Word: pacts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...East European state reject reform and still thrive? Yes, says the doctrinaire regime of East Germany's party boss Erich Honecker. The leadership in Berlin has stuck faithfully to the eternal Communist verities and pulled off a hat trick. Under one of the most authoritarian systems in the Warsaw Pact and with a rigid, centrally planned economy to match, East Germany boasts the most powerful industrial base, the highest standard of living and the most per capita exports to the West of any nation in the East bloc. Declared Honecker, 76, in a speech to party leaders that implicitly rejected...
...even in these nations, cowed populations are beginning to waken to the possibility of change. Just over a year ago, the worst riots in the history of the regime broke out in Brasov, Rumania. And beginning last August, Czechs have taken to the streets to protest the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion and the continuing Soviet military presence in their country...
While the opening atmospherics were promising, the devil, as arms controllers say, is in the details. The Soviets scored early with ambitious unilateral initiatives that went a long way toward meeting the basic Western criterion of trimming the Warsaw Pact's alarming and unmatched capacity to overrun Europe. Beyond that, the East bloc is prepared for a fundamental restructuring of the Continent's military balance that could sharply diminish the dangerous confrontation across Europe's political fault line...
...other opposition groups be free to compete for seats in the 98-member senate, but there would also be liberalized elections to the Sejm in which non-Communists could win up to 35% of the 460 seats. The two chambers would then elect the President. Details of the pact will not be unveiled until April 3, but both sides have already agreed to June parliamentary elections...
...pact could still falter on the question of economic reform. Solidarity wants wages to be indexed to the inflation rate, currently 70%, and price increases for food and other necessities to be introduced gradually. Even so, said Solidarity representative Bronislaw Geremek, "after 45 years in a political desert, we suddenly find ourselves in a completely new situation...