Why Didn't Gorbachev Shoot in 1989? — Eastern Europe, and a Decision Not Taken, Reread After the Files Opened

After World War II ended, communist regimes under the influence of the Soviet Union were established in Eastern European countries. Germany was split into East Germany, a communist nation, and West Germany of the Western bloc, and Berlin was also divided into East and West by a wall. The Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist countries were bound together in a military alliance called the Warsaw Pact, and there was a precedent where the Soviet army had entered and crushed movements shaking the system in Eastern Europe by force. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary, the supreme leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This article covers the decision by Gorbachev not to use the military to stop the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989.

Conventional wisdom splits into two branches. One is that pressure from US President Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet economy forced Gorbachev to back down. The other is that the "new political thinking" of Gorbachev alone brought about a peaceful end. New political thinking is the name of the diplomatic principle put forward by Gorbachev, which abandoned the old premise that the clash between capitalism and socialism is inevitable and prioritized principles such as a nuclear-free world, self-determination, and freedom of choice. In 1989, the Soviet army did not move. A memoir by Robert Hutchings, an American participant, summarizes that year. At the beginning of the year, there were communist regimes throughout the region. By the end of the year, not a single one remained (DOI: 10.56021/9780801856204).

This particular decision is a "decision not taken." When US President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan at the end of the Pacific War, there was a strike order document. A decision not to shoot has no order document. Then what shape did that decision leave in the documents? The diaries and memos of Gorbachev's foreign policy adviser Anatoly Chernyaev, a UN speech, the decisions of the Politburo and Defense Council reconstructed by historian Mark Kramer from the archives, and a single discarded promise. The Politburo is the highest decision-making body of the Communist Party, where major decisions of the country were made. The Politburo minutes themselves are outside the scope of what this article reads. These documents were gradually opened from the 1990s to the 2010s. This article follows that sequence. Whether Gorbachev was right or whether that decision was inevitable is not judged by this article. It only shows which documents support which interpretation.

Three Days in East Berlin — October 7, 9, and 11, 1989

On October 7, 1989, a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of East Germany was held in East Berlin. Leaders of socialist fraternal countries were invited, and Gorbachev was there too. Erich Honecker, the General Secretary and top leader of East Germany, gave a speech. He stated that East Germany would "enter the year 2000 with the conviction that the future belongs to socialism" (DOI: 10.4324/9780203646205-23). In early October of the same year, Gorbachev warned that governments that fail to respond to the wishes of their people fall into grave danger. Honecker did not listen to that warning (DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-2).

Two days later, on October 9, was the Day of Leipzig. Tens of thousands of people were preparing for a peaceful protest. The Leipzig Monday prayers had been held every week at St. Nicholas Church since September of that year. This is the date reported by a 2024 paper in a minor academic journal (DOI: 10.47832/2757-5403.27.35). On that same October 9, Honecker welcomed the Vice Premier of China in East Berlin. He praised the Chinese government's military suppression of demonstrators demanding democratization in Beijing's Tiananmen Square a few months earlier. Another member of the East German Politburo warned two Protestant church officials. He said that Beijing was far from Berlin only in geographical terms. In Leipzig, in addition to regular police, worker militias, and the Stasi secret police, there were twenty-eight companies. Political scientist Thompson's 2001 study records the terror of that day as follows. There was widespread fear that the protesters in East Germany and Czechoslovakia would meet the same fate as the Chinese students. The East German regime deliberately fueled that fear. Yet the order to shoot at unarmed demonstrators was never ultimately issued by the East German authorities (DOI: 10.2307/422415).

Two days later again, on October 11, Chernyaev, Gorbachev's foreign policy advisor, wrote in his diary in Moscow. This was when a movement to oust Honecker began within the East German Politburo. In the diary, Gorbachev used an expletive to refer to Honecker. The reason was that Honecker was not stepping down with dignity while keeping "his place in history." Chernyaev and another advisor believed that a dignified exit was impossible for someone "already cursed by the people" (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-098). Eleven days after the ceremony, Honecker was ousted from the Politburo. A month later, the Berlin Wall opened (DOI: 10.4324/9780203646205-23). There is a 2014 book by historian Mary Elise Sarotte that deals with the opening of the Berlin Wall. According to a book review covering it, East German Politburo colleagues noticed during Gorbachev's visit in early October that Honecker had lost Moscow's support. Even on October 16, Honecker insisted on crushing the protests with an air assault by Stasi special forces and airborne troops. At the Politburo meeting that ousted him, the Minister of the Stasi stated, "We cannot start shooting with tanks" (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00644). This article knows Sarotte's book only through that book review. What Gorbachev thought during these three days can only be told to the extent that Chernyaev recorded it in his diary. That is a single expletive and the phrase "his place in history."

What was on the desk — 330,000 troops, the 1968 precedent, Beijing's path

Even in February 1990, there were more than 330,000 Soviet soldiers on East German soil. The Soviet Union enjoyed privileges under international law in East Germany as a post-war occupying power. This is the figure Kramer wrote down in a 2017 debate letter (DOI: 10.1162/isec_c_00287). The army capable of shooting was right there. Whatever paths lay before Gorbachev in the autumn of 1989 are counted strictly by what appears in the documents.

