THE Kremlin could have started the Third World War in 1989 had it used troops to crush the demonstrations that preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said yesterday.
Mr Gorbachev is hailed in the West for ignoring hardliners who advised him to guarantee the Soviet Union's future by crushing a growing wave of dissent in Eastern Bloc countries which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November, 1989.
When as
ked by a reporter why he did not use force to halt the demonstrations, Mr Gorbachev said it would have sparked a catastrophic set of events and even a world war.
"If the Soviet Union had wished, there would have been nothing of the sort (the fall of the Wall] and no German unification. But what would have happened? A catastrophe or World War Three," said Mr Gorbachev, 78. "My policy was open and sincere, aimed at using democracy and not spilling blood. But this cost me very dear."
Most Russians revile Mr Gorbachev for his weakness in allowing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of Moscow's global empire. A poll last year found that 60 per cent of Russians still viewed the demise of the Soviet Union as a "tragedy".
Thousands of East Germans crossed to West Berlin in November 1989 after the Soviet-backed authorities unexpectedly ordered the opening of tightly-guarded border crossings in the Wall.
Mr Gorbachev, who could have used nearly half-a-million Soviet troops stationed in East Germany to crush the rebellion, quipped that he had "a good night's sleep" after the Wall was opened. "I am very proud of the decision we made," he said. "The Wall did not simply fall – it was destroyed just as the Soviet Union was destroyed."
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