No it was Reagan and the American military, Reagan was the 800 pound gorilla that rallied all the help that he could get, the Pope helped in his way, and Britain helped a lot, Walesa and others, all had a leader to follow that had a global economic and war machine at his disposal and a plan that he had been working on for decades.
Reagan was the man that ended the Cold War, without Reagan, then the Soviet Union would still be there, they were experts at dealing with internal pressures.
WIthout a doubt.
Reagan was the FIRST American president since the end of WWII that did not accept the premise that we needed to “co-exist” with communism. Every other American POTUS since FDR accepted as a foregone conclusion that:
a) we could not defeat communism, militarily or economically,
b) that we should simply “contain” it,
c) and that the idea that the USSR was infiltrating our government and nations on our doorstep were “reds under beds” scares.
Only Reagan was willing to stand up and call communism out for what it was: evil. Only Reagan was willing to predict that it would be assigned to the “ash heap of history.”
Everyone else, of both parties, was far too willing to ‘go along to get along.’