Farewell Comrades

December 1991: The Soviet head of state, Mikhail Gorbachov, conducts long-distance calls with political leaders in the Western world. Shortly after, Gorbachev speaks on television, stating: “Hereby I quit my position as President of the USSR.” It is quite a banal finale for the grandiose communist vision of the “new era” that had kept the world busy since the October Revolution in 1917. As late as in 1975, the utopia seemed closer than ever: The communist world was at the peak of its geographical expansion, controlling or influencing almost half of the planet’s population. But why did the Soviet Empire collapse only 16 years later? What forces were there behind the creeping erosion and sudden collapse? Why could no one foresee the unthinkable? For the first time ever, this story is told chronologically and from across and within the borders of all countries involved by the people who were there, who lived through it, who made it happen. In 1975 the Soviet Union is at the peak of its power: the final act of the Helsinki Conference officially confirms the Soviet dominance in East Europe, meanwhile the other superpower is in a deep depression after the Watergate scandal, and the defeat in Vietnam. But as consequence of the Helsinki Conference dissident groups like Charta 77 or the Moscow-Helsinki Group emerge and start to undermine the state authorities. And the socialist youth starts to dream about freedom under the raising influence of rock music, jeans and Western media.