The first path is the path of 1968. In August of that year, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to end reforms. A chapter on modern Czech history considers that the invasion ended the chance for fundamental reform of the socialist system. It argues that the long decline leading to the Velvet Revolution 20 years later started right there (DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-1). A 1992 paper follows up on that. By 1989, the Soviet leadership realized that the 1968 invasion had cost Soviet broader national interests very dearly. It also notes that, in hindsight, they likely considered a political solution to have been better. This paper reads that reassessment as effectively rehabilitating the Prague Spring. However, it also records limitations. The Gorbachev leadership did not encourage a reexamination of 1968 as thorough as the one given to the invasion of Afghanistan (DOI: 10.32422/cjir.1309). The decision by the Soviet Union to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, where it had invaded and fought for a long time, is a decision tracked by researcher Sarah Mendelson using interviews with the actors and declassified Soviet documents. She depicted the internal struggle until an "inappropriate" thought became policy (DOI: 10.1515/9781400864829; DOI: 10.2307/2950722).

The second path is the path of Beijing on June 4, 1989. According to Thompson, the East German regime praised the Chinese government's "repression of the counter-revolution." Opposition leaders and protesters took that threat seriously (DOI: 10.2307/422415). This path was on the desk in East Berlin, not Moscow. It was the path of the East German regime doing the shooting with its own hands. What the Soviet army would do then was up to Gorbachev.

The third path was already open in Poland and Hungary. In early 1989, Moscow responded positively to Poland's cautious democratization. A 1991 dissertation considers that this response confirmed Moscow's new thinking. It argues that the authority of other Eastern European communist parties collapsed from that point, and the path of the autumn revolutions was opened (DOI: 10.18130/v3z000). According to Hutchings's memoir, May 1989 in Poland produced an agreement from the Roundtable talks where the government and the opposition sat face to face. The U.S. administration judged that if that agreement were fully implemented, it would mark the beginning of the end of communist rule in Poland (DOI: 10.56021/9780801856204). That summer, Hungary and Poland set out on democratic reforms. In September, thousands of East Germans crossed the newly opened Austrian-Hungarian border to leave for West Germany (DOI: 10.1057/9781403982810_6). A 2008 study views that effect as follows. Once the Soviet Union withdrew its commitments to the Honecker regime, the probability of a military response and invasion decreased. The perceived cost of protests went down (DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511755941.007). The paths of reform and non-intervention were paths already walked in those two countries before the autumn of 1989.

The fourth path is a path that "might have been." What if hardliners, rather than Gorbachev, had seized power? In a 2005 paper, political scientist Bennett considers that even hardliners would have hesitated to use military force in Eastern Europe. He argues this was due to both material reasons and beliefs about the utility of force. However, he writes that the hardliners' thoughts differed significantly regarding the conditions for German reunification (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565). This fourth path is a scholar's deduction, not a document. There were four things on the desk: 330,000 troops, the memory of 1968, the Beijing precedent, and the half-year of Poland and Hungary.

Decisions Without an Order — An Aide’s Memo, a UN Speech, the Scraping of a Doctrine

In November 1987, Gorbachev was still emphasizing that the Brezhnev Doctrine remained valid. The Brezhnev Doctrine was the principle that served as the official justification for the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, meaning that if the internal affairs of one socialist country threatened the interests of the entire bloc, other socialist countries could intervene. "We know what damage is caused if the principles of internationalism in the mutual relations among socialist countries are weakened and if one departs from the principles of mutual benefit and mutual aid," was what he said that November. These are sentences translated by a book review covering Kramer's 2025 book (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). This article knows Kramer's book only through that review.

According to the same review, Gorbachev in his first two years in power was different. He actually called for tightening political control within the Warsaw Pact. At the Communist Party Congress in February 1986, he prioritized economic reforms and domestic issues. "Newly opened archival evidence refutes the speculation of some Western analysts that Gorbachev decided early on to let the East European countries go their own way," Kramer wrote. In May 1987, the Warsaw Pact adopted a new defense-oriented military doctrine. It was in 1988 that he turned toward comprehensive military reforms (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). A chapter on modern Czech history points to the same timing. By mid-1988, Gorbachev's policy statements had shifted. It was a move that effectively discarded the last traces of the Brezhnev Doctrine (DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-1).

On October 28, 1988, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl visited Moscow. Chernyaev wrote in his diary that a frank personal relationship was established between the two men. It was a little over a month before the UN speech (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-038). That December, Gorbachev delivered a speech at the UN. The concluding chapter of a book published in 1990 reads this speech as confirmation of what Western leaders had been doubting. It argues that involvement in Afghanistan, support for Cuba, and the arms race were too heavy a burden for the Soviet economy (DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20805-0_7). The 1988 shift included support for a unilateral reduction of troops stationed in Eastern Europe. According to Kramer's figures relayed by the review, the reduction within two years included 5,300 tanks and 24 tactical nuclear weapons. The review does not state where these figures were announced (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). On February 4, 1989, two months after the speech, Chernyaev sent a memo to fellow aide Vadim Zagladin. It was a memo entrusting him with the draft of the next speech. The audience after the UN was Europe. The General Secretary's top-priority task was to be handled in absolute secrecy (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-052).

