachev's policies to be too liberal and that they themselves are more conservative. Therefore, Gorbachev was never truly fully supported by his officials. This was even so after the August coup, when Gorbachev was kidnapped by conservative Soviet leaders, whereby officers in the Soviet government actually supported Boris Yeltsin instead of Gorbachev. This led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev played quite a major role in the collpase of the Soviet Union, even his intentions were to let Soviet Union continue on, however in many cases, his policies backfired. Faced with an uncooperative government and the lack of support of his people, the Soviet Union offically collapsed in 1991.

Was Gorbachev responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union?

It has been much debated that Gorbachev was fully responsible for the collapse of the Sovet Union. We feel that this might not necessarily be so.

Gorbachev was blamed to cause the collapse of the Soviet Union due to his policies. The policies og Gorbachev aimed to reform the nation, however, in many cases the aimes of the policies were not fully achieved and there were even some consequences of his policies.

If we look into Gorbachev's policy of freedom of speech, media and the press, the policy did indeed achieve its aims, which was for the freedom of speech, media and the press. However, many people say that this actually cause the nation to be in chaos, since the media were no longer under the control of the government which eventually led to the collapse of the Sovet Union. Even though the freedom of speech, media and the press might have caused the government to lose control of the media, however, the government were able to know what the people really wanted and what the people actually feel about the nation, government, leadership and the polices. The freedom of speech, media and the press might have not caused the collapse of the Sovet Union but instead to allow the leaders of Sovet Union, including Gorbachev, to be able to know what the people wanted and thought. The leaders can therefore implement policies accrding to what the people wanted.
This, instead of causing the collapse of the Sovet Union, might caused the Soviet Union to be existence for a longer time.

If we look into Gorbachev's way of Government spending, it was argued that the reduction in military spending caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, we think otherwise. The previous leaders before Gorbachev increased the military spending of Soviet Union, hoping that the Soviet Union could take the lead or at least catch up with America in terms of its military, this was especially so during the Soviet invasion of Afganistan. However, in many cases the military spending was far too much and caused spending for other parts of the economy was greatly limited, one such example would be for the production of consumer goods. Therefore Gorbachev reduced the military spending of Soviet Union to be used in the other sectors. We feel that Gorbachev's way of military spending increased the spending on the other sectors and greatly increased the living standards in the Soviet Union.

If we look at the economy of the Soviet Union under the time of Gorbachev, many capitalist features were introduced into the economy, such as private ownership of the businesses. This actually caused more people to be able to break free of the poverty cycle as people were able to own businesses and the running of the various enterprises would be also alot faster as compared to the running of the enterprises under state control.

Gorbachev's policies seem to be very feasible if we look at it in the modern context. However, is it necessarily feasible during that time?

We feel that Gorbachev's policies aimed to reform his nation and we think that he truly hoped to do so. However, the question still remains, were his policies feasible at that time? Looking at his various policies, most of them did success to achieve their aimes to a limited extent, even though there were some consequences as a result of his policiesm however we feel that his policies were indeed feasible at that time.

However, we also feel that some policies did not truly achieve its aims due to the fact that the policies were implemented too fast. The government and the people had insufficient time to adapt to the changes. This is also caused by the difference in the new policies as compared to the old policies that were implemented by the previos leaders. This might be one of the reasons to why some of Gorbachev's policies did not fully achieve its aimes.

In conclusion, we feel that Gorbachev's policies were feasible.

If you were an American citizen, how will you view Gorbachev?

If I were an American citizen, I would view Gorbachev as a very liberal and "western" leader. This is due to the fact that many of Gorbachev's policies, such as the freedom if press, media and speech and also his economic and political policies were very "western" so as to speak. Gorbachev's policies were very different from those who were before him, his policies were not "hardcore communist" but was liberal and western. The policies of Gorbachev were more similar to that of other western nations as compared to the previous Soviet policies. I would also view Gorbachev as a peace-keeper who wanted to ensure peace between the USSR and the USA.

In conclusion, I would view Gorbachev as a good leader.

If you were a Russian citizen, will you like Gorbachev?

Gorbachev was a reformer who reformed the basic lives of the Russian people. however, I were a Russian citizen, I might view Gorbachev as an incapable leader. This is due to the fact that news of the government could be easily avaliable though the use of media. I would able to have access of news of the failures of the government and I would also be able to know the level of corruption in Russia. This would affect my image of the nation and the government, this would also make me feel that Gorbachev is incapable fo runnign the nation. In addition, I would also feel that my life is contantly changing. With the freedom of press, media and speech and with new capitalist features added into the economy, I would feel that insecure as I might lose my job. In addition, the food shortage condition also got worse under Gorbachev.

Therefore, if I were a Russian citizen, I would not like Gorbachev.

Eastern European citizens became bold and spoke against their governments. Gorbachev allowed citizens choose their own government and Soviet troops were not to be involved, causing the collapse of the eastern bloc as the people chose non communist governments. In Soviet Union, without the support of his government, after the August coup, with the internal problems, the people not used to change and losing confidence in the government and leadership, Gorbachev resigned as the president on 25th December 1991 with Soviet Union dissolved the next day.

"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his
hands and at whom it is aimed."

Stalin is the name, born on December 21st, 1879
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