But actually I am really stunned that this fairy tale about Regan’s military build up and it’s presumed influence on the end of the cold war is being repeated so many times even after many documents of the soviet union are diclassified and available for researchers. i would like to know where in the transcripts of politburo session or in any other major documents (such as directives, memorandums) one can find that russian leaders were motivated by American threat in electing Gorbachev as a general secretary? I can see other factors there, but none of that would indicate that so called Regans threat was on their radar.
This is the same as to claim that after threats to Isreal and hard rhethoric American people decided to elect the leader who would be more accomodating to Iran. In short this statement is based on the assertion that Iran American relations were paramount or very important in presedential campaign or the choise that American people made.
Where is the evidence from soviet transcripts that Politburo was motivated by American Soviet relations or American policy in electing gorbachev???

I still yet to hear from any reputable russian liberal economists( and there are many who were and are in opposition to communist rule) that contributed the collapse of the soviet union to the military build up of ronald regan.
Citing some soviet officials are good, there are plenty more soviet high ranking officials (such as Yakovlev, ambasador dobrynin and many others) who reject and dispute this fantastic assertion about ronald regan influence..