The decision was made around that time. Kramer's reconstruction, as conveyed by the review, is as follows. In early 1989, Gorbachev's scrapping of the Brezhnev Doctrine was initially a secret. "In effect, long beforehand, Gorbachev persuaded the members of the Politburo and the Defense Council to make a joint decision that the Soviet Union would not take military action even if communist governments in Eastern Europe collapsed." To do so, Gorbachev secretly scrapped a long-standing Soviet promise. That was the promise to provide military assistance to Warsaw Pact member states in "extreme situations." The process began with aide Zagladin's memo. It ended with a ten-page memo signed by three people: Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the Defense Minister, and the Chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations. That memo stated that the "internal situation" of Warsaw Pact member states "does not fall under the category." This meant it was outside the category of military assistance stipulated by the treaty (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). The review does not state when these memos were unsealed. Nor does the review specify which Politburo and Defense Council meeting minutes served as the basis for the decision. The decision that was never fired remained not as an order, but as a single line of scrapped promise and a ten-page memo.

The Chernyaev diary entry from May 2, 1989, was written after Tbilisi. In April of that year, protests in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, were suppressed by the military. The volume's editor believes this diary reflects the sentiment among reformist aides. It was the feeling that perestroika had lost its direction. Perestroika is the name of the reform policy put forward by Gorbachev. The editor's reading is that Gorbachev himself began to feel he was losing the levers to control the process he had unleashed. The editor interprets the phrase "velvet glove" in this diary as referring to Gorbachev's refusal to use force (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-067). Blood flowed inside the Soviet Union, but did not flow in Eastern Europe. Who decided that difference and how is beyond the scope of the abstracts read by this article.

The "moments of decision" that conventional wisdom talks about are two. One is the Sinatra Doctrine. The Sinatra Doctrine means letting each East European country go its own way like the song "My Way," a name that originated from a joke by Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gerasimov in 1989. A historian covering the East European revolutions writes that this phrase is one of the memorable catchphrases of that revolutionary era. At the same time, the historian adds, "It was a misquotation itself, but it does not matter" (DOI: 10.1353/hsp.2003.0040). If Kramer's reconstruction is correct, the joke was not a decision, but a post-hoc announcement of a decision. The other is the night of November 9. The East German leadership succeeding Honecker lifted travel restrictions, and the wall opened on November 9 (DOI: 10.1057/9781403982810_6). The circumstances of that night are recounted in a review covering Sarotte's book. The East German Politburo discussed the wording of travel regulations that afternoon. Politburo member Schabowski was scheduled to explain that wording at the evening press conference. He had missed most of the meeting and did not have the text in hand. Only when prompted by an Italian journalist's question did he say that the party had decided to issue "regulations allowing every citizen to emigrate." When asked when this would take effect, he read a phrase from the text he belatedly found. It was "immediately." One more decision was needed. Jäger, a Stasi officer at the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint, called his superior at 11:30 PM saying he would let people out. His superior objected, and Jäger opened the gate. The review translates Sarotte's conclusion as showing that a single individual can matter at a turning point in history. The third factor from Sarotte, relayed by the same review, belongs to Moscow. It was that Gorbachev refused to indulge the East German regime's desire to use force against citizens (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00644). The title of Sarotte's book calls that night an "accidental opening." If Kramer's reconstruction is correct, the decision to let it open came earlier, in that single line of scrapped promise. According to a review of a Gorbachev biography written by William Taubman, Taubman cites the observation of Andrei Grachev, who was close to Gorbachev. It was the observation that Gorbachev was pleased the Wall opened without orders from Moscow. The reviewer considers this interpretation to be consistent with the evidence (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). The next day, November 10, Chernyaev wrote in his diary rejoicing at the "end of Yalta," meaning the end of the postwar European order that stemmed from the Yalta Conference at the end of the World War. He wrote that "Stalin's legacy" had ended in Europe. He attributed all this to Gorbachev leading by not blocking the way (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-109). The rejoicing belongs to the aide. What Gorbachev felt that night lies somewhere between Grachev's observation and Chernyaev's jubilation. This article does not bridge that gap.

Documents Opened Later — From Budapest in 1995 to Moscow in 2015

What first opened in the 1990s was the words of the participants. Hutchings's memoir records that the United States fully supported Poland and Hungary in early 1989. It states that doing so was the most important thing the United States did to help end the Cold War. It also records that three choices lay before that decision. They were watching, supporting Gorbachev, and supporting Poland and Hungary (DOI: 10.56021/9780801856204). Because it is a participant's memoir, it is attributed in this way for the first time.

Documents opened at different speeds in different countries. Hungary released pre-1990 records with the 1995 Archives Act. A book review covering the Cold War relations between Hungary and the Soviet Union notes that Hungarian scholars were hardly hindered by the so-called 30-year rule (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.50). In Germany, documents about the 1990 negotiations were declassified in the 1990s. Soviet-side documents took much longer, with negotiation records coming out only in the late 2000s. Kramer published a document collection with Austrian and German colleagues in 2015. It brought together materials from the Russian Presidential Archive and the diaries of Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's aide. Researcher Joshua Shifrinson notes that U.S. documents became widely accessible from around 2010 (DOI: 10.1162/isec_c_00287).

