Abigail Gonzales Professor Delao HIST 1302 8 Dec. 2017 Writing Assignment #3 The Cold War was between the capitalist and the communist governments which is sometimes known as the war of words. During World War II the Soviets were successful in the sense that caused a growth of their nationalism, communist movement, and need for nuclear power. Although the Soviets reached great power and prosperity after the Cold War came to an end the Soviet Union collapsed. The factors towards the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was the influence of the party leaders and the weakness of political systems. The politicians in office during the Cold War were Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. These two helped push to end the Cold War as well as …show more content…
The General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev, created several new policies that enabled citizens to attack the communist government as well as himself. Gorbachev “urging political openness with free discussion of issues and relaxation of control on the press” lead to an increase of people against the communist government and the end of the Soviet Union (709). But the main contributor to the collapse of the Soviet Union was Ronald Reagan because he got the Soviets to bankrupt themselves. He did so by getting ahead in an arms race that the Soviet's could not fund financially. Letdown of the Soviet Union sparked revolutions because money was being spent on defense instead of improving the lives of the people. Reagan assisted in intensifying the Soviet Union’s failing economy as he added a significant increase in arms causing them to overspend on weapons. Reagan’s, “foreign interventions were designed to