100:00:03,510 --> 00:00:04,930Hi, welcome back.This presentation is on the end of theCold War.It's a period that means a lot to mepersonally.I was a career diplomat at the time theCold War ended and was working in theWhite Houseand was involved in a lot of thisdiplomacy andthen later wrote a book about some of it.So, this is a near and dear period to me,and actually a pretty happy period inworld politics.It begins in the late 1980s.Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, they aregenuinelyrelaxing the tensions between the superpowers.Not just managed conflict, as betweenNixon and Brezhnev,this is a real d�tente,and that sense of relaxed tensions ismaking Gorbachev anenormously popular and admired person allover the world in early 1989.Indeed there's really a widespreadsense that the Cold War is over.That Cold Warrior, British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher, actually uttered thosewords, the Cold War is over, toward the endof 1988.Reagan's Secretary of State, GeorgeSchultz, also said: The Cold War is over.Think a little bit about what that wouldmean, though, inside the communist system.This is a system that relied onrevolutionary discipline, even thediscipline, if necessary, to imprisonand kill subordinates, if that was need tomaintain the rule of the Party.Well,if this is true,then,why do I need to do this?And, in particular, why would I need to killpeople to do that?So let's go to the spring 1989, a dynamicperiod, the dynamism is really kicked offin Poland in March and April of 1989.The Polish military dictatorship, rulingunder martial law through the 1980s,decides that the time is rightto try to rehabilitate its communistgovernment,picking up on some of the signals they'regetting from the Soviet Union.They reach out to negotiate with the

Polish opposition.They create a round table conference towork on terms for sharing power.This is a wonderful photograph of thePolish opposition leaders,led by this man, Lech Walesa, arriving fora meeting literally of the round table,getting ready to take their seats.You just get that sense of hard pressedmen now wearing their suitsand ties to sit down and work out thefuture of a new Poland.At that roundtable negotiation, theyprepare an agreementfor elections to be held in June 1989.The ruling Communist Party thinks thatthey can frame and managethe outcome of this limited election.They'll only allow a certain number ofseats to be in play.They think they can keep the non-communistopposition safely confined.It doesn't work out that way.They can't control the outcome of thatprocess.The non-communist electoral turnout is sooverwhelming,the mandate so clear, that it becomesobvious that very soon, the Polishgovernment is going to have toyield and allow the government to be takenover by the non-communist opposition.That will unfold later in the summer of1989.InChina, too, springtime in 1989 is full ofpromise.Remember I talked about Fang-Shou cycles,loosening, tightening?Well, China was going through a cycle ofloosening in the late1980s and momentum was building in early1989 to carry it further.Thousands and thousands of students andotherChinese gathered in the great ceremonialsquarein the heart of Beijing, Tiananmen Square,to call for liberalization of China'spolitics.Indeed, this wonderful photograph thatcaptures thethousands of people assembled in thesquares.The banners they're flying.They even built a paper mache statuecalled the Goddess ofDemocracy, which you see there facing thetraditional portrait of Mao.The leaders of this movement are young

people,actually, people like a lot of you.This young man over here shown at the timeof early 1989.His name is Wang Dan.He's in his early 20s.This young woman here, Chai Ling, 23 yearsold.But, spring turns to warmer summer.In China, the conservative leadership,after a periodof intense deliberations, decides that theproblem is gettingout of hand.The protestors' demands just continue toescalate, the leadership finally decidesthe onlything it can do is to reassert itsauthority and violently clear the Square.Sunday, June 4, 1989.This is of course the iconic image as thetanks begin rollingin, but I'm afraid that young man isn'table to stop the tanks.This isa glimpse of the scene in Tiananmen Squareitself.At the very back there you can see theportrait of Maothat helps orient you to that photographyou saw a moment ago.The debris from where the protesters hadbeen camped out,as armored cars and soldiers now controlthe Square.But at almost the exact same time, Polandand Hungary in Europe are making somedifferent choices.The Polsare negotiating elections that will beheld in July 1989.Solidarity, the dissident movement, winsthose elections sodecisively that the Polish governmentfeels obliged, by August 1989,to bargain a way for a non-communistgovernment to take power.The Soviets aren't sure what to do aboutthat.They insist that communists at leastcontrolthe security ministries, that Poland stayin the Warsaw Pact military alliance, butGorbachev decides to go along with it thatsummer of '89 in Poland.In Hungary, the communist government inHungary decides to open itsborders and allow its people to travelfreely to the West.Here is a bit of the scene as they can