Human memory also became documents. Researcher Robert English looked at restricted materials from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs archive and the Institute of Diplomacy. He interviewed nearly 400 people, from Politburo members of the eras of former Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Brezhnev to Shevardnadze and Gorbachev (DOI: 10.7312/engl11058). Mendelson directly interviewed people who ran Soviet diplomacy and the Afghanistan war and matched them against declassified documents (DOI: 10.1515/9781400864829). Chernyaev's diary became accessible in the late 1990s and the 2000s. A book review covering Taubman's biography calls this diary an 「extremely candid and faithful」 record (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). A collection of 122 documents came out in 2010. It contains Politburo meeting minutes and Chernyaev's diary. There are also records of talks between Gorbachev and the leaders of the United States, Britain, West Germany, and France, as well as CIA analyses. Most of them were being published for the first time (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881).

What changed when the documents opened? First, Kramer views that the speculation that 「Gorbachev intended to let go of Eastern Europe from the beginning」 is refuted by the new documents. His book is one that shows continuity in the early period of taking power (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). Second, the locus of the decision shifted from the autumn of 1989 to early 1989. These are the memos and discarded promises of the previous section. Third, the expression 「not one inch to the east」 from February 1990 became a subject of debate. On February 9, 1990, in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker said to Gorbachev. It was the statement that NATO, the military alliance of the United States and Western Europe, would not expand 「not one inch to the east」 (DOI: 10.32625/kjei.2023.30.175). Whether this statement was a promise depends on which documents are put forward and read. That division is left to the final section.

Three Interpretations — Ideology, Economics, and Western Pressure

The debate over why the Cold War ended had reached a dead end by 2001. Political scientist Evangelista’s paper writes so. Realists explain the Soviet retreat as evidence of economic decline and external pressure. Constructivists point to changes in ideas and Gorbachev’s New Thinking as the source (DOI: 10.1162/15203970151032137). Realism is an international relations theory that explains state behavior through calculations of power and interest. Constructivism is an international relations theory that explains state behavior through ideas and identity rather than power. This article divides the explanations into three by adding Western pressure to the two theories. One question is set aside in advance. The reason for starting reforms and the reason for not shooting are different questions. The cause of the reforms is broadly agreed upon, writes a 2017 unrefereed manuscript. It is economic decline, loss of national power compared to Cold War competitors, and the accumulation of social problems (DOI: 10.13140/rg.2.2.29620.76167). What the three interpretations contend over is the question that follows, why they did not shoot in 1989.

The first is the ideological explanation. A 2002 piece summarizes New Thinking like this. It is a bundle of ideas that overturned the Leninist international relations theory that underpinned Soviet foreign policy (DOI: 10.1162/016366002753358366). English’s 2000 book criticizes existing analyses. Most treated New Thinking as window dressing for a retreat forced by crisis and decline. He sought to show that that foreign policy was the result of an intellectual revolution. The "Westernizing" worldview that grew from after Stalin’s death passed through 1960s–70s liberals to reach Gorbachev’s inner circle (DOI: 10.7312/engl11058). Another study argues that a new international relations ideology created by Soviet experts was decisive in shaping New Thinking. However, its influence was sometimes suppressed and sometimes amplified depending on institutional and political variables. It depended on "policy entrepreneurs" and the opening of policy windows (DOI: 10.2307/2950660). Mendelson, tracking the withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserts that ideas alone cannot explain any outcome. Three conditions are necessary for ideas to become policy, she writes. Access to the leadership, importance to the leadership, and the leadership’s control over the agenda (DOI: 10.2307/2950722). Bennett’s 2005 paper builds a learning model. Soviet leaders learned the high costs of military force from their interventions in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565). According to a book review covering Taubman’s biography, Taubman counts the rejection of force as the most radical break. It is the point where Gorbachev parted ways with the Bolsheviks (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). A 1992 paper, written before the archives were opened, already read non-intervention as evidence of a massive shift in security ideology. It also mentioned the possibility that a hardline response would damage US-Soviet relations (DOI: 10.32422/cjir.1309). The documents for this interpretation are interviews, Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, and Chernyayev’s diary. There are three weaknesses. Evangelista points out a fact that both theories missed. The fact that many influential Soviet institutions did not support Gorbachev’s course from early on (DOI: 10.1162/15203970151032137). A joint study asks a different question. Neither the material explanation nor the ideological explanation answers why it had to be radical New Thinking rather than more mundane reforms. The authors read it as a "shortcut to greatness" to raise status amidst retreat (DOI: 10.1017/s0020818303571028). Another book argues that Soviet policy toward Germany was marked by considerable ambivalence for most of the period due to internal disagreements (DOI: 10.7591/9781501737886).

