Eric Honecker (1912-1994) was a German communist politician who led the GDR - German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. 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".