Gorbachev's influence and the protest movements

What the specification asks for

“The influence of Gorbachev, including on the protest movements.” — examined through causation. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The guarantee that had always been there

Every previous crisis in the Soviet bloc had been settled by Soviet force or by the credible threat of it. Soviet tanks put down the East German rising of June 1953, entered Hungary in 1956, and ended the Prague Spring in 1968; the Brezhnev doctrine stated the principle openly. East German leaders governed in the knowledge that this guarantee stood behind them.

Gorbachev, in power from 1985, withdrew it. Glasnost and perestroika changed what the Soviet Union expected of its allies, and by 1988 and 1989 Moscow was making it clear — publicly in places, privately in others — that it would not intervene militarily to preserve unpopular governments in Eastern Europe. Poland and Hungary tested the proposition through 1989 and found it held.

That change is the necessary condition for everything that followed. It did not create the opposition, the debt or the discontent, all of which existed already. It removed the reason those things had never mattered, which is why the strand is a causation strand and why the sequencing of the argument decides the marks.

A state that censored Soviet newspapers

The GDR's leadership refused the new direction. Honecker and those around him regarded perestroika as a danger, and in a decision that reads as absurd until you understand its logic, the GDR banned or restricted Soviet publications considered too liberal — a communist state censoring the organ of the Soviet party.

The logic was that the GDR could not survive liberalisation. Every other bloc state had a national existence independent of its political system: a reformed Poland was still Poland. A reformed GDR had no reason to exist as a separate country, because its only claim to be a state distinct from West Germany was that it was socialist. Reform was therefore an existential question in East Berlin in a way it was not in Warsaw or Budapest, and the leadership understood that clearly.

The refusal also destroyed the leadership's last resource. A regime that would not follow Moscow could not appeal to Moscow, and by 1989 the East German leadership was isolated from its own protector as well as from its own population. Gorbachev's visit for the fortieth anniversary in October 1989, at which he indicated plainly that the GDR would have to solve its own problems, was the public confirmation of a position that had been clear for a year.

What the protest movements did with the space

The opposition of the 1980s was small, watched and largely church-based. Peace, environmental and human rights groups met on church premises, cited the Helsinki commitments their government had signed, and were penetrated by the Stasi throughout. Nothing about their size in 1987 predicted the following two years.

What changed was the calculation of risk. The Monday prayers at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig had been held since 1982; through September and October 1989 the crowds leaving them grew from hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands. The demonstration of 9 October in Leipzig, at which perhaps seventy thousand people marched while security forces and hospitals had been prepared for violence and no order to fire was given, is the pivot of the whole autumn.

The reason no order was given is contested and the honest answer is that responsibility is unclear: local officials, the church, the security leadership and the absence of Soviet backing have all been credited. What is certain is that once a crowd of that size had marched and dispersed unharmed, the demonstrations became safe enough for everybody, and the numbers rose accordingly the following week.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1985–89

Glasnost and perestroika; the GDR restricts Soviet publications it considers too liberal. Why this date: It is the clearest measure of how far the East German leadership had separated itself from its protector.

October 1989

Gorbachev visits for the fortieth anniversary and indicates the GDR must solve its own problems. Why this date: It confirms publicly that the guarantee behind every previous crisis had been withdrawn.

9 October 1989

About seventy thousand march in Leipzig and no order to fire is given. Why this date: It is the moment protest became survivable, and the crowds multiplied immediately afterwards.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• About 70,000 — Demonstrators in Leipzig on 9 October 1989. (Estimates vary between accounts; the following week's demonstration was substantially larger again.)
• 1982 — The year the Monday prayers began at the Nikolaikirche, seven years before the demonstrations.
• Hundreds of thousands — The size the Leipzig demonstrations reached within weeks. (Crowd estimates for October and November 1989 differ widely between sources.)

The people to place

• Mikhail Gorbachev — Soviet leader from 1985; withdrew the guarantee of military intervention that had settled every previous bloc crisis.
• Erich Honecker — Refused perestroika and restricted Soviet publications in the GDR.
• Christian Führer — Pastor at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, where the Monday prayers were held from 1982.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'Moscow decided' reading: Every earlier crisis had ended in Soviet intervention, and the one variable that changed in 1989 was Gorbachev's refusal to intervene, so the decisive cause lies outside the GDR entirely. Contested by The reading that this reduces East Germans to spectators at their own revolution, since somebody had to walk out of the Nikolaikirche on 9 October without knowing what would happen, and the withdrawal of a guarantee explains an opportunity rather than an act..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: Gorbachev caused the East German revolution.

This: He removed the condition that had prevented every previous one. The debt, the discontent and the church-based opposition already existed; what changed was that the tanks would not come.

Not this: The GDR followed Soviet reform.

This: It refused it and censored Soviet publications, because a liberalised GDR had no reason to exist separately from West Germany while a liberalised Poland was still Poland.

Two things students merge

Blurred: A necessary condition and a cause.

The distinction: Soviet non-intervention was necessary for 1989 and did not by itself produce a demonstration. Naming which kind of cause you are describing is the analytical move this strand rewards.

Blurred: The opposition groups and the crowds.

The distinction: The church-based groups were small, watched and long-established; the crowds of October 1989 were mostly ordinary citizens who had never been in a group. The second is not simply the first grown larger.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer holds two causes in the right relation. Moscow's withdrawal made the autumn possible and did not make anybody march; seventy thousand people in Leipzig on 9 October did not know that no order to fire would be given, and treating their decision as a consequence of a policy made in another country explains the opportunity while missing the event.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section A (a) (6 marks — “Describe TWO features of EITHER … OR ….”); Paper 2 Section A (b) (8 marks — “How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about …? Explain your answer.”); Paper 2 Section A (c) (16 marks — “Extract C suggests that …. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The censorship of Soviet publications. It is a single arresting fact that demonstrates the GDR's isolation from its own protector better than a paragraph of narrative.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Describe two features of Gorbachev's impact on the GDR. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section A (a)]
2. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the growth of protest in the GDR in 1989? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
3. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the East German leadership's attitude to Soviet reform? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
4. Extract C suggests that the GDR fell because Moscow would no longer defend it. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]
5. Extract C suggests that the churches created the opposition movement in the GDR. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Why did the GDR collapse in 1989 and not in 1979?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 4: International recognition and state visits
• Next lesson: The border openings, the fall of Honecker and 9 November
• Also in this key topic: The collapse of the SED and reunification
• Key topic 5 · The Peaceful Revolution, 1987–90 · East Germany, 1958–90 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of East Germany: The Berlin Wall crisis, 1958–63 · Stabilisation and control: the GDR, 1962–87 · Life in the GDR – social change, 1962–87 · Ostpolitik – relations with the Federal Republic, 1969–87