Erich Honecker and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the regime's number-two man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck. The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the
Erich Honecker to liberalise communism. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four"—a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make necessary reforms. Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning