Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

In 1982, a man named Leonid Brezhnev died, and the Politburo (a leading committee of the Communist party) was trying to hold on to the powers of the communist states. However, Brezhnev's successors died after only a year in office. So, Mikhail Gorbachev, with the committee backing him up, became the new general secretary. However, he didn't agree with the original government laws, and decided to pursuit new ideas.

In 1985, he created a policy known as glasnost, which encourages Soviets to discuss ideas that will improve their society. Eventually, the policy reopened the churches, republished the books whose authors were banned, and released political prisoners from jail. In the same year, he introduced the idea of perestroika which allows the economy of the Soviet Union to reconstruct.