307F Fall 2025 The Cold War Decline and Collapse of the Soviet Union: Brezhnev to Gorbachev

This course will cover the years 1964-1991, and discussion will center on developments within the Soviet Union, as well as Soviet external relations (with its Warsaw Pact allies, those in the worldwide Socialist camp, and the West) that occurred as part of the overall Cold War between the East and West at the time. Discussion will especially focus on activity and events that can be (and have been) interpreted by scholars as fundamental problems with the Soviet system, many of them part of a broad pattern of decline which finally ended with the historic and mostly peaceful collapse of the USSR.

Daniel Cain has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in History and Political Science from Ohio University. He also did post-graduate study at the Indiana University Russian and East European Institute (REEI) prior to a career of 30+ years as a U.S. federal government intelligence analyst.