REVOLUTION IN EASTERN EUROPE 407on 20 September was unprecedented – and for this reason it was
important that the Defence Minister and the KGB Chairman were
involved in the discussion. They noted that Mazowiecki was signalling
the new government’s desire for friendly links with the USSR. The
group welcomed this overture and suggested the need for of direct
talks with the Vatican. They urged Gorbachëv to raise Polish affairs at
his projected meeting with Pope John Paul II. They said that if Soviet
diplomacy was managed with care, the Warsaw Pact could survive as
the instrument of regional security coordination – and this was in
the USSR’s interest. The group regarded the Political Consultative
Committee and even Comecon as having lasting usefulness.^40 On
28 September the Politburo passed the submission as guidance for
official policy.^41
Political disaffection became manifest in East Germany. The two
superpowers and their allies pondered the growth in unrest. Dissent-
ers were becoming bolder. Church activists, youth rebels and political
dissidents united in producing anticommunist leaflets and petitioning
for change. Honecker’s instinct was to rely on his security forces; he
knew that he could not count on assistance from the Soviet military
garrisons. Speculation mounted that the emergency could culminate
in German reunification under Kohl’s aegis.
Thatcher set her face against this outcome. She distrusted the West
German leadership and its pretensions, telling Mitterrand: ‘Kohl lies
the whole time.’ What made a bad situation worse was that her friend
Gorbachëv was proving ‘feeble’. Mitterrand soothed her with the com-
ment that Gorbachëv would never accept a new Germany belonging
to NATO; he added that France and the United Kingdom could rely
on the USSR and America to stand up to Kohl.^42 Mitterrand’s aide
Jacques Attali, talking to Gorbachëv’s adviser Vadim Zagladin, floated
the idea of a Franco-Soviet alliance, including even military ‘integra-
tion’:^43 this extraordinary idea came to nothing – more than anything
else, it was a symptom of panic in French ruling circles at the idea that
the Paris–Bonn axis in Western Europe was crumbling. Thatcher too
foresaw that communism could soon collapse in East Germany. On
22 September she bluntly told Gorbachëv:
Britain and Western Europe are not interested in the unification
of Germany. The words written in the NATO communiqué may
sound different, but disregard them. We do not want the unifica-
tion of Germany. It would lead to changes in the post-war borders,
and we cannot allow that because such a development would