begin crossing the borders to Hungary.Why are the Pols and Hungariansdoing this?The communist governments did not want toend communism.They thought they could manage theseproblems,humanize the way they ran their communiststates,maybe even sidling towards something thatlooked like democratic socialism.One side effect of what happened here inHungary though, is thatEast Germans, trapped in a state that didnot want reform, start fleeingfrom their country to the fellow communistcountry Hungary.They can travel freely to anothercommunist country.But then when they travel to Hungary, theystart trying to flee to the West throughHungary.It puts incredible pressure on Hungary.Then, when they start trying to choke thatoff, that flowof German refugees, then they turn toCzechoslovakia in September 1989.When the East German governmentfinally closes off the pathways even toCzechoslovakia,increasingly East Germany is turningitself, the wholecountry, into a prison camp, even keepingits peoplefrom travelling to other communistcountries in aneffort to somehow avoid the tidal wave ofreform.But notice the different choices beingmade here.Poland and Hungary are making choicestowards liberalization and openness.The Chinese, at almost the same time, makea different kindof choice in favor of shutting downreform, using violence if needed.Why, then, are these different choicesbeing made in these different countries?Partly it's because the Polish andHungarianleaderships thought they could manage thechange.The Chinese leadership thought they couldnot manage it.They were frightened of it, and theydecided to use violence to stop it.That Chinese option, that Chinese solutionas people called it in 1989,is going to come right into the inbox ofthe East German leaders

in October 1989. Escalating demonstrationsin their country, probably theclimactic one was in early October 1989 inthe city of Leipzig.Here's the scene.Thousands of people gathering.The government knows this protest is goingto happen.What are they arguing for, theseprotesters?Well, here's another snapshot from theprotest.You can look at some of their banners,they're interesting.Take this one, for example, in the middle.Coca-Cola, is that all?That's not an anti-American protest, whatthey're saying ineffect is the East German government isjust trying tobuy us off by bringing in some material goods.They think if we can get a can ofCoca-Cola,we're going to be happy. But here whatthey're talking aboutthat's a banner that reads: Politicalindependence for study,teaching, research. Or here, and I'll justtranslate this very loosely:It doesn't always have to be a darkness atnoon.Is the dawn coming?Well the East German leadership thoughthardabout what to do about this Leipzigprotest.They developed an option for militarilycrushing it, the Chinese solution.Even to the point of having allocated allthe hospital bedsthat would be needed for the people thatwould be injured.They'd gathered the security forces,they're ready to do it.Why didn't they do it then?It's a terrific question, I can give youthree reasons.One, increasingly the aging communistleadership wasreluctant to kill people for therevolutionary cause.A basic change in hearts and minds fromthe political ideas that seemed socommonplace for hardened figures andpolitics oneither side, say in the 1920s or 1930s.Two: They looked at their options, theysaid one option could be Chinese solution.Crush this.Another option could be well maybe we

