The stalemate of the Cold War effectively ended when the people and governments of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries decided that they needed a major change in the way in which they organized their government, societies, and economies. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was only one indicator of the significance of this trend. Popular demonstrations and changes took place in all parts of the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, leading inexorably to the downfall of the Soviet Union and its control of satellite states.