EASTERN EUROPE: PERPLEXITY AND PROTEST 319can take an undesirable turn. If this question is raised from below,
we’ll suffer a whole sequence of undesirable consequences.’^20 Shevard-
nadze shrugged this off. He continued to regard Soviet armed might as
the guarantor of regional stability. He pointed to the tensions between
the Hungarians and the Romanians. The Poles and Germans too had
underlying difficulties. Shevardnadze thought ‘our friends’ were ill
prepared to shoulder additional burdens of military expenditure.^21
Gorbachëv began a three-day visit to Czechoslovakia on 9 April
- Big crowds turned out for him. People shouted to him to stay
longer in the country; they wanted him to bring about communist
self-reform in Prague. By cheering Gorbachëv, they were demonstrat-
ing against Husák. Everyone understood what was going on. But true
to his policy in Eastern Europe, Gorbachëv avoided saying anything in
public that might undermine the ruling communist leadership. He
even expressed appreciation for how Husák had handled the situation
after Brezhnev’s military intervention. Gorbachëv had not changed his
mind about the overthrow of Dubček, but though he was starting to
dismantle authoritarian rule in the USSR, he saw himself as a realist
and retained a definite sympathy for authoritarian leaders whose sur-
vival appeared to strengthen stability in the region. He felt this about
Husák: ‘He’s decent.’ He left it to Husák to decide whether to start a
Czechoslovak perestroika and how to handle the question of 1968. His
only advice was that things could not stay as they were.^22 Gorbachëv’s
feelings were conflicted. He later told his aides that he could see that
the aged Husák’s powers were on the wane. He added from the heart:
‘When I was in Czechoslovakia, everything inside me was crying out.
The main thing I saw was that the mood in society was overtaking the
mood in the leadership.’^23
He was equally pessimistic about the prospects of reform in
Bucharest, where he went in late May 1987 on his way to East Berlin
for the next meeting of the Political Consultative Committee. He reck-
oned that the crowds who cheered Ceauşescu had been specially
brought to the capital for the purpose. He heard that, after his own
departure, people pillaged a market which had an artificial supply of
desirable products for the duration of his visit. Ceauşescu had been
a disgruntled host. He scorned Gorbachëv’s proposal to change the
Warsaw Pact’s military doctrine to one of mere ‘sufficiency’. He bridled
at Gorbachëv’s speeches about perestroika in the USSR. He saw this
as a hostile action on Romanian soil and accused Gorbachëv of
trying to punish him for his strategy of economic independence.