 The Soviet–Afghan War nominally expanded the Eastern Bloc, but the war proved unwinnable and too costly for the Soviets, challenged in Eastern Europe by the civil resistance of "Solidarity".In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued policies of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring) to reform the Eastern Bloc and end the Cold War, which brought forth unrest throughout the bloc.The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then set in motion a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.