Gorbachev and German unification: Moscow's German policy, 1985-1990

The thesis of this study is that Soviet acceptance of East Germany's collapse in 1989-1990 and German unification in mid-1990 represented the successful translation of Gorbachev's new concepts of international relations into actual policy. He struggled to overcome massive domestic opposition with a mixture of deception, delay, and decisive action. The Soviet leader was aided in this endeavor by constructive signals from the West. Rather than an isolated episode in Soviet-West German relations, the decision on unification was part of larger process spanning from 1985-1990.;From his first days in office, Gorbachev indicated his commitment to the concepts associated with new political thinking. The abandonment of class-based analysis, the commitment to political solutions to international problems, and the acceptance of economic interdependence all combined to form a profoundly different vision of international relations. Gorbachev did not envision these principles as mechanistically dictated by domestic imperatives. His altered definition of Soviet security was not a tactical change, but a genuine transformation.;How the Soviet leader chose to translate these new ideas into policy represented the key to understanding change in Soviet-West German relations. He balanced his altered vision with the constraints of domestic politics to construct a politically feasible policy. His political skills, information policy, personnel turnover, and mobilization of Soviet foreign policy specialists were instrumental in this process.;Finally, the interactions between internal and external factors served as an intervening variable. External forces influenced the domestic process by either assisting or damaging Gorbachev's efforts to win support for his new foreign policy. Likewise, the Soviet leader's domestic reform strategy and his visible problems with conservative opposition affected his international efforts. In the case of Gorbachev's acceptance of a single German state in NATO, he benefited from the West's reassuring actions. Yet these actions were actually a manifestation of growing trust in Gorbachev stemming from his domestic reform efforts.;These three dynamics (new thinking, domestic politics, and external-internal linkages) culminated in Gorbachev's acceptance of the terms for German unification in July 1990. The centrality of the factors highlighted above are traced throughout 1985-1990.