Peaceful Revolution increasingly lacked the materials to continue the arms race with the Reagan-era United States – particularly with a drawn-out war in Afghanistan – and the resources to control Central and Eastern Europe. With his economic and sociopolitical reform program as well as his disarmament initiatives, Gorbachev therefore sought to take appropriate steps. Having initiated a policy of "glasnost" (openness) and emphasized the need for "perestroika" (economic restructuring), Gorbachev essentially permitted the six member states of the Warsaw Pact to now each take their own direction with their own reforms. While those reforms implemented the Soviet Union were met with broad
Mikhail Gorbachev the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Kremlin and was replaced with the Russian tricolor flag. The next day, 26 December, the Soviet of the Republics, the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet, declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a functioning state, and formally voted both itself and the Union out of existence. Two days after Gorbachev left office, on 27 December 1991, Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev's old office. Gorbachev had aimed to maintain the CPSU as a united party but move it in the direction of Scandinavian-style social democracy. But when the