... booming black market in Western consumer goods being run under the help of corrupt officials. The reforms of Gorbachev in the late 1980's were also a major factor in why the crisis in Eastern Europe came to a head at the time that it did, this has to be considered when answering the question. The Communist system offered eastern European citizens many benefits, e.g. guaranteed employment, subsidised prices for both food and shelter, free education including university and universal health care. Few in the East wanted to give up such safeguards, although in some countries (Yugoslavia and Hungary) experiments in market socialism had already undermined job security, while budgetary deficits threatened the social benefits. Declining rates of growth and technological stagnation led to a loss of confidence in central planning and eventually to massive protests against communist rule. Policy-makers debated whether economic decentralisation and western-style markets might solve the problems of Eastern ...

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