shouldjust have a reform communism in ourcountry.Indeed maybe what we should do in EastGermany is just imitatewhat Gorbachev seems to be doing sosuccessfully in the Soviet Union.Very important, the belief that whatGorbachev was doing wasworking, would then help to stay their handin crushing this.Third. When they glanced at the SovietUnion, andSaid: What do you think if we useviolence?The Soviet Union ostentatiously kept itsdistance.The Soviet Politburo thinks about itand decides not to crush thedemonstration.And at that point, it's clear thatEast German leadership is going to have tochange.They do change their leadership.They adopt a new communist leadership verymuch in the model of Gorbachev,and Soviets help that process along.Here's another scene from October, 1989,celebrating the40th anniversary of East Germany, theGerman Democratic Republic.There's Gorbachev standing next to theaging East German Prime Minister, ErichHonecker.As you can see, Gorbachev is looking athis watch,as if he's wondering how much timeHonecker has left.Answer: not much.A few weeks later, Honecker will be goneand the new reformed communistgovernment is trying to think of ways tosatisfy the people and make them happy.One of the ministers gets up in alate night press conference in earlyNovember 1989 andsays you know what, we're going to loosentherules on how you could travel to the West.And then he goes home. All the peoplewatching him on TV think: What doesit mean that he just said this, can we nowtravel to the West?Tens of thousands of people in the middleof the night begin rushing towards theBerlin Wall.Now, he didn't mean to open up the BerlinWall, but all those people arerushing to the Wall and the border guardshave no instructions on what to do.

Thousands more arrive.The border guards are asking themselves,should we shoot, we have no ordersto shoot, we don't know what the Ministermeant in his press conference either.Finally, they shrugged their shoulders,give way,people swarm over the wall, and you havethese amazing scenes, like the one, here,atthe Brandenburg Gate in the heart ofBerlin.Or this one here,or here,as the border guards themselves weregazing in some bemusement.The world sensed a historical moment hadarrived.There was an earthquake, but what wouldthe new Europe look like?The American president, George H.W Bush,had been arguing since May1989, that Europe ought to become a Europewhole and free.He'd been arguing,even in September and October of 1989, thatthe goal ought to be a unified Germany,echoingthe kind of things that American statesmenhadtalked about in the late 1940s and early1950s.At the end of 1989 and early 1990, theUnited States and the West Germangovernment, led by Helmut Kohl, rally somevery reluctantWest Europeans, who are afraid of areunifiedGermany, to support unification as thegoal for a reconstructed Europe.To be able to manage that process ofunification,they developed an internationalnegotiation called the Two Plus Four.The two: East and West Germany; the four:the four powers, United States, GreatBritain, France and the Soviet Union,who have vestigialoccupation rights, because you know, apeace treaty was never signed withGermany.So the old military occupation rights,dating from World War II, still haveto legally resolved, and then combinethat, with an internal negotiation ofunification.Article 23 was a particular provision intheGerman constitution that they called theirBasic Law.

By the way, they called it their Basic Lawbecause it was meant to be an interimdocument since a constitution couldn't beprepared untilthere was a unified Germany to work on it.There were a couple of different conceptsfor unification out there.One was a merger, East and West Germanynegotiatecommon terms for how they will be governedtogether.Instead, what the West Germans decide,with American backing,it should be a takeover.East Germany should simply be submergedinto West Germany.What's the advantage of a takeover?You don't have to negotiate a new kind ofGerman state.Germany had had some troubles withdeveloping republics during the 20thcentury.Look, if you've got a republic that'sworking, why invent a new one?That was the logic of early 1990.That was theissue given to East German voters in Marchof 1990.West German political parties developpartnerparties in East Germany putting upelectionposters like this one, from theChristian Democratic Party�s partner inEast Germany,saying: No more socialism. Say yes tofreedom and prosperity.Of course, on the other side of theargument, it looked like West Germans,with their financial and political power,were preparing a state treaty,that's what Helmut Kohl is holding inthis caricature, to which the littleEast German prime minister, a man namedde Maizi�re, is clearly just a subordinatefigure.But one of the West German appeals isThat, if there is a merger, East Germans getto have West German money, and their EastGerman deutschemarks can be exchangedfor West German deutschemarks one to one. That's what the Germans choose to do.This photograph captures the moment atwhich literally physicallybundles and bundles of West Germandeutschemarks are brought into the East German banks and areunwrapped inorder to hand out the new money to EastGermans.

