EASTERN EUROPE: PERPLEXITY AND PROTEST 323corporations preferred to establish their operations in Western
Europe.^38 He had no ideas about how to end the CoCom embargo on
technological transfer. He was implicitly abandoning any claim that
the USSR could lead Eastern Europe’s economic regeneration. He was
acknowledging that communism somehow had to find a way to piggy-
back on capitalism.
On 19 November Ryzhkov told the Politburo that the Czechoslo-
vak leadership was at last moving towards reform. Prime Minister
Lubomír Štrougal had told him that Czechoslovakia was ‘pregnant’
with a perestroika that was long overdue. Gorbachëv welcomed the
report while stressing the need to leave the Czechoslovaks to work
things out for themselves. He doubted that Štrougal could unite the
leadership if ever he were to become Party General Secretary.^39 But
the East European ‘friends’, he continued to insist, had to act as they
wished. The hope remained that they would find their own path
towards reform. According to Gorbachëv, Kádár sensed that his polit-
ical career was coming to an end and had told him that he wanted to
retire from the Hungarian leadership. Gorbachëv demurred and
advised Kádár to give further thought to the matter.^40 This became
his general policy: he wanted rid of the veterans but refused to raise
his hand against them – and his desire remained to avoid dangerous
instability across the region.^41 He left even Romania to its own devices.
General Nicolae Militaru took the risk of approaching the Soviet con-
sulate in Constanta with a request for help with a coup d’état against
Ceauşescu. Gorbachëv would have nothing to do with this: ‘We’re not
interfering in their affairs.’^42
On 11 December he flew to East Berlin to report to Warsaw Pact
leaders about the Washington summit – only Ceauşescu absented
himself. Gorbachëv spoke without notes, boasting that American
well-wishers had hung out of windows to make him welcome as if he
had been in Prague rather than Washington; and he emphasized that
the enthusiasm was not artificially organized.^43 His listeners knew
that, outside on the Alexanderplatz, were ranks of youths in identical
uniforms waiting to give exactly the pre-arranged greeting that he was
criticizing.^44 He was in ebullient mood. He claimed that Reagan had at
last admitted that the USSR was no longer bent on world domina-
tion.^45 (Reagan had said no such thing, but Gorbachëv wanted to
impress.) Kádár congratulated Gorbachëv and Shevardnadze on what
he called the first success for perestroika in international relations.
Even Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Ioan Totu seemed pleased.