For a prominent group of political scientists, the answer to the question of how the Cold War ended would come from the structure of the international system itself. In explaining the causes of the Cold War, neorealism provided the most pristine answer to the question of what would bring about its cessation: only an alteration in the structure of the international system would do it. For conservatives, the answer was obvious: the presidency of Ronald Reagan brought about the end of the Cold War and of the Soviet Union. The faint hopes that the Soviet system would rapidly disintegrate without the leadership of Josef Stalin faded as the Communist Party survived the predictably difficult years immediately after Stalin's death. Like the early cold warriors, Reagan had long believed the Soviet system to be inherently unstable, contending that a government that systematically repressed fundamental human freedoms could not survive long.