Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
The Gorbachev years – what went wrong?
KATE CLARK, the Morning Star's Moscow correspondent from 1985, reflects on her tumultuous years covering glasnost and perestroika for our paper
Kate Clark, Morning Star Moscow correspondent

IN ALL the fulsome media tributes to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as the statesman who ended the Cold War, there is one thing missing: there were two sides in that decades-long war.  

Gorbachev did his bit, withdrawing troops from eastern Europe and Afghanistan, disbanding the Warsaw Pact — and what did the West do in return? Nothing.  

In February 1991, when the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, did Nato disband?  No. Nato started its expansion eastwards in 1999, and by 2004 all the former Warsaw Pact countries were in Nato.  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Mick McGahey, vice-president of the National Union of Minewo
Features / 30 June 2025
30 June 2025

KATE CLARK recalls an occasion when the president of the Scottish National Union of Mineworkers might just have saved a Chilean prisoner’s life

Sister of Mercy, painted by Marat Samsonov in 1954
Features / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

As Moscow celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Nazi defeat without Western allies in attendance, the EU even sanctions nations choosing to attend, revealing how completely the USSR's sacrifice of 27 million lives has been erased, argues KATE CLARK

A picture on the wall of the Victor Jara Foundation, with Vi
Features / 23 November 2023
23 November 2023
KATE CLARK remembers her friend and comrade who she met after they both fled the persecution of leftists following Pinochet's far-right coup in Chile
Yelena Monroy poses for portrait by photos of detainees who
Features / 11 September 2023
11 September 2023
KATE CLARK was in Chile when General Pinochet cut down the progressive government of Salvador Allende in a coup that ushered in years of brutality
Similar stories
Sister of Mercy, painted by Marat Samsonov in 1954
Features / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

As Moscow celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Nazi defeat without Western allies in attendance, the EU even sanctions nations choosing to attend, revealing how completely the USSR's sacrifice of 27 million lives has been erased, argues KATE CLARK

Claudia Jones
Features / 27 February 2025
27 February 2025
From McCarthy’s prison cells to London’s carnival, Jones fought for peace and unity while exposing the lies of US imperialism, says ROBERT GRIFFITHS, in a graveside oration at Highgate Cemetery given last Sunday
A 2017 mural dicpting Vietnamese traditional art forms
Features / 7 October 2024
7 October 2024
Successful communist projects have culture at their core, as it is fundamental to embedding revolutionary ideas among the people and preventing revisionist decay, writes JOHN PATEMAN, ahead of this month’s major conference in Barnsley
WAR NOT PEACE EVERYTIME: US 82nd airborne division paratroop
Books / 8 August 2024
8 August 2024
TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK welcomes a succinct demonstration of how Nato became a vehicle for the US to pursue its dreams of global dominance