Gorbachev

             less puissant. Gorbachev was also not a very verbose individual, he had trouble memorizing his speeches therefore his communication with the public was not the best. Because of Gorbachev's quick reforms to make the Soviet Union democratic, granting lots of new freedoms to the public and his inability to speak to his public the people became intrepid of him. Policies allowed the countries behind the Iron Curtain to interact wit the West, watch their television shows or listen to their radio broadcasts. This made people want freedom even more. The freedom of the press let the people speak out against Gorbachev and leaders were born to lead their countries in the revolution of 1989.
             Leaders such as Poland's Lech Walensa with the "Solidarnosc" movement took advantage of Gorbachev's reforms and his political stupidity. Decisive for the development in Eastern Europe were the changes in the USSR and thus the changes in the Soviet policies toward Eastern Europe. The "Brezhnev doctrine" was abolished. Previously the Soviet Union would have intervened when "Socialism" was threatened in a country belonging to the Warsaw pact. Gorbachev's reform policies and the rapprochement to the West meant that the Eastern European countries were allowed to decide their own development without the threat of direct intervention from the Soviet Union. Before attempts at creating revolutionary changes were stopped. The workers uprising in Berlin in 1953, the independence movement in Hungary in 1956, as well as the Czech spring in 1968 were all met with direct Soviet military intervention. In Poland, the threat of a Soviet intervention was enough for the Polish army to decide a state of emergency in 1981 in order to stop Solidarity. The decisive test for the new Soviet policy came with the changes in Poland and the formation of the first non-communist government on September 1989. The Soviet Union did not intervene although the change in power essentially weakened the Polish communists.