Answer:
1. Regime. The regime maintained itself in political power by means of the secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cultism, restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, political purges and persecution of specific groups of people.
2.Gorbachev's decision to allow elections with a multi-party system and create a presidency for the Soviet Union began a slow process of democratization that eventually destabilized Communist control and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
3.These differences between the two countries stemmed from their ideologies. Communism was the ideology followed by the Soviet Union. Originally founded by Karl Marx, it said that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people who would then all work for it. Not only was the Soviet Union communist, they were totalitarian, meaning all the power was with the rulers.
The United States was capitalist which meant that people could own land and businesses and compete for themselves. This led to a stark contrast between poor and rich. They were also a democracy, which meant it was the people who had a say by electing rulers.
In the Cold War, the division was between these two sides, and there was very little in between.