The Fall of Communism Practice Test

Secondary-source excerpt (scholarly voice, ~100 words): Historians increasingly interpret the fall of European communism as a crisis of legitimacy produced by intertwined economic stagnation and political liberalization. By the late 1970s and 1980s, chronic shortages, technological backwardness, and mounting foreign debt eroded faith in planning. Gorbachev’s reforms—perestroika and glasnost—were intended to renovate socialism, yet they weakened the coercive and ideological instruments that had stabilized one-party rule. Equally consequential was Moscow’s retreat from enforcing compliance in Eastern Europe, which altered opposition calculations and encouraged negotiated transitions. In this view, 1989 resulted less from a single revolutionary blueprint than from cascading defections across regimes.

Which factor best complements the excerpt’s argument by linking economic stagnation to political mobilization in the Eastern bloc?

A post–Cold War synthesis contends that Gorbachev’s reforms unintentionally destabilized the Soviet system: glasnost widened public critique, while perestroika disrupted planning without creating a functioning market. The author argues that these reforms weakened the Communist Party’s monopoly and empowered republican and civic actors. Which development most closely reflects this mechanism contributing to the USSR’s dissolution?