Gorbachev's New Thinking stressed common security and cut military commitments; abandoning force in Eastern Europe let its regimes fall.
Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in March 1985. At home he launched perestroika (restructuring of the economy) and glasnost (openness). He believed these needed a calmer international environment.
His New Thinking held that security must be shared, that nuclear war could not be won and that the world was interdependent. In December 1988 he told the UN General Assembly that the USSR would cut its armed forces by 500,000 troops unilaterally.
He withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan, completing the withdrawal in February 1989. He also abandoned the Brezhnev Doctrine, under which the USSR had used force to keep communist governments in power.
In October 1989, a Soviet spokesman joked that the "Sinatra Doctrine" now applied: Eastern European states could do it their way. When people there demanded change in 1989, Moscow did not send tanks, unlike in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968.
- Gorbachev
- Soviet leader from March 1985.
- UN speech
- December 1988: unilateral cut of 500,000 troops.
- Sinatra Doctrine
- October 1989: Eastern Europe may go its own way.
Worked example: Why Moscow did not intervene in 1989
Explain the significance of the Sinatra Doctrine.
- Past: the USSR crushed reform in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
- Change: Gorbachev renounced force to keep allies in line.
- Effect: Eastern European regimes lost their ultimate guarantee.
- Significance: popular protest could now succeed without being crushed.
Watch out for this
Gorbachev intended to end communism and break up the USSR.
He aimed to reform and save socialism. The collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the USSR were consequences he did not intend.
Check your understanding
What did the Sinatra Doctrine mean?
- Eastern European states could choose their own path without Soviet force.
- The USSR would send troops to protect communist governments.
- The USA would withdraw from Western Europe.