The Fall of Communism Practice Test

Secondary-source excerpt (scholarly voice, ~100 words): Historians increasingly interpret the fall of European communism as a crisis of legitimacy produced by intertwined economic stagnation and political liberalization. By the late 1970s and 1980s, chronic shortages, technological backwardness, and mounting foreign debt eroded faith in planning. Gorbachev’s reforms—perestroika and glasnost—were intended to renovate socialism, yet they weakened the coercive and ideological instruments that had stabilized one-party rule. Equally consequential was Moscow’s retreat from enforcing compliance in Eastern Europe, which altered opposition calculations and encouraged negotiated transitions. In this view, 1989 resulted less from a single revolutionary blueprint than from cascading defections across regimes.

Which development most directly supports the excerpt’s claim about “Moscow’s retreat from enforcing compliance” encouraging negotiated transitions in 1989?

Secondary-source excerpt (scholarly voice, ~100 words): Historians increasingly interpret the fall of European communism as a crisis of legitimacy produced by intertwined economic stagnation and political liberalization. By the late 1970s and 1980s, chronic shortages, technological backwardness, and mounting foreign debt eroded faith in planning. Gorbachev’s reforms—perestroika and glasnost—were intended to renovate socialism, yet they weakened the coercive and ideological instruments that had stabilized one-party rule. Equally consequential was Moscow’s retreat from enforcing compliance in Eastern Europe, which altered opposition calculations and encouraged negotiated transitions. In this view, 1989 resulted less from a single revolutionary blueprint than from cascading defections across regimes.

Which development in East Germany most directly illustrates how weakened “coercive instruments” contributed to communist collapse?