The second is the economic explanation. A paper making this explanation in its own voice is not on this article’s shortlist. We know it only as relayed by researcher Snyder. According to him, some realists reversed the order to counterargue. The Soviet material decline came first, and new ideas emerged from there (DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2005.00003.x). There are two close literatures. A 1991 dissertation explains the rationality of abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine using a rational actor model. The value that relations with Eastern Europe gave to Moscow was diminishing (DOI: 10.18130/v3z000). What the concluding chapter of 1990 read in the UN speech was also cost (DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20805-0_7). The documents for this interpretation are economic statistics and speeches. The ideological explanation is backed by the original works of English, Checkel, and Bennett, while this explanation is backed by a secondhand account, a dissertation, and the 1990 concluding chapter. That difference in weight is a limitation of the scope this article read. In a neighboring case, researcher Forsberg’s 2005 paper points something out. His case is not the non-intervention of 1989, but the support for German reunification in 1990. It is true that German economic aid was attractive because the Soviet economy was weak. Yet Gorbachev did not bargain hard over the amount of aid. Forsberg interprets that he did so for fear of ruining future close relations with Germany. Around the same time, Japan tried to get back the Kuril Islands occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II using economic aid, but failed. The Soviet leadership reached out to Germany, not the technological powerhouse Japan. His conclusion is that whether economic incentives work or not cannot be explained by material pressure alone (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630556). Bennett finds the reason ideas won in the authority remaining in the top leadership position (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565).

The third is the Western pressure explanation. American scholar William Inboden’s 2022 book argues that Reagan’s strategy ended the Cold War peacefully. In a 2026 review discussion, a reviewer translates Inboden’s reading like this. That Reagan’s 1982 Westminster address to the British Parliament was "a new offensive to end the Cold War peacefully within seven years." The reviewer himself sees it differently. Soviet domestic politics, failed policies, and Gorbachev’s reform attempts explain much more. More than anything approved from across the Atlantic by Reagan. Prediction and causation are different, he writes. Inboden counters in a reply that causal weight must be given to Reagan’s policy (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1331). A 1999 paper stands in the middle. The Reagan administration was not the sole cause of the Soviet crisis that summoned New Thinking. However, it certainly contributed to an atmosphere that strengthened the standing of New Thinking advocates within the ruling elite (DOI: 10.1017/s026021059900577x). Hutchings’ memoir writes that US policy did not cause the events of 1989, but at times played a decisive role (DOI: 10.56021/9780801856204). The documents for this interpretation are American-side records. The weakness was pointed out by a 2007 study. The time when Reagan and Bush administration core decision-makers believed the Cold War was ending was not when Soviet power declined. It coincided most closely with when Soviet domestic ideology and institutions changed. The United States sought mainly to reassure the Soviet Union rather than pressure it through a position of strength (DOI: 10.1017/s002081830707004x).

There are also attempts to connect the three interpretations. Evangelista borrows political scientist William Riker’s "heresthetics." It is the art of manipulating political agendas through language. He uses that art to explain the process by which Gorbachev persuaded opponents (DOI: 10.1162/15203970151032137). Bennett views that ideas and material constraints pushed in the same direction. However, which prescription would win out in the terms of German reunification was determined by ideas and government structure (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565). Snyder suggests that the two theories can be partially integrated into a path-dependent strategy that weights institutions. In his account, Gorbachev is a "counter-revolutionary." Because he overturned the principles of Soviet foreign policy that justified internal oppression with external threats (DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2005.00003.x; DOI: 10.1057/9780230337756_7). A review essay covering a 2020 book puts three leaders together. It analyzed the interactions of Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher side by side with the domestic politics of each country (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_01060). The three interpretations each bring their own documents, and the places where they fail to account for the opponent's documents remain where they divide.

Where They Overlap and Where They Still Diverge — The Place of "Had They Fired"

If there is one thing narratives on the end of the Cold War agree on, it is the importance of Gorbachev. A book review of Taubman’s biography begins that way. Even those who emphasize structures admit this much. Had there been no Gorbachev in the Kremlin, the Cold War would likely not have ended at that time, and it certainly would not have ended the way it did (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). What can be called a consensus stops there. The rest are points where the literature read for this piece overlaps, with two of the four sharing a single source. First, the first two years of his rule were a continuation, and the transition occurred between 1988 and early 1989. Kramer’s review and the chapter on contemporary Czech history overlap here (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341; DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-1). Second, the decision not to shoot was made secretly ahead of the autumn of 1989. This is reported by a book review covering Kramer’s book, and this piece has not read literature refuting it (DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341). Literature asking whether the Politburo even discussed intervention as an actual option falls outside the scope of what this piece read. Third, the Wall was not opened by Moscow’s order. Sarotte’s book and the review covering Taubman’s biography overlap on this (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00644; DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). Fourth, ideas and material forces pushed in the same direction. This is a paper by Bennett (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565).

The points of divergence center on counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are reasoning that poses the condition "what if things had not been so" and examines the outcomes. First, could they have shot, and would hardliners have fired if they were in power? Bennett believes even hardliners would have hesitated (DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565). Thompson, who wrote about the terror of Leipzig, asks from the opposite side. Democratization in Eastern Europe has been regarded as the inevitable result of the avalanche unleashed by Gorbachev’s liberalization. However, the fact that a bloody crackdown was possible in East Germany and Czechoslovakia has been largely ignored. Hardline leadership was not unique to China, he writes. The leaderships of Czechoslovakia and East Germany were equally stubborn, yet the order to open fire did not come there (DOI: 10.2307/422415). A 2017 manuscript summarizes that even regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, two positions diverge: "it was inevitable" and "it depended on specific decisions between 1985 and 1991" (DOI: 10.13140/rg.2.2.29620.76167).

