Gorbachev announces that countries in the Warsaw Pact are free to decide on their own futures. Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement has already trounced the communists in Poland in June elections. Walesa takes office in August.
Across Eastern Europe, people want change and are risking making their feelings known. Last time it was tried - in Hungary in 1956 and in Prague in 1968 - Soviet forces ruthlessly crushed the protests. This time, the will of the people prevails.
In September, Hungary stuns the world by opening its borders with the West - a previously unthinkable move, which in another era would have brought a crushing Soviet response.
Thousands of East Europeans climb into their communist-built Trabant cars to join a jubilant exodus to Austria. Perestroika overflows into the West.