The Cold War, which lasted for more than four decades, ended happily in 1991. There was no nuclear disaster. But then the collapse of the USSR and the entire socialist camp took place. For the people inhabiting the socialist countries, completely new perspectives have opened up. But they still had a lot to go through.
The Cold War had one gloomy prospect - to develop into a real, "hot" war, the third world one. Thus, its end automatically meant the prevention of a nuclear catastrophe and the death of all mankind. Based on this, we can say that everyone won in the Cold War. Even those countries that did not participate in it.
Positive outcomes of the Cold War
If we consider its end as the end of the confrontation between two political and ideological systems: capitalist and socialist, then victory will be on the side of the first. The collapse of the USSR and the entire socialist camp is the clearest confirmation of this. The model of a socialist state structure failed to prove its viability.
The end of the arms race is also a positive outcome of the Cold War for all mankind. This allowed the world's leading economies to reduce and redirect huge financial flows from the military sectors to peaceful needs. It became possible to partially use military scientific developments to improve people's lives.
The "iron curtain" ceased to exist, restricting the movement of citizens of the socialist camp in other countries of the world. People felt much freer. They got the opportunity to travel and study abroad.
The negative consequences of the end of the Cold War
However, the end of the Cold War also had significant negative consequences. And above all, this is the collapse of some large states of the former socialist camp and, as a result, the emergence of numerous interethnic armed conflicts.
The breakup of Yugoslavia was especially dramatic. Large and small interethnic wars did not stop here for more than a decade. In the vastness of the former USSR, armed conflicts also flared up periodically. Even if not as large-scale as in Yugoslavia, but still quite bloody.
However, there were not only disintegrations of states. East and West Germany, for example, on the contrary - united.
The end of the Cold War and the resulting economic changes in the countries of the former socialist camp also led to a significant deterioration in the material situation of millions of residents of these states. The market reforms being carried out in them hit the vulnerable layers of the population very hard. Such previously unknown concepts as unemployment and inflation have become commonplace.
