EASTERN EUROPE: PERPLEXITY AND PROTEST 327Western financial aid became available to Eastern Europe? Should the
Politburo encourage or put up with such an outcome? Was the contin-
ued basing of Soviet troops in Eastern Europe in the USSR’s interest?^64
Shakhnazarov urged the Soviet leadership to concentrate on the
region and produce a policy for active implementation before disaster
ensued. Yakovlev and Shevardnadze were sympathetic to this analysis.
Shevardnadze learned from fellow foreign ministers of the Warsaw
Pact in late October 1988 that Eastern Europe was on the brink of
bankruptcy because of its debts to Western banks.^65 When Yakovlev
met with the Czechoslovak leaders, they warned him about the
threat to communist rule if the Soviet press continued to hint that
Soviet policy on the 1968 Prague Spring was about to be reversed.^66
Yakovlev was well-known for favouring the ventilation of such mat-
ters. Shevardnadze meanwhile heard about difficulties in Hungary,
where the new communist leader Károly Grósz admitted to him that
the country’s financial credits had gone exclusively on consumption at
the expense of capital investment and industrial modernization. The
Hungarian leadership obviously had no solution in mind; and when
asked whether the Soviet military presence in the country was causing
problems, Grósz suggested that popular disturbances might be in the
offing.^67
The Soviet movement towards military withdrawal gathered speed.
On 10 November there was a meeting of leaders from the military
and industrial leaderships in Belyakov’s office. The main item was the
reduction of Soviet troops in the region. There was talk about estab-
lishing a smaller and more mobile kind of army, and Yazov and the
Defence Ministry made less fuss about change than they would have
done in earlier years. The constraints on the USSR’s power were appre-
ciated. Maslyukov reinforced the case for a reduced presence. Ryzhkov
as government premier told the blunt truth: unless the Soviet Army
was cut back, there could be no hope for the campaign to reform the
economy.^68 Outer empire and internal reform were contradictory
objectives.
America’s State Department kept its focus on Moscow and held
back from interference in Eastern Europe. So long as Gorbachëv gave
preference for the peaceful resolution of problems, it was thought best
to avoid interfering. Republican Senator Jim Sasser criticized this con-
duct of policy as too passive; he urged that Western banks should
cease to lend to the communist governments. Defense Secretary
Carlucci agreed with him. Both of them reasoned that if the banks