Pád Berlínské zdi, východní Evropa a Gorbačovova vize Evropy po studené válce
The Fall of the Wall, Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev’s Vision of Europe after the Cold War

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on Gorbachev’s policies towards Europe and his visions of overcoming the Cold War divide. The idea of a common European home played the pivotal role in his foreign policy plans. It was based to a large extent on Gorbachev’s desire to turn the CSCE framework into the main structure of European security, which would mean a gradual dissolution of both the Warsaw Treaty Organization and NATO and a growing role of the USSR as a great European power. With respect to Eastern Europe, the Soviets had only a vague strategy of transformation on the model of the Prague Spring – socialism with a human face minus the tanks – along with integration into Europe. However, the developments in the Soviet Union itself – economic crisis, elections and the rise of nationalism – kept pushing ‘socialist friends’ down the list of priorities. For the European home to be built, the walls had to come down. At the same time, when the Berlin Wall came down, it launched a process of German unifi cation, which became the central process in Europe and sidelined the building of a common home and made it irrelevant for European policymakers. Despite initial U.S. and German promises to the contrary, the united Germany became a member of NATO. The Warsaw Pact thus soon lost the last reasons for its existence and was disbanded by its members in March 1991. The Soviet Union followed suit soon thereafter. NATO actually became the entryway for East European countries to the new European home – the European Union. It gradually incorporated all the former Soviet East European allies, but the door remained closed to Russia.

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