The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy

This collection includes a broad sampling of articles from the National Intelligence Daily—the CIA's principal form of current intelligence analysis at the time—from February 1989 to March 1990. These articles represent much of the Agency's short-term analysis of events unfolding in Central and Eastern Europe as popular opposition to Soviet misrule erupted and quickly surpassed anything the Communist regimes were prepared to understand or to which they could respond. The material also represents a major source of information and insight for US policymakers into what was happening in these countries, where it was heading, and what the implications were for Europe and the United States of the collapse of Communist rule in Europe and the beginnings of the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Please note: Some of the material is marked "NR" or "not relevant." This means that material is unrelated to events in Central and Eastern Europe, and was therefore not reviewed for declassification as part of this collection.