The European Revolutions of 1989–92

Abstract

In March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was installed as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and thus leader of the USSR (see Chapter 6). Having been groomed for the job by Yuri Andropov, under whom he had already made the beginnings of economic reform, he had a flying start, with the party and especially the KGB behind him. In just under six years in office, he ended the Cold War and unleashed the series of revolutions which were to transform the USSR and East Europe in 1989–92. Though their long-term effect cannot yet be finally assessed, the social, political and economic changes were deeper and more genuinely revolutionary than in any of the three most famous revolutionary landmarks in European history — in 1789 (France), 1848 (most of Europe) and 1917 (Russia).