The Cold War: When nuclear weapons kept the entire world on the edge of M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction. As Russia, China and the USA flex their military muscles on the global stage today, ‘M.A.D. World’ takes a close look at the last time we were threatened by the might of world superpowers: The Cold War.
In this episode:
- Lead by Poland, Eastern European countries start to follow the Russian model and claim greater freedoms. For the first time in Soviet history, the government does not invade or attempt to crush dissent. Within 12 months almost every eastern European country is holding free elections and breaking loose from soviet oppression.
- A bureaucratic misunderstanding allows East Berliners to move across the border into West Berlin. Within hours the Berlin wall is being demolished to scenes of jubilation.
- One nation from former Eastern Europe has a chilling climax to its break from communism. President Ceaușescu tries to violently suppress the popular uprising but fails. The freedom fighters win and Ceaușescu is executed with his wife on Christmas day 1989.
- East Germany is one of the more severe communist regimes and despite attempts to keep the 2 Germanys separate, they become one nation for the first time since World War 2.
- Gorbachev’s drive to fix the Russian economy is spearheaded by two policies – perestroika, meaning ‘restructuring’ and ‘Glasnost’ meaning ‘openness’. But it may be too late. Many Russians are starving and impatient for a better life.
- Despite Gorbachev’s plan to create a more liberal Soviet Union, the soviet republics want to break free. Protests and violence erupt within many of these new nations as factions fight for power. By 1992, every republic has broken away. The Soviet Union is no more, the great communist experiment is dead and the Cold War is over.
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