The Demise of Communism

"Dear fellow citizens. For the past 40 years on this day you have heard my predecessors utter different variations on the same theme, about how our country is prospering...I do not think you appointed me to this office for me [to] lie to you...Our country is not prospering," (309). So stated Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel in his New Year's Day speech of 1990. What he was referring to was the political fallacies that had been fed …

…most influential was the loss of Communism in several countries, most importantly the former USSR. With the USSR no longer being a Communist state looking to implement its political ideals elsewhere, the United States no longer had a definitive opponent in the "war." Therefore, the movement towards the ending of Communism in the USSR and several other countries thereafter can undoubtedly be highlighted as the most influential factor in the decline of the Cold War.