On the death of Konstantin
Chernenko in 1985 Mikhail
Gorbachev was
elected by the Central Committee as General Secretary of the Communist
Party. As party leader he immediately began forcing more conservative
members of the Central Committee to resign. He replaced them with
younger men who shared his vision of reform.
In 1985 Gorbachev introduced
a major campaign against corruption and alcoholism. He also spoke
about the need for Perestroika
(Restructuring) and this heralded a series of liberalizing economic,
political and cultural reforms which had the aim of making the Soviet
economy more efficient.
Mikhail
Gorbachev introduced
policies with the intention of establishing a market economy by encouraging
the private ownership of Soviet industry and agriculture. However,
the Soviet authoritarian structures ensured these reforms were ineffective
and there were shortages of goods available in shops.
In the spirit of Glasnost
(Openness) Mikhail
Gorbachev revealled
to the world that in March 1940, Joseph
Stalin had given
the orders for the execution of 25,700 Polish soldiers in Soviet prison
camps. He also admitted that two other mass graves had been found
in the Katyn
Forest area.
Gorbachev also announced
changes to Soviet foreign policy. In 1987 he met with Ronald
Reagan and signed
the Immediate Nuclear Forces (INF) abolition treaty. He also made
it clear he would no longer interfere in the domestic policies of
other countries in Eastern Europe and in 1989 announced the withdrawal
of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
Aware that Mikhail
Gorbachev would
not send in Soviet tanks there were demonstrations against communist
governments throughout Eastern Europe. Over the next few months the
communists were ousted from power in Poland,
Hungary,
Bulgaria,
Romania, and East
Germany.
(1)
Mikhail
Gorbachev, Perestroika
(1987)
Europe is indeed a common
home where geography and history have closely
interwoven the destinies of dozens of countries and nations. Of course,
each of them has its own problem, and each wants to live its own life,
to follow its own traditions. Therefore, developing the metaphor,
one may say: the
home is common, that is true, but each family has its own apartment,
and there are different entrances too.
The concept of a 'common
European home' suggests above all a degree of integrity, even if its
states belong to different social systems and opposing military-political
alliances.
One can mention a number
of objective circumstances which create the need for a pan-European
policy:
(1) Densely populated
and highly urbanized, Europe bristles with weapons, both nuclear and
conventional. It would not be enough to call
it a 'powder keg' today.
(2) Even a conventional
war, to say nothing of a nuclear one, would be disastrous for Europe
today.
(3) Europe is one of the
most industrialised regions of the world. Its industry and transport
have developed to the point where their danger to the environment
is close to being critical. This problem has crossed far beyond national
borders, and is now being shared by all of Europe.
(4) Integrative processes
are developing intensively in both parts of Europe. The requirements
of economic development in both parts of Europe, as well as scientific
and technological progress, prompt the search for some kind of mutually
advantageous cooperation. What I mean is not some kind of 'European
autarky', but better use of the
aggregate potential of Europe for the benefit of its peoples, and
in relations with the rest of the world.
(5) The two parts of Europe
have a lot of their own problems of an East-West dimension, but they
also have a common interest in solving the extremely acute North-South
problem.
Our idea of a 'common
European home' certainly does not involve shutting its doors to anybody.
True, we would not like to see anyone kick in the doors of the European
home and take the head of the table at somebody else's apartment.
But then, that is the concern of the owner of the apartment. In the
past, the Socialist countries responded positively to the participation
of the United States and Canada in the Helsinki Process.
(2)
Mikhail
Gorbachev, Memoirs (1995)
Perestroika - the process
of change in our country - started from above. It could not have been
otherwise in a totalitarian state. But past experience showed that
if the spark of reform was not caught by the masses, it was doomed.
We had to
awaken society from its lethargy and indifference as quickly as possible
and involve the people in the process of change. I looked on this
as a guarantee of the success ofperestroika and spoke about it at
the April plenum; this was the
purpose of my trips through the country.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
