How did “glasnost” mainly contribute to end of the Cold War?

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1. Bookbinder says

   Gorbachev's policy was directly responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall, so perhaps that could be one starting point for you. Briefly, then, Gorby (may I shorten the name? It's a bit quicker.) announced that the Soviet Union would no longer provide military support for the satellite states. They would have to take care of their own military defence. This meant that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) could not continue to exist as a separate state, because its own military was strong enough to contain any rebellion within its borders, but it wasn't strong enough to resist a threat from outside. Internal unrest began to show itself in the GDR, mostly in the form of public protest meetings and demonstrations. These began in Leipzig, and they were called the Monday protests, because they took place after Monday evening prayer meetings. The GDR government didn't really know what to do about large-scale demonstrations, because the leaders were mainly old men who had become set in their ways, and they couldn't handle change. If the occasional citizen made a fuss, he was thrown into jail, or maybe (if he was a persistent protester) he would be "sold" to West Germany for a ransom. While the GDR leaders were mumbling and grumbling, the Hungarian government opened up their border with Austria. Immediately, thousands of GDR citizens streamed through the border, and many of them set up camp outside West German embassies in Austria, demanding visas to go to the west. This created serious diplomatic pressure on the two German governments to resolve the crisis. The final act in this was that the GDR government held a crisis meeting, at which the members tried to figure out what to do about the civil unrest in their country. After much deliberation, the best that they could come up with was to relax travel restrictions to the West, which meant allowing access to West Germany. One of the Politburo members was late in getting to the meeting, so he turned up after the decision had been made. The world's press was waiting for the decision of the meeting, and the member who was late was given the job of reading out the meeting's decision to the press. He read what was on the piece of paper that had been pushed into his hands, there was a silence, and a reporter asked when would this access to the West come into force? It wasn't on the piece of paper, so the member ummed and erred a bit, then he said, "As far as I am aware, er, immediately." The idea was that this would happen the next day, after the border guards had been given appropriate instruction, but once the Politburo member had said what he did, the news was broadcast all over Germany, and within a few hours there were thousands of East Germans waiting at the border crossings, anxious to taste their new-found freedom. The guards didn't know what to do. They couldn't really shoot all those people, so they opened the barriers and the rest, as they say, is history. I suppose I've gone on a bit, but I find the subject interesting, and I hope that I've given you a starting point. Best of luck.

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2. bloggersvilleusa says

   This subject is more likely to require access to books than to the web.

   Parts of some of the following books at Google Books are available for web viewing, though:

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