Political Economy of Reform and Change (Routledge Revivals) by Winiecki Jan;

Author:Winiecki, Jan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

*The full text of this article, written jointly with Jacek Szymanderski, in 1987, was published as ‘The Gorbachev Challenge – A view from the East, in The World Today, Vol.45, Nos.8-9, 1989.

CHAPTER 8

HOW IT ALL BEGAN: REAGAN AND THE SOVIET COLLAPSE*

Many commentaries ascribed what was happening behind the late Iron Curtain to the pressure on the Soviet Union applied by President Reagan’s administration. However, ‘reversing the tide of history’ cannot be created ex nihilo by political will alone, or even by political will coupled with accelerated military expenditures. MANES, THEKEL, FARES has already been on the Kremlin wall for some time and the pressure, applied to a creaking Soviet economic machinery, put it virtually to a halt. Incidentally, had the accelerated military expenditures been the sufficient measure in this respect, the reversal would have taken place during President Harry Truman administration. But the resolve of that [other] great American president could only stop the advances of communism in Europe, not to reverse them.

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