Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union formed" Gorbachev, but that "long ago Gorbachev had internally rebelled against the native System." In the same vein, Gorbachev's adviser Andrey Grachev, noted that he was a "genetic error of the system." Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (literally "openness") meant the gradual democratisation of the party. Because of this, the role of the Central Committee was strengthened. Several old apparatchiks lost their seats to more open-minded officials during the Gorbachev era. The plan was to make the Central Committee an organ where discussion took place; and in this Gorbachev succeeded. By 1988, several people demanded reform within the Communist Party itself.
Mikhail Gorbachev announced the full withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was completed the following year, although the civil war continued as the Mujahedin pushed to overthrow the pro-Soviet Najibullah government. An estimated 14,453 Soviets were killed between 1979 and 1989 as a result of the Afghanistan War. Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern bloc nations to freely determine their own internal affairs. Jokingly dubbed the "Sinatra Doctrine" by Gorbachev's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, this policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the other Warsaw Pact states