(i) The New Cold War came to an end with the collapse of communism in various East European countries. The pace of collapse was very fast and ultimately communism collapsed in its birth place i.e., the USSR.

(ii) The process of collapse of communism began in Poland in 1988 when the Solidarity Trade Union organised huge anti-government strikes forcing the government to allow free elections in which the communists were comprehensively defeated.

(iii) The same happened in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia.

(iv) In East Germany the communist leader Eric Honecker wanted to disperse the demonstrators by force but was overruled by his colleagues. By the end of 1989, the Communist Government had to resign in East Germany and the Berlin Wall, the symbol of Cold War, was pulled down in 1989 with much public enthusiasm.

(v) The fall of the Berlin wall was taken to be the end of the Cold War as its erection had been taken as the start of the Cold War.

(vi) In 1900, the West German currency was introduced in East Germany and finally the two Germanys were reunited. The Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany was chosen as the head of the Government of the united country which adopted market economy and western type of democracy.

(vii) In the Soviet Union also communism collapsed. Mikhail Gorbachev made efforts to transform and revitalise the country by his policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring-which meant economic and social But the measures did not succeed and by the end of 1991 the USSR split into 15 separate republics, and Russia alone was not in a position to command the same influence that the old Soviet Union did.

Thus the Cold War came to an end.