AP Success - AP World History: DBQ End of the Cold War

Soviet leaders continue to express frustration over the protracted war in Afghanistan. This was evident at the party congress in February 1986 when General Secretary Gorbachev referred to the war as a “bleeding wound.” . . . At home, pockets of social unrest related to Afghanistan, the diversion of energies from pressing economic problems, and dissatisfaction in the political hierarchy over the failure to end the war also probably worry the leadership.

The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the Socialist system is over. Following the [Polish United Socialist Party] PUWP and the [Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party] HSWP Honecker has left. Today we received messages about the “retirement” of [Chinese Communist Party leader] Deng Xiaopeng and [Bulgarian leader Todor] Zhivkov. Only our “best friends” [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro, [Romanian leader Nicolae] Ceausescu, [and North Korean leader] Kim Il Sung are still around— people who hate our guts. But the main thing is the GDR, the Berlin Wall. For it has to do not only with “socialism” but with the shift in the world balance of forces. This is the end of Yalta…of the Stalinist legacy and the “defeat of Hitlerite Germany.” That is what Gorbachev has done. And he has indeed turned out to be a great leader. He has sensed the pace of history and helped history to find a natural channel.

Cold War methods, methods of confrontation have suffered defeat in strategic terms. We have recognized this. And ordinary people have possibly understood this even better. I do not want to preach here. People simply meddle in policymaking. Ecological problems, problems of preserving natural resources, and problems connected with the negative consequences of technological progress have arisen. All of this is completely understandable since we’re essentially talking about the issue of survival. And this kind of public sentiment is strongly affecting us, the politicians. Therefore we together—the USSR and the US-can do a lot at this stage to radically change our old approaches. We had felt it even in our contacts with the Reagan administration. And this process continues right now. Look how we have confided in one another.

We live in a new world. The Cold War has ended, the arms race has stopped, as has the insane militarization which mutilated our economy, public psyche and morals. The threat of a world war has been removed. Once again I want to stress that on my part everything was done during the transition period to preserve reliable control of the nuclear weapons. We opened ourselves to the world, gave up interference into other people's affairs, the use of troops beyond the borders of the country, and trust, solidarity and respect came in response.

Whatever the course, however long the process took, and whatever its outcome, I wanted to see stable, and above all peaceful, change. I believed the key to this would be a politically strong Gorbachev and an effectively working central structure. The outcome depended on what Gorbachev was willing to do. If he hesitated at implementing the new agreement [i.e. the Union of Sovereign States treaty] with the republics, the political disintegration of the Union might speed up and destabilize the country... If he appeared to compromise too much, it might provoke a coup—although there was no serious signs of one. I continued to worry about further violence inside the Soviet Union, and that we might be drawn into conflict.

And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control. Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

On Afghanistan The reaction to our decision to withdraw is not simple. We did enter, how do we leave now? We can leave quickly, without thinking about anything: say that the former leadership was to blame for everything. Be we cannot do so. We hear from India, and from Africa that if we just leave, it would be a blow to the authority of the Soviet Union in the national-liberation movement; the imperialism would start its offensive in the developing countries if we leave Afghanistan. Another issue. A million of our soldiers went through Afghanistan. And we will not be able to explain to our people why we did not complete the war. We suffered such heavy losses! And what for? We undermined the prestige of our country, brought bitterness. What for did we lose so many people?