SALT-I and II
After Stalin died in 1953, Georgi Malenkov succeeded him, and then Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev started implementing reforms called the thaw, which included having “friendly cooperation” with the West and destroying the GULAG system, which involved numerous labour camps where political prisoners were incarcerated under Stalin. Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev in 1964. He cancelled the thaw and recentralized the government, halting nationalism which was growing in the Republics. In the 1970s, USSR and the US negotiated a nuclear arms deal. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty was signed; SALT-I by Brezhnev and Nixon in 1972. SALT-I limited the number of nuclear missiles each country could possess and their use. These limitations caused both countries to revise their nuclear strategies. USSR concentrated on developing larger warheads, while the US concentrated on more precise missiles. Consequently, the terms had to be renegotiated.
Brezhnev and Carter signed SALT-II in 1979, but the US Senate never ratified it. The ratification debate coincided with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the US promptly dismissed the treaty. The war lasted for ten years. Soviet troops occupied urban areas, battling the mujahedeen who engaged in guerilla warfare. US eventually supported the rebels, providing anti-aircraft missiles. The war left the Soviet Union in financial distress. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as General Secretary. He embarked on reforming the economy, first by signing a treaty to cease the war and withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Gorbachev ratified two policies, Glasnost which embraced political openness and allowed freedom of speech and Perestroika, which involved economic restructuring, allowing privatization of industries. However, these policies were slow to yield results.
The Republics exploited these freedoms to grow independence movements. 1990 marked the end of the one-party rule, and RSFSR voted to quit the Communist Party and proclaimed Russian sovereignty. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first popularly elected president of RSFSR, now Russia. In August 1991, CPSU diehards staged a coup, kidnapped Gorbachev and ordered the military to subdue all protests. The coup failed after the military desisted from violently engaging with the people. Russia replaced the Soviet Union at the UN and the Security Council. Gorbachev resigned and handed over power to Yeltsin, who eliminated CPSU. On December 24, 1991, Yeltsin officially disbanded the Soviet Union.