The following text is an excerpt from Vladimir Bukowski's book "Soviet Union or the European Union – a dissident in Gorbachev's archives" – Wyd. Arwil 2005.
* * Oh, * *
There are moments in past where the future of full continents is doomed for decades. The date that would appeal to them will not be found in the encyclopedia, they are besides not the reason for sleepless nights, trying to remember them, students. Only a fewer chosen ones know them.
On the another hand, we who are an uninitiated mass sleep 1 night in a acquainted home country, and the next morning wake up in the conditions of any socialist republic. We cannot even comprehend who and erstwhile made specified a fatal decision.
For Europe, 1 specified date was March 26, 1987. On that day, the russian Political Office made a decision on the future policy of the russian Union towards Western Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev formulated it briefly and brightly, like an order on the battlefield:
Squeeze in embrace, choke in embrace
In the interior circles of russian leaders, this concept was already called the “Common European House”. shortly the full planet met her.
At the Politburo gathering on 26 March 1987, the thought of a “Common European House” became a substance of paramount importance. Gorbachev then strictly prohibited any political decisions that did not take him into account.
Gorbachev:“Comrades, there are many things going on here. It is apparent that we should not make decisions on any issue without taking account of Europe. We even request her to handle our interior affairs, for the perestroika. And in abroad policy, it is irreplaceable. Europe is the strongest, not only economically, but besides politically, mediate class in the world.
It seemed that Japan had surpassed the full world, and abruptly West Germany had taken, in the sphere of discipline and technology, a powerful step forward."
In this area, the backwardness of the Soviets proved disastrous. Gorbachev decided to hug Europe not due to the fact that he loved her, but due to the fact that he had no choice.
In the early 1980s, leaders of the russian Union recognized that their strategy had entered a phase of deep structural crisis. On the 1 hand, the unproductive and wasteful model of the socialist economy led them to the brink of bankruptcy, on the another hand, success in exporting this model to another countries became a burden that they could no longer bear on their shoulders. Further maintenance of troops in Afghanistan and the threat of a serious political crisis in Poland made the cost of being a planet power increasingly hard to bear. The leaders of the USSR began to realize that the opportunities of the socialist economy were besides low to meet their global ambitions. erstwhile we add the fresh circular of the arms race, the falling oil prices, and the increasing discontent in the country, Ronald Reagan’s abrupt request for improvement becomes much more understandable. The final blow came with the reaganic concept of "Star Wars". And even if the "Star Wars" program was just an American bluff, however, it forced the russian Union to proceed to compete in an area where it remained far behind.
The only way to modernise the russian economy was to exploit the technological possible of the erstwhile enemy.
Gorbachev:"An crucial task is to exploit the technological and technological possible of Western Europe. Especially since our friends in east Europe have already done so. Our renewal of friendly relations with the West would facilitate their task."
Gorbachev's thought was beautiful clear. He feared the increasing economical dependency from the West of his satellite states and so hoped that relationship with Europe would safe the western borders of his power. And since another communist regimes in Europe have already fraternized with the West, he concluded that the russian Union should take on a kind of patronage over this process, strengthening its soulful grip. Since communist regimes, anyway, were working with the “class enemy”, Gorbachev said they should do so together.
The Moscow Political Office had to address not only the states of the east bloc but besides the full world. It was so concluded that the concept of the "Common European House" would be key to the implementation of the planet plans of the russian Union.
Vladimir Bukowski
