From Beginning to End

From the fall of the Romanov dynasty during World War One until it's fall in 1991, the Soviet Union (USSR) was one of the major world powers. When Nicholas Romanov gave up the Russian thrown in the early 1910's Lenin and Trotsky picked up the pieces and slowly began forming the USSR. For the citizens of the allied countries during the World Wars the Russian soldiers were viewed as heroes. However, seemingly overnight Russia had become one of our biggest enemies in part because of Joseph Stalin and in part to the beginning of the Cold War. The USSR became a Communist country and conditions were not good for the majority of the people. Eventually however, a communist reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, was appointed to General Secretary of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union and seemingly single handedly ended the Cold War. Ending the Cold War was just one of the effects of another major event Gorbachev was involved with. That is the fall of the USSR as a whole. To the world it seemed like the great power of the USSR self destructed in a short three months. However, if we look back it did not happen this quickly. It happened because of many of the reforms Gorbachev put into place when he was appointed in 1985. The USSR feel nearly 6 years later in 1991.

sources for this post:

http://www.historyorb.com/russia/intro.shtml

http://www.raleightavern.org/lovell.htm