The year is 1989.
Ronald Reagan has finished his second and final term in the Oval Office of the President of the United States. George H. Bush has succeeded him in office; taking the reigns of the free world in these uncertain times. However, the future is looking brighter as the Cold War appears to be winding down.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He's been in office for four years and has been enacting liberal policies such as Glasnost and Perestroika to reform the Soviet Union to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brehznev years and to bring the Communist Party into the twenty-first century. However, his policies are weakening the State's grip upon the country all the while giving more freedoms of expression to Soviet citizens; broadcasting the true living conditions of the 'worker's paradise' across the world.
Also, new Soviet foreign policy champions non-intervention into the internal affairs of its allies. The end of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as the last soviet troops pull out in 1989. The Brehznev Doctrine has been completely abandoned and repproachment with the West to improve relations by reducing nuclear weapons through the INF Treaty signed in 1987. These have the dual effect of pleasing Western leaders and undermining the Soviet's allied leaders in the East.
A wave of nationalism and calls for more liberalization; even calls of independance have spread throughout the Republics of the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe; they threaten to tear apart the Warsaw Pact and even the Soviet Union itself. Independance from Moscow and freedom have become the cries of the protesters throughout the communist world.
May: Hungary begins openning it's border with Austria. Thousands of citizens from Czechsolvakia and East Germany (DDR. Eng: GDR) flee through Hungary into Austria.
June 1-4 Tiananmen Square Massacre:
The Communist Chinese government in Bejing under General Secretary Zhao Ziyang with hardliner conservative supporters enacted martial law in the capitol and order the military to crush student-led popular demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll are high, some go over 2500; whilst thousands or injured or arrested.
Oct. 7
Gorbachev and most Warsaw Pact leaders attend the 40th Anniversary of the German Democratic Republic alongside Erich Honecker. A massive demonstration is made near the parade grounds; the cries of the people being aimed at Gorbachev personally: "Gorby, Help us! Gorby, save us!"
Gorbachev and the Soviet delegation depart as night begins to fall. The pilot of their jet reports trouble as the aircraft suddenly goes off the Radar of air-traffic controllers and the radio turns to static. It will take two and a half hours to find the wreckage near Strausburg and is searched for survivors. There are none. Gorbachev is dead.
Massive demonstrations across the DDR occur in ignorane of this fact. Erich Honecker orders security forces into the streets and with the fate of Gorbachev still unknown to the German leader; he gives orders for a violent crackdown upon the demonstrators.
The West is shocked by the brutal crackdown the East German government brings down upon the protesters; a particularly brutal scene witnessed in Leipzig being dubbed the "European Tiananmen Square". It is an even greater shock when in two days the Soviet Union comes out from complete silence on the matter and formally announces the death of Mikhail Gorbachev in the plane crash; immediatley sparking rumors and speculation of an assassination and a hardline coup.
In the two day media blackout the Soviet leadership has been taken over by the State Committee on the State of Emergency; chaired by Gennady Yanayev and announced as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Almost immediately protests and strikes take place within the Soviet Union; however martial law is declared and a curfew enforced as thousands are rounded up in arrests. When the protests turn violent; a crackdown similar to that experienced in the DDR occurs within the Soviet Union.
October 1989, The German dubbed: "Die Wende"
Many Warsaw Pact leaders follow Moscow's example and begin to enforce violent crackdowns on opposition in the streets. Opponents within the government are either removed from positions of power or purged from their countries respective Communist parties; such as Yelstin or Gennady Gerasimov in the Soviet Union or Manfred Gerlach in the DDR.
Whilst resistance to the oppressive regimes is strong and widespread at first; the futility of fighting the State and the bloodshed force the people off the streets. Moscow now begins reverting most of its policies back to their post-Gorbachev state excempting those pertaining to combating alcoholism, corruption and incentives for quality control.
The West is shocked as it watches events unfold behind the Iron Curtain. The political climate has now turned ice cold as the Cold War has revamped itself and has reached new heights of audacity. The percieved falling of Communism in Eastern Europe has been dashed and the world watches and waits to see what will come out of the Iron Curtain in the coming days, months, perhaps even years...
