ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union created and consolidated its East European holdings at the same time as the progressive disintegration and final dissolution of all other empires occurred. Eastern Europe therefore remains the only large and, in classical terms, imperial sphere in the world. The fundamental systemic problem of the East European countries is that of popular legitimacy, or rather the lack of it. In the early 1950s, the Western fear and the hope of the Soviet Union and their native East European viceroys were largely similar. The Communist rule of the East European regimes is based on internal and external, actual and potential coercive power. The economic relations among the socialist countries of Europe gradually became irrelevant to their key economic problems. Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika domestically and his new thinking in foreign and security policy question and reevaluate almost every aspect of the Soviet Union's domestic and foreign behavior.
