[genman]

True, and this is why I added "relatively speaking". There was also Tbilisi massacre and the situation was very much on the edge also in Latvia and Estonia, but it all could have been much, much worse. He could have used brutal force and drowned all these independence movements in blood like was done in Budapest and Prague previously. Most importantly he accepted the withdrawal of Soviet armed forces from East Germany that eventually led to withdrawal of Russian occupation forces from all Russian occupied republics (except from less autonomous occupied territories on Russian SFSR).