As you can see, these bank employees areviewing this as a pretty interesting andhappy occasion.During 1990, the surge towards Germanunity isn't occurring in isolation.Vast arms control treaties are beingnegotiated to accompany it,including the largest and most ambitiousarms controltreaty every signed, concluded in the fallof 1990,to reduce the conventional forces on bothsides.But that's not all.Germany, wanting to reassure West Europeancountriesabout what will happen if Germany becomesunified, also supports tighterEuropean integration.So, you see this image in whichChancellor Helmut Kohl and Jacques Delors, you remember him, are lookingat the map of a new European communitythat will includea unified Germany.NATO and the Warsaw Pact, those militaryalliances confronting each other in themost militarized part of the world,are working out their differences, signingthe arms control treaty that I mentioned,so that this division of Europeincreasinglyis fading away, and very soon, thesecountrieswill begin leaving the Warsaw Pact andthat whole military organization willstart to disintegrate.You know, looking back on this period,everything happened so quickly, it mightjust seemlike a damn broke and the water burstthrough.And the main reason I'm trying to spendsome time unpacking all ofthis is because, of course, it'san immensely important period in worldhistory.But I just want you to see that it'sactually made up of a series of reallyimportantchoices made by governments in theirinternational relations andin their domestic politics crowdedtogether in a tumultuous period.By the spring and summer of 1990, thosechoices were coming back to the SovietUnion itself.After all, if you've given up the coerciveprinciple that we're not going to holdpeople together by force, gee what does

that mean for the Soviet Union?Because remember, what does Soviet Unionmean anyway?It means that they're a series ofdifferentcountries, socialist republics, united ina Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.It�s a principle that says we had a RussianEmpirethat simply ruled over all thesesubordinate nationalities.We've replaced a Russian Empire with aSovietUnion.And the veneer, of course, is that allthese people are voluntarily united bytheirsolidarity as fellow communists, as fellowsocialist republics.The reality, of course, as some of thesenationalities had experienced, isthat it felt to them like they were livingin a Soviet Empire.If the coercive principle breaks down,what happens thento that whole political entity of theSoviet Union?This map gives you a sense of thecomplexityof the Soviet Union.There is a federation inside the union, aRussian Federation, which itself is afederal republic.And then a series of other autonomousrepublics, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kyrgyz,and so on, including these here in thewestern part of the Soviet Union.What's going to happen?Of course, it's all ruled from thecenter, from Moscow, but these events in32800:20:14,970 --> 00:20:19,900and 1990 are placing enormous stressinside the center.Gorbachev's leadership is being powerfullychallenged by peoplewho are now alarmed by what's going on.They especially see that some of therepublics inthe Soviet Union themselves are demandingthe right to secede.No republic was more in the forefrontof those demands than Lithuania, borderingthe Baltic Sea.They had a crisis over Lithuania in May1990, theSoviet Union begins cutting off vitallyneeded energy supplies toLithuania to try to bring them back intothe line,but the issue is: Are they willing to use

