In Part One of The End of the Cold War, we begin inside a Soviet Union already in decline. From Brezhnev’s stagnation to the brief rules of Andropov and Chernenko, this episode traces how corruption, economic decay, gerontocracy, and Cold War pressure left the USSR brittle by the mid-1980s. Then enters Mikhail Gorbachev: young, energetic, idealistic, and convinced socialism could still be saved. This is the story of the crumbling inheritance he received in 1985—and the deep contradictions that made reform both necessary and potentially catastrophic. The seeds of the Soviet collapse were already planted. 

Books I read for this series:

• Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok (2021)
• The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall by Mary Elise Sarotte (2015)
• Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany by Katja Hoyer (2023)
• The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy (2014/2015)

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