Second, did Gorbachev anticipate the outcomes? This is from Chernyaev’s diary on December 10, 1988. The boss began to sense that the separatist movement in the Baltics was spreading to the Russian "mainland." At the same time, it records the boss’s "self-deception and naivety" in believing that it was in the Baltic peoples’ interest to stay (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-042). On September 9, 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Gorbachev in Moscow that Britain was not interested in a unified Germany (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_01263). Chernyaev’s diary on October 9 shows overestimation. Gorbachev and his close associates viewed Western European opposition to German unification as larger than it actually was. However, Chernyaev noted that Western Europe wanted Moscow to do the dirty work for them (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-097). According to the book review covering Taubman’s biography, Gorbachev held onto hope for a while even after the Wall opened—the hope that the East German regime would survive through reforms. Gorbachev himself later recalled that by November 1989, everything had become "clear." The review notes that this clarity was not always visible in his moves over the following months (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). In a diary entry on January 28, 1990, Gorbachev and his aides found comfort in Kohl’s promise—the promise to place unification within an all-European process. Three of the aides present, including the chairman of the KGB intelligence agency, later blamed Gorbachev for the "loss" of Germany (DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-126). According to Kramer, the Soviet leadership remained convinced until late 1990 that the Warsaw Pact would survive (DOI: 10.1162/isec_c_00287). Kramer’s 2003 paper writes that the peaceful collapse of Eastern Europe brought instability inside the Soviet Union. The fierce elite debate surrounding the "loss of the Eastern Bloc" was one of the driving forces behind the August 1991 coup attempt by hardliners trying to oust Gorbachev (DOI: 10.1162/152039703322483783). To the question of whether he anticipated it, the documents do not give a single answer.

Third is the NATO non-expansion "promise." Shifrinson’s 2016 paper read newly declassified US documents. There was no formalized promise. However, US policymakers presented informal and tacit assurances to the Soviet side in 1990 (DOI: 10.1162/isec_a_00236). Kramer refutes this in a 2017 letter. Looking at Soviet negotiation records opened in the late 2000s, expansion beyond East Germany never came up in negotiations, he argues. He cites Gorbachev’s 2014 interview: "The topic of NATO expansion was not discussed at all." Shifrinson counters in a reply in the same letter. Gorbachev spoke differently in 2008, saying: "We were assured that NATO would not spread to the east after German unification." He adds that in the same 2014 interview, Gorbachev also said that NATO expansion "violated the spirit" of the 1990 guarantees. His own paper read Soviet and German materials together with newly opened US documents, and previous research that looked at Soviet and German materials yielded mixed results on what the Soviets heard and understood (DOI: 10.1162/isec_c_00287). A 2021 study looked at evidence produced by the participants themselves. Its conclusion is that the claim that a promise was made is by no means groundless (DOI: 10.1162/isec_a_00395). A 2012 study follows West German diplomacy. The study refutes the claim that the official accession of all of Germany was a precedent for NATO expansion (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_00275). A 2023 Korean paper reads Baker’s "east" as referring not to Eastern Europe, but to East Germany (DOI: 10.32625/kjei.2023.30.175). Sarotte, in a 2010 paper, found the origin of this debate in a conversation from February 1990 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2009.00835.x). Gorbachev told Taubman that demanding written guarantees would have been "foolish," as such a thing did not seem likely to happen at the time (DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869). Kramer considers that the opposing side did not use Soviet documents, and Shifrinson views that Soviet documents alone do not settle the answer. Those who prioritize Soviet negotiation records and those who prioritize internal US documents and participant testimony produced different answers, and this piece chooses neither.

Fourth is the weight of the three interpretations. Which of ideology, economy, and Western pressure weighed how heavily diverges as seen in the previous section. Bennett’s "same direction" makes the task of weighing even harder, because when three forces push in the same direction, removing one seems to yield the same result.

What Gorbachev did not decide in 1989 remains like this. There is a discarded line of promises and a memo signed by three ministers. There is a joke and an order to fire that never came down. There is a swear word and a diary entry cheering the "end of Yalta." There is one single line this piece will take away: This decision remained not as an order, but as a discarded promise.

