Word: perestroikas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...through East Berlin on Saturday calling for change. In many major cities tens of thousands attended open-air meetings with government and party leaders to vent their complaints and demands. In Moscow Krenz sought to cool the reform fever raging through his country by paying polite compliments to the perestroika that East German leaders had formerly held in contempt. The Soviet experiments could "teach us a great deal," he said after being closeted for three hours with Mikhail Gorbachev. "We are ready to put the vanguard experience...
...keep that, at least, true. He fired five Politburo members and begged those who "think about emigrating" to give him a chance. "Put trust in our policy of renewal," advised Krenz, promising a "far- reaching program" to change the constitution, the economy and the education system. Yet he defined perestroika merely as something to "make socialism more attractive." For him, Soviet-style reform seemed not so much a welcome formula for change as a last-ditch effort to prop up the East German system before the rift between the party and society grows too wide to bridge. He flatly rejected...
Gorbachev is clearly motivated by his nation's desperate internal situation. Perestroika, which aims to radically restructure the Soviet economy, has so far succeeded only in disrupting the clanky old centralized-state system that at least belched forth a few second-rate consumer goods for the store shelves. Now those shelves are barer than they have been for 20 years, there are rumors of looming food riots this winter, and Gorbachev is not the hero at home that he is abroad. It is no wonder, then, that the Soviets, as former U.S. arms negotiator Paul Nitze says, "have turned inward...
...success of perestroika will depend on the Soviets, but Washington can help Gorbachev by reaching agreements to cut conventional arms and strategic nuclear arsenals. In addition, Shevardnadze in his speech last week spoke of Moscow's desire to join such Western economic institutions as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Like Hungary, the Soviet Union could benefit from most-favored-nation trade status...
...could challenge Gorbachev with courage and imagination. He could ask the Soviets to join the West in making enormous, fundamental cuts in defense spending. This would not be naive pacifism but hardheaded self- interest. It could be a boon to the deficit-choked American economy as well as to perestroika. Rather than negotiating trims in a few weapons programs, Bush could propose demobilizing significant portions of each side's military, testing whether Gorbachev would go along with dismantling whole divisions and reconfiguring forces so as to create a less dangerous world...