This podcast primarily explores the reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev within the Soviet Union and the multifaceted factors contributing to the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring) aimed to address political and socio-economic issues within the USSR and ease international tensions. The sources also examine the arms race between the US and the Soviet Union, alongside the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall as critical elements in this historical shift. Ultimately, the documents suggest a complex interplay of internal Soviet reforms and external pressures that led to the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the conclusion of the Cold War.