Source Papers

• "Reassessing the Disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, 1985–1991" (2026, book review) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1341 — A review of Kramer's 2025 monograph. Cites the re-affirmation of the Brezhnev Doctrine in November 1987, continuity early in his tenure, support for military reform and unilateral cuts in Eastern Europe in 1988 along with reduction figures (p.31, the announcement venue is absent from the review), early 1989 abolition of secrecy, prior decisions by the Politburo and Defense Council (pp.37–38), cancellation of the "extreme circumstances" promise (p.38), and the Zagladin memo leading to memos by Shevardnadze, Yazov, and Kamenchev (the time of public release and underlying minutes are absent from the review).
• "Mary Elise Sarotte, The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall" (2016, book review) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00644 — A review of Sarotte's 2014 monograph. Three factors (citizens, East German leadership's mistakes, Gorbachev's refusal to use force), Honecker's insistence on a crackdown on October 16, Mielke's "we cannot start shooting with tanks", Schabowski's press conference "immediately", Jäger's opening of the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint, and "one person can matter".
• "Gorbachev: His Life and Times." (2019, book review) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws_r_00869 — A review of Taubman's biography. "Without Gorbachev it would not have ended that way then", refusal to use force equals a break with the Bolsheviks, Chernyaev's diary accessed in the late 1990s to the 2000s, Grachev's "without orders from Moscow", November "clearly" recalled, and written guarantees "would have been foolish".
• "To Shoot or Not to Shoot: Posttotalitarianism in China and Eastern Europe" (2001) — DOI: 10.2307/422415 — Thompson. Leipzig on October 9, Yao Yilin, "Beijing is far away only geographically", 28 regiments, shooting orders never came, the possibility of a violent crackdown has been ignored, and hardline leadership was not unique to China (Czechoslovakia and East Germany were also stubborn).
• "Germany in the Last Decade of the Cold War" (2004) — DOI: 10.4324/9780203646205-23 — The 40th anniversary on October 7, Honecker's "year 2000" speech, ousted eleven days later, and the Wall a month later.
• "The Czechoslovak Regime in Crisis: August 1988 to October 1989" (2018) — DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-2 — Honecker's rejection of Gorbachev's warning in early October.
• "Normalization and Soviet Foreign Policy: Brezhnev to Gorbachev" (2018) — DOI: 10.4324/9780429495762-1 — The 1968 invasion ended chances for reform, and the effective abandonment of the last traces of the doctrine in mid-1988.
• "Document No. 90: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding Erich Honecker, October 11, 1989" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-098 — Honecker's profanity, "place in history", and "already cursed by the people".
• "Document No. 30: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding a Meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, October 28, 1988" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-038 — Kohl's visit, candid personal relationship, one month before the UN speech.
• "Document No. 44: Memorandum from Anatoly Chernyaev to Vadim Zagladin, February 4, 1989" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-052 — Draft of the Strasbourg speech, total secrecy.
• "Document No. 59: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding Gorbachev's State of Mind, May 2, 1989" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-067 — After Tbilisi, a sense of lost direction for perestroika, and "velvet glove" equals refusal to use force (editor's interpretation).
• "Document No. 101: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding the Fall of the Berlin Wall, November 10, 1989" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-109 — Cheering the "end of Yalta" and "Stalin's legacy", attributing the leadership to Gorbachev.
• "Document No. 34: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev on the Situation in the Baltics, December 10, 1988" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-042 — Detecting Baltic unrest, "self-deception and naivety".
• "Document No. 89: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding German Reunification, October 9, 1989" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-097 — Overestimating Western European opposition, "dirty work".
• "Document No. 118: Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev regarding German Reunification, January 28, 1990" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881-126 — Consolation in Kohl's promises, and shifting blame post hoc by Kryuchkov, Akhromeyev, and Falin.
• "Masterpieces of History" (2010) — DOI: 10.1515/9786155211881 — A collection of 122 documents, Politburo minutes, Chernyaev's diary, summit records, and CIA analysis, mostly first-time publications.
• "NATO Enlargement—Was There a Promise?" (2017, exchange of letters) — DOI: 10.1162/isec_c_00287 — Kramer: 330,000 Soviet troops, Germany declassified in the 1990s and the Soviet Union in the late 2000s, 2015 document collection, Gorbachev's 2014 interview, conviction that the alliance system would persist until the late 1990s / Shifrinson: U.S. documents around 2010, Gorbachev's 2008 remarks, the "violation of spirit" from the same 2014 interview, reading Soviet and German materials together, and prior research on Soviet and German documents yielding mixed results.
• "Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion" (2016) — DOI: 10.1162/isec_a_00236 — Shifrinson. No explicit wording, informal and tacit guarantees.
• "The United States and the NATO Non-extension Assurances of 1990: New Light on an Old Problem?" (2021) — DOI: 10.1162/isec_a_00395 — Trachtenberg. Based on evidence from participants, the idea is not without basis.
• "Precluded or Precedent-Setting? The 'NATO Enlargement Question' in the Triangular Bonn-Washington-Moscow Diplomacy of 1990–1991" (2012) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_00275 — Spohr. West German diplomacy, refuting the claim of a precedent.
• "A Broken Promise?: 'The Gorbachev-Baker Conversation' and the Meaning of NATO's 'one inch to the east'" (2023) — DOI: 10.32625/kjei.2023.30.175 — Moscow on February 9, 1990, "east" equals East Germany.
