Francis and Jeremy make good points. We have to take a balanced assessment and also be self critical of the stances we may have taken in the 1980s.

From my recollection, there was general unity around the first 2-3 years of the Gorbachev reforms. The Euros