Over three decades later, President Reagan, standing near the Berlin Wall, delivered what has been called his Berlin Wall speech addressing Mikhail Gorbachev (not there in person), then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: "... If you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union ... if you seek liberalization ... tear down this wall!" He had no idea how close it was to being torn down, and with it the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. The cost of maintaining the Soviet Union and its satellites against widespread dissent was too great. The economy was beyond control. Communist Party membership was falling off. As the region was falling into poverty and cynicism, Gorbachev had proposed to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on March 6, 1986, policies of glasnost, or candidness of governmental process, and peristroika, reorganization.