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xxi FOREWORD Anatoly S. Chernyaev This book is based on the materials of a conference that took place in a picturesque spot on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean off the state of georgia—the Musgrove Plantation—in May 1998. That conference was probably one of the most significant ever held by the National Security Archive. It was organized by Tom Blanton, director of the Archive, and his colleagues. They courageously entered a subject, which allowed them to discover the origins, the motives and the circumstances of a turning point in world history—the cessation of the Cold War and of an ideological confrontation that had been suicidal for mankind. The Archive exhibited an enviable persistence and piercing energy, which deserves the highest praise for its dedication to work and truth, and for overcoming numerous obstacles created by bureaucrats and other excessively cowardly and greedy custodians of the truth about the past. The documents for this book were compiled in a painstaking process from the archives of several countries by the scholars participating in the project, through Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive, and through donations by the conference participants. The proceedings of the conference and the documents—Soviet, American, and East European—together create a rare volume and significant pool of evidence about that time. They provide an opportunity for an unbiased reader and scholar to build an adequate understanding of gorbachev’s policy toward those countries, and about his “new thinking” in general. They show that the principle of freedom of choice announced by gorbachev—which was used primarily by those countries—was his sincere conviction. In addition to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and perhaps no less so, this opened the road to understanding in the West, and therefore, to trust, which became the decisive factor in the movement toward crucial change throughout the international arena, and toward the cessation of the political and ideological Cold War. This was because that principle essentially contradicted the central Soviet doctrine, which interpreted world politics as a function of the international class struggle, and repealed the principle that was in effect at the time—that what is good for you should be bad for the opposite side. gorbachev, during his first meeting with the leaders of the alliance after the funeral of his predecessor, Konstantin Chernenko, announced to them that from now on they should proceed from the assumption that there would be no control from Moscow, and that they would not be getting any directives from there either . Let them be responsible for their actions to their parties and to their peoples, and that was all. It was then that he put an end to the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” then Melyakova book.indb 21 2010.04.12. 16:20 xxii confirmed that position at the October 1985 conference of the Warsaw Treaty Organization ’s Political Consultative Committee in Sofia. And he never, throughout all the years of perestroika, retreated from that position, even though his colleagues from the socialist countries, having felt the dangerous nature of that freedom , repeatedly tried to pull Moscow into their own affairs. Another extremely important point, even though it derived from the “freedom of choice” principle, was the rejection of the use of force in international relations and the ban on utilizing Soviet armed forces on foreign territories. Many people did not believe this at first, and those in the leadership of our allied countries simply did not want to believe it. However, when Moscow did not react to the mass exodus of East germans across the borders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia , and when later it did not allow the troops stationed in the gDR “out of the barracks” against the powerful popular movement for german reunification, which brought down the Berlin Wall, everyone became convinced that gorbachev ’s deeds did not diverge from his words. And then the so-called “velvet revolutions ” unfolded, and independent states emerged very quickly. gorbachev was not very interested in the changes that began in Eastern Europe . He used to say, “They are sick and tired of us, and we are no less so of them; let them live on their own, then everything will come out right.” However, it did not turn out the way he hoped. We received no appreciation from the “fraternal countries.” They turned away from us and turned their faces to the West. This was where one of gorbachev’s mistakes caught up with him: he continued to believe in the...

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