ABSTRACT
1. The evidence that ‘new thinking’ has had a significant impact on Soviet attitudes towards Eastern Europe is now conclusive. Gorbachev has made it clear that the Soviet Communist Party has no monopoly on the truth, and has emphasised other communist parties’ responsibility towards their own peoples. He has made it plain that there should be no exceptions to the principle of countries’ ‘freedom of choice’, and in a speech in Kiev in February 1989, he noted that Soviet relations with other socialist countries were being restructured in theory and in practice in recognition of the diversity of approach to ways of uncovering the potential of socialist democracy. Each country was seeking its own answers to questions concerning the life of its own people in a sovereign manner. ‘The diverse movement towards the common goal in principle is the source of vitality and strength of socialism.’ A few days later, he was to tell the visiting Hungarian Prime Minister that it was an ‘incontestable principle’ that each ruling communist party fulfils its tasks in accordance with its historic conditions and national values, and works out its policy independently.
