REVOLUTION IN EASTERN EUROPE 409mind.^54 On 18 October the East German Politburo took decisive action
by firing Honecker and making Krenz the General Secretary, and the
ground was at last clear for reforms.
Gorbachëv recognized that the presence of his own armed forces
added to the agitation in Eastern Europe, but he also saw the danger in
annoying the Soviet high command. On 18 October the USSR’s Main
Military Council met to review the situation. This was a body that
brought together the leaderships of the General Staff, Defence Ministry,
KGB and Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was a fiery session as military
commanders explained the difficulties for the Soviet armed forces in
pulling out of the East European countries. Withdrawal would be a
costly process that would wreck their annual budget.^55 Shevardnadze
decided to quash any incipient attempt to reverse official policy.
He gave one of the speeches of his life at the Supreme Soviet, where he
stressed that the USSR should have been quicker in deciding how to
deal with the whirlwind of changes in the region. He wanted to see
further progress in arms reduction; he denounced the whole Afghan
debacle since 1979. He stressed the need to base policy on moral prin-
ciples and demanded help from the Supreme Soviet in passing laws on
human rights. He reserved his own right to stand down if pushed to
pursue objectives at variance with his understanding of politics and
morality.^56 Gorbachëv and Shevardnadze were adamant about keeping
to the line they had established in the summer. The Kremlin’s political
apparatus had once intimidated and controlled the entire region. Now
its officials were like everyone else in the USSR, simply watching events
in Warsaw, East Berlin and Prague on television – and the Politburo
was not much better informed than anyone else.^57
Gorbachëv talked scathingly about East European leaders. Meeting
with Poland’s ex-Prime Minister Rakowski in mid-October, he blamed
him and the rest of the Polish communist leadership for the in-
competent way that they had confronted Solidarity. Rakowski still saw
Gorbachëv as his political protector. He thought that the Solidarity-
led government could soon be in trouble because Poles had no bread
on their plates. He warned that a dictator on the model of Poland’s
pre-war leader Józef Piłsudski might come to power.^58 Rakowski had
not adapted his thinking to a Europe where Moscow was no longer
willing to come to the assistance of Polish comrades. Or perhaps he
was just in shock. His leading comrades in government elsewhere in
Eastern Europe were hardly in better shape. In Hungary, Grósz was
floundering as public protests intensified in Budapest. Even Ceauşescu