ABSTRACT
In the case of Eastern Europe, experts had few doubts about the lack of popular support for Communist rule. But they tended to assume that the Soviets would not loosen their grip, and they completely underestimated the fluidity of the limits that the Soviet government put to its toleration of change. In the countries of Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent in the Soviet Union itself, there is a serious gap between the demands and expectations of an increasingly mobilized and vocal population on the one hand, and the capacity of political institutions to respond and to channel its aspirations. If the cost of maintaining forces in an increasingly hostile Eastern Europe becomes prohibitive, the Soviets could offer reunification to the Germans in exchange for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from German soil and the neutralization of Germany.
