Part 3/9:
In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's visions of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) faced staunch opposition from hardliners within the Communist Party. As demonstrations erupted in East Germany, the hopes pinned on Gorbachev as a harbinger of change began to fade. Political dissent inside the Kremlin morphed into an internal struggle for power, as factions wrestled with the realization that the iron grip of the Soviet regime could loosen.
Discontent spread like wildfire, exemplified by the storming of the West German Embassy in Prague by East Germans fleeing oppressive conditions, an exodus that caught the West by surprise and ignited fears of an irreversible wave of reform throughout Eastern Europe.