<P> By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power . Grassroots organizations, such as Poland's Solidarity movement, rapidly gained ground with strong popular bases . In 1989, the communist governments in Poland and Hungary became the first to negotiate the organizing of competitive elections . In Czechoslovakia and East Germany, mass protests unseated entrenched communist leaders . The communist regimes in Bulgaria and Romania also crumbled, in the latter case as the result of a violent uprising . Attitudes had changed enough that US Secretary of State James Baker suggested that the American government would not be opposed to Soviet intervention in Romania, on behalf of the opposition, to prevent bloodshed . The tidal wave of change culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which symbolized the collapse of European communist governments and graphically ended the Iron Curtain divide of Europe . The 1989 revolutionary wave swept across Central and Eastern Europe and peacefully overthrew all of the Soviet - style communist states: East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria; Romania was the only Eastern - bloc country to topple its communist regime violently and execute its head of state . </P> <P> In the USSR itself, glasnost weakened the bonds that held the Soviet Union together and by February 1990, with the dissolution of the USSR looming, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its 73 - year - old monopoly on state power . At the same time freedom of press and dissent allowed by glasnost and the festering "nationalities question" increasingly led the Union's component republics to declare their autonomy from Moscow, with the Baltic states withdrawing from the Union entirely . </P> <P> Gorbachev's permissive attitude toward Central and Eastern Europe did not initially extend to Soviet territory; even Bush, who strove to maintain friendly relations, condemned the January 1991 killings in Latvia and Lithuania, privately warning that economic ties would be frozen if the violence continued . The USSR was fatally weakened by a failed coup and a growing number of Soviet republics, particularly Russia, who threatened to secede from the USSR . The Commonwealth of Independent States, created on 21 December 1991, is viewed as a successor entity to the Soviet Union but, according to Russia's leaders, its purpose was to "allow a civilized divorce" between the Soviet Republics and is comparable to a loose confederation . The USSR was declared officially dissolved on 26 December 1991 . </P> <P> US President at that time, George H.W. Bush, expressed his emotions: "The biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this: By the grace of God, America won the Cold War ." </P>

Leaders of the us and ussr during the cold war