Each interpretation emphasises different actors. Choose one and test it.
Which interpretation is most convincing?
Western triumphalist
- Reagan's build-up and SDI raised Soviet costs.
- The Reagan Doctrine made Afghanistan more costly.
Pressure exposed Soviet weakness and pushed Moscow to negotiate.
Earlier Soviet leaders met pressure with repression; change needed Gorbachev.
Soviet initiative
- Gorbachev cut arms and left Afghanistan.
- He renounced force in Eastern Europe.
Gorbachev's choices turned pressure into peaceful change.
He did not intend the collapse that followed.
People Power
- Solidarity negotiated a transition in Poland.
- Leipzig marchers and refugees forced open the Berlin Wall.
Ordinary people drove the revolutions of 1989.
They succeeded because Moscow did not intervene.