After he became the general secretary people say that he dramatically changed the Soviet Union's course. He had dual program the called perestroika that translated into restructuring and he had glasnost that translated into openness. Within five years of the act Gorbachev set the revolutionary program took out most of the communist governments all throughout Eastern Europe. His program also put an end to the Cold War that was from 1945 to 1991. Even though these reforms seemed to do very good for the Soviet Union's safety and their economy it sent a message to controlled areas from the Soviets that independence was not that hard to achieve. Also the reforms took many communist governments power away and the controlled area by the Soviet Union didn’t agree with the system they had and would rather be an independent capitalist country.
One of the really important reasons for the Fall of the Soviet Union was nationalism. The definition of nationalism is a patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts. With the declining of the public perception by the citizens of the Soviet Union of the way that the Soviet government ran their country, which was by communism. Nationalism grew within all of these individual republic that the Soviet Union was under control over. There were many minor strives for independence by countries throughout the Soviet Union and most of them