Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms helped create the political climate in which the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. His policies of glasnost, or greater openness, and perestroika, or restructuring, loosened political controls and encouraged debate across the Soviet bloc. He also reduced the likelihood that the Soviet Union would use military force to keep Eastern European communist governments in power.
Unlike earlier crises, the upheavals of 1989 were not met with a Soviet invasion. East German leaders therefore faced growing protests without the same expectation of unconditional Soviet backing. Gorbachev did not order the Wall’s opening, and the immediate decision came from East German officials after a confused travel announcement. His policies were nevertheless an important background factor in the peaceful revolutions that swept Eastern Europe.