• "Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, and the Origin of Russian Resentment toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990" (2010) — DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2009.00835.x — Sarotte. Tracing the origin of the controversy to February 1990.
• "The Guns That Didn't Smoke: Ideas and the Soviet Non-Use of Force in 1989" (2005) — DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630565 — Bennett. Learning model, hardliners also hesitated, ideas plus material forces moving in the same direction, conditions for unification being ideas and government structures, and Gorbachev's ideas winning out due to the remaining authority of his supreme leadership position.
• "Economic Incentives, Ideas, and the End of the Cold War: Gorbachev and German Unification" (2005) — DOI: 10.1162/1520397053630556 — Forsberg. The case supports German unification in 1990. German aid worked thanks to ideas, no bargaining took place, Japan failed, and the success or failure of economic incentives cannot be explained by material pressure alone.
• "Norms, Heresthetics, and the End of the Cold War" (2001) — DOI: 10.1162/15203970151032137 — Evangelista. A dead-end debate, lack of institutional support, and Riker's heresthetics.
• "Bridging the Realist/Constructivist Divide: The Case of the Counterrevolution in Soviet Foreign Policy at the End of the Cold War" (2005) — DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2005.00003.x — Snyder. Realist "endogenous" counterargument, path-dependent integration, externalization, and counterrevolution.
• "The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Counterrevolution in Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of Communism" (2011) — DOI: 10.1057/9780230337756_7 — Snyder chapter. The same thesis.
• "Shortcut to Greatness: The New Thinking and the Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy" (2003) — DOI: 10.1017/s0020818303571028 — Larson and Shevchenko. Why radical New Thinking emerged, status and social identity.
• "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution" (1993) — DOI: 10.2307/2950660 — Checkel. Experts' new ideology, institutional variables, policy entrepreneurs, and policy windows.
• "Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan" (1993) — DOI: 10.2307/2950722 — Mendelson. Unexplainable by ideas alone, three conditions.
• "Changing Course" (1998) — DOI: 10.1515/9781400864829 — Mendelson monograph. Interviews plus declassified documents, "inappropriate" ideas.
• "Russia and the Idea of the West" (2000) — DOI: 10.7312/engl11058 — English. Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, 400 interviews, intellectual revolution.
• "Lost and found: Gorbachev's 'new thinking'" (2002) — DOI: 10.1162/016366002753358366 — New Thinking equals a bundle of ideas overturning Leninist international relations theory.
• "Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev" (2020 reissue) — DOI: 10.7591/9781501737886 — Sodaro. The two-sided nature of German policy.
• "The Soviet Reassessment of the 1968 Decision and the Making of the 'Gentle Revolution' of 1989" (1992) — DOI: 10.32422/cjir.1309 — Reassessment of 1968, "it appears a political solution would have been better", de facto rehabilitation of the Prague Spring, not quite on the scale of Afghanistan, and non-intervention as evidence of changing security ideology and the risk that a hardline response would harm US-Soviet relations.
• "Remaking Europe, remaking the world: analyzing Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe, 1985-1990" (1991) — DOI: 10.18130/v3z000 — Dissertation. Positive response to Poland in early 1989, rational actor model, and diminished value of bloc relations.
• "Conclusions" (1990) — DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20805-0_7 — Reading the December 1988 UN speech as confirmation of the costs of Afghanistan, Cuba, and armaments.
• "Explaining Soviet collapse" (2017, preprint) — DOI: 10.13140/rg.2.2.29620.76167 — Explaining the collapse and the causes of perestroika are different questions, consensus on the causes of reform (economic decline, loss of national power, social problems), inevitability versus contingency.
• "Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War" (2026, review discussion) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.1331 — Review discussion of Inboden 2022. "Within seven years", reviewer's counterargument (domestic politics explains more), prediction versus causation, and Inboden's reply.
• "Reagan, Gorbachev and the emergence of 'New Political Thinking'" (1999) — DOI: 10.1017/s026021059900577x — The Reagan factor was not the sole cause but contributed to the atmosphere.
• "American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War" (1998) — DOI: 10.56021/9780801856204 — Hutchings memoir. Contrast between early and late year, American role "sometimes decisive", three options, and judgment on the roundtable talks.
• "The United States and the End of the Cold War: Reactions to Shifts in Soviet Power, Policies, or Domestic Politics?" (2007) — DOI: 10.1017/s002081830707004x — Haas. U.S. leaders' perceptions meshed with Soviet domestic changes, reassurance rather than pressure.
• "Lessons of the Cold War" (2022, review essay) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_01060 — Brown's Human Factor. Interaction of three leaders plus domestic politics.
• "Hungary, the USSR, and the Cold War" (2025, book review) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws.a.50 — Review of Békés's book. Hungary's 1995 Document Act.
• "Britain's Opposition to German Reunification, 1989–1990" (2025) — DOI: 10.1162/jcws_a_01263 — Thatcher's remarks in Moscow in September 1989.
• "The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1)" (2003) — DOI: 10.1162/152039703322483783 — Kramer. Instability within the Soviet Union, the "loss" debate, and the August 1991 coup.
• "German Unification" (2004) — DOI: 10.1057/9781403982810_6 — Reforms in Poland and Hungary in the summer of 1989, border escapes in September, lifting of travel restrictions, and November 9.
• "Diffusion and the spread of democratic institutions" (2008) — DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511755941.007 — Soviet withdrawal of promises lowered the cost of protests.
• "THE COLLAPSE OF THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN EAST GERMANY 1989: A HISTORICAL STUDY" (2024) — DOI: 10.47832/2757-5403.27.35 — Minor academic journal. Monday prayer meetings at St. Nicholas Church starting September 4.
• "The Threads of Revolution: Central Europe's Moment" (2003) — DOI: 10.1353/hsp.2003.0040 — Kenny. Gerasimov's "Sinatra Doctrine" joke, "misquoted in its own right".