Ebook: Soviet-East European relations : consolidation and conflict, 1968-1980

The image of a Soviet leader being greeted with genuine enthusiasm on the streets of Prague, as happened in April 1987, or of East Berlin youth shouting “Gorbachev” and “glasnost” in protests along the Berlin Wall, as they did two months later, would have been hard to conjure up a few years ago, when this book was first published. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, it was the Soviet leadership that represented a dynamic, fresh approach to the challenges of the day—in stark contrast to the gray gerontocracies in power in Eastern Europe. The winds of change were blowing from Moscow and Leningrad; Budapest had become the citadel of conservatism and caution.
After an initial period of domestic consolidation, Gorbachev launched a series of sweeping reform proposals under the rubrics of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”), punctuated by such dramatic gestures as the release from exile of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov. In foreign policy, the new image and style of the Gorbachev leadership was followed by a steady stream of arms proposals that kept Western governments in a constantly defen¬ sive and reactive posture, particularly after the U.S.-Soviet minisummit in Reykjavik in the fall of 1986. Among West European publics, Gorbachev skillfully played on growing antinuclear and anti-American sentiment by stress¬ ing the common interests “we Europeans” share in promoting international peace. Even Britain’s Prime Minister Thatcher found Gorbachev “a man I can do business with.”
But for all his innovation at home and in relations with the West, Gorbachev’s early approaches to Eastern Europe were tentative and conservative. He sought closed ranks and improved coordination in foreign policy, stressed Leninist discipline in party policies, and largely followed the lead of his predecessors in intrabloc affairs. At least initially, changes in style did not yield changes in substance—reflecting, perhaps, the intractability of Eastern Europe’s economic and political dilemmas.