force?Are they willing to kill a lot ofLithuanians to keep Lithuania inside theSoviet Union?The international community, of course,is urging Gorbachev not to use force.There are hectic debates when theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union holdsits party congress in August of 1990.Gorbachev is challenged in particular bythisman, Yegor Ligachev, a party leader fromMoscow.He wonders where all this is going to go.Gorbachev increasingly abandons thepracticesof relying on collective leadershipamong the whole party Politburo.He concentrates more and more authority inhis hands and the circle around him.He does that partly so that he can bringtheGerman issues to a conclusion and sign theGerman settlements,first in this deal concludec with the WestGermans in July of 1990 in the Caucasus.There is Gorbachev, his wife, Raisa,Helmut Kohl, and his foreign minister,the Liberal Party leader, Hans DietrichGenscher.And then in the international agreement,the final settlement on Germany.I actually participated in thesenegotiations, and here's the Americanteam signing that agreement in Moscow inSeptember 1990.By the way that young woman right there isnamed Condi Rice.In early October 1990, Germany iscelebrating its peaceful unification.Here are the crowds gathered in front ofthe disused German Parliament Building,the old Reichstag, what will become theseat of a new, unified Bundestag,with this emblem representing the Germanpeople.But back in the Soviet Union, the Moscowcenter is splitting, polarizing.Gorbachev's foreign minister, EduardShevardnadze,this man right here,he warns the Americans: The dictatorshipis coming.In January 1991, there is another phase inthe Lithuanian crisis.Gorbachev is on the verge of declaringnational martial law,using force to crush the dissidents; heholds back though.Bottom line he, Gorbachev, is not going

to accept massive bloodshed, a Chinesesolution, tohold these republics in line.From that moment on, the process ofdisintegration accelerates.Now as you can see from this map,the Soviet Empire in East Europe alreadyis splintering.All of these countries beginning to findtheir own way.Germany reunifying in the fall of 1990.Really the remarkable thing is that,except inthe overthrow of the communistdictatorship in Romania,this isaccompanied by almost no bloodshed.In August 1991, the military, the rightwing, try to overthrow Gorbachevin order to institute martial law andhold the Soviet Union together.The coup is defeated, not so much byGorbachevhimself, who's being kept prisoner by thecoup plotters.It's defeated by one of the nationalistmovements, a Russian nationalistmovement led by a politician named BorisYeltsin, who wants tobreak Russia away from the rest of theSoviet Union.And at the end of 1991, the Soviet Unionis no more.It does break up into its constituentparts.You can see here, the map of the newRussian Federation with constituentrepublics within that vast federation.But then, new independent states, three ofthemthe Baltic, White Russia, Ukraine, and soon.Do you remember when we talked about how,after World War I and the break upof all these empires, there was all thisdisorder and the definition of new nationstates?Well, that process was happening all overagain, with the breakup of this empire.You can see, for example,the extreme complexity of what washappening in the former Soviet Caucasus,asdifferent ethnic groups and nationalentitiesorganize themselves into new states orstate-lets.So let's now pause for just a moment andreflect on this extraordinary story.If you read a lot of histories of the Cold

War, itis actually worth asking the questionexactly when did the Cold War end.There's a theory that it ended in 1986.Gorbachev's in power.It's clear that a confrontation betweenthe two systems is on the way down.Did it end at the end of 1988, when peoplelike Margaret Thatcher were announcingthat the Cold War is over?Or did it end in the fall of 1990,when Germany was unified and when anarms control agreement began winding downthe militaryconfrontation of the two sides?Or did it only end at the end of 1991,when the Soviet Union itself broke up?It's not just a parlor game, because byasking that question, in a way, we'reasking: Well,I'll know when the Cold War was over, ifyou'll tell me what the Cold War wasabout.If you�ve followed the argument of thiscourse,the Cold War was just the last greatchapterin a hundred year long struggle about howto organize modern industrial societies.We introduced that theme much earlier inthis class.So if you think the Cold War is achapter in that long, sometimes violentargument, when didthat clash about how to organize thesemodern societiesreally seem to make a decisive turn towardending?My argument is that,in Europe, that point is really here,around 1990, because of those crucialagreementsthat let people go their own wayand begin moving towards variants ofsocial democracy.But it's interesting to note that inAsia your answer might really be quitedifferent.It can be that the Cold War starts windingdown by the end of the 1970s.Or it can be that,you know what, maybe the Cold War in Asiaonly had an armistice and never quiteended at all.We'll come back to some of those themes aswe take the story forward to today'sgeneration, next week.See youthen.