The End — and the Arguments

EPILOGUE · 1990–1991 · The Cold War, 1945–1991

The finale runs eighteen months. Germany reunifies in October 1990 with Soviet consent — Gorbachev, by now dependent on Western credits and his own sense of a “common European home,” accepts what every predecessor had armed against. But at home his balancing act fails both directions at once: reformers (Yeltsin, elected Russia’s president in June 1991 — the first elected leader in Russian history) demand faster sovereignty for the republics; hardliners demand restoration. In August 1991, days before a new union treaty would have devolved power, the hardliners strike — tanks in Moscow, Gorbache

The turn: Belovezha, 8 December 1991.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.