By the 1980s the gap between communist and capitalist countries were growing even larger. The Soviet Union and its allies were not able to compete with the West in the new industries of the 1980s e.g. in computers and telecommunications.

Farming was also failing to produce enough food. In the 1980s farming in the Soviet Union employed over 20 per cent of the workforce, compared with 3 per cent in the USA. On average each American farmer produced seven more times food than each Soviet farmer meaning that the Soviet Union had to import millions of tons of grain. There was corruption at the highest levels with the leading communists in each country living luxurious lives while ordinary people struggled to survive; this meant that communism was also discredited as a political ideology. In addition, the Soviet Union was spending a large percentage of its income on defence and keeping its army in Afghanistan where it was fighting a disastrous war.
 

Gorbachev was a realist but also an idealist in that he believed that Communism could be reformed without being dismantled. His aims for the Soviet Union were as follows:

• To reform the economic system. This would be done by a process called 'perestroika' or 'restructuring'
• To encourage more honesty and openness or 'glasnost'. This would mean free speech and an end to the persecution of dissidents
• To stamp out corruption
• Reduce the amount spent on defence. This would mean taking the Soviet troops out of Afghanistan and negotiating arms reductions with the USA

As you have seen from your study of events in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, Communism had failed to deliver a good life to the people of Eastern Europe; not only did people face political oppression but they also faced severe economic shortages and a poor standard of living.

Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union meant that people in the eastern European states started to demand similar reforms; they now had real hope that change could be achieved.

This hope was reinforced by Gorbachev's attitude towards the east European states. He made it clear that he thought the leaders of these states should carry out reforms. More significantly he made it clear that he was not willing to use force to put down any rebellions in these states. This was the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine; the countries of Eastern Europe could do what they liked.

The leaders of most of the East European states who were old style, hard-line Communists were horrified by this situation.

One of Gorbachev's aims had been to reduce spending on defence.  He decided to abandon the arms race and attempt a negotiated reduction in arms with the USA. This was not only because of economic reasons; Gorbachev was also very aware of the dangers of nuclear weapons.

The Chernobyl disaster, when an explosion destroyed a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, only heightened Gorbachev’s awareness of the dangers of nuclear power. As Anatoly Chernyaev, an aide to Gorbachev, put it, ‘Gorbachev knew even before that catastrophe about the danger of nuclear weapons. That explosion showed that, even without war and without nuclear missiles, nuclear power could destroy human kind’ (quoted in the CNN television series, The Cold War).

Reagan was also interested in disarmament and had previously put forward to the Soviets an arms control proposal known as ‘Zero Option’, which would eliminate all intermediate- range missiles in Europe. Gorbachev, unlike his predecessors, was prepared to discuss this option. This resulted in the two leaders meeting together in four summits to discuss arms control:

•  Geneva Summit, November 1985: No substantial progress was made but the two leaders did agree that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought’.

•  Reykjavik Summit, October 1986: Talks ended without agreement, mainly because of disagreement over American's plans for a space based defence missile programme called Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Gorbachev said that SDI should be ‘confined to the laboratory’, but Reagan refused to make any concessions. However, the talks also covered the most sweeping arms control proposals in history.

•  Washington Summit, December 1987: An Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF Treaty) was signed which actually agreed to abolish weapons – land-based missiles of intermediate and shorter range. This was an important first step in reducing the nuclear stockpiles of the two superpowers. Agreement was also reached for the first time on inspection of the destruction of missiles.

•  Moscow Summit, May 1988: Again there was disagreement over SDI, but arms reductions negotiations continued. Standing in Red Square, Reagan confessed that he now no longer believed that the Soviet Union was an ‘evil empire’.

Other foreign policy initiatives by Gorbachev were reassuring to the West. By 1988, Gorbachev had announced his plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and he pulled back Soviet aid to its ‘allies’ in the developing world.

The ‘thawing’ of the Cold War continued under the new U.S. president, George H.W. Bush. At the Malta Summit between the U.S. and Soviet leaders in 1989, Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze announced that the superpowers had ‘buried the Cold War at the bottom of the Mediterranean’.

This improvement of relations with the West meant that the Soviet Union did not feel so threatened by the West and so there was less need to control Eastern Europe so tightly.