ABSTRACT
The changes that took place in the Soviet Union after Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded to the position of general secretary of the Communist Party and to the leadership of the country in 1985 astonished the world. Gorbachev set a new agenda for relations with the Warsaw Pact allies and allowed Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to choose their own internal and external relations. It was the end of communist one-party states, so jealously defended by Big Brother for four decades. Even more astonishingly Gorbachev laid to rest the ghost of a revanchist Germany and allowed the East Germans to choose unification with the West. His policies went a long way to dispelling Western fears of the Soviet Union. Disarmament lay at the heart of the Kremlin’s new policies. ‘Gorby’ was welcomed and applauded in the streets of Bonn and amid the skyscrapers of New York. People in the West pressured their governments to respond more quickly and warmly to the Soviet leader’s offer of disarmament and peace, and Gorbachev’s genuine desire to end the Cold War finally overcame Western suspicions. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved and a united Germany joined NATO. The Cold War ended in 1991 and the Soviet Union and the US began working towards common aims in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
