‘The Gorbachev revolution’ was of decisive importance in relation to the end of the Cold War. The wording itself, though, requires some elaboration. The profound changes that occurred in the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1980s were not, it goes without saying, simply the work of one man. However, reform from below, not to speak of revolution in a more conventional sense of the term, was infeasible. Not only was the system rigidly hierarchical, but it also embodied a sophisticated array of rewards for conformist behaviour and calibrated punishments for political deviance. The Communist Party was, moreover, able to devote vast resources to propagating its version of reality, especially successfully in the realm of foreign policy. Average Soviet citizens did not have the kind of personal experience which would have enabled them to call into question the story of the Soviet Union’s struggle for peace in the face of provocative acts by hostile imperialist forces.

The term ‘Gorbachev revolution’ is apt inasmuch as changes of revolutionary dimensions – especially pluralisation of the political system – occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership and with the full weight of his authority and the power of the office of Communist Party leader behind them. The notion of revolution from above is also, though, paradoxical, for Gorbachev was by temperament a reformer rather than a revolutionary. The resolution of the paradox is to be found in Gorbachev’s pursuit of revolutionary goals by evolutionary means, phraseology he frequently used himself.