The Soviet Union: 100th Anniversary 1922

2. 100th Anniversary 1922

With the pace of the 1950’s Cold War increasing, alongside the the space race and the Berlin Wall, the decision to join forces with Cuba and build missile sites there brings the world to the brink of disaster. While the Cuban Missile Crisis is averted and a peace settlement reached, not long after JFK is assassinated in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, a US Marine veteran who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959.

3. Revolution and Dissolution

With the escalation of nuclear missiles globally, Brezhnev invades Czechoslovakia in 1968, as the proxy East vs West war in Vietnam continues. Following the catastrophic invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, a new era begins with Mikhail Gorbachev, as his bold statements quickly lead to a withdrawal from Afghanistan, and by 1989, the collapse of communism. That same year the symbolic Berlin Wall falls, with the end of the Soviet Union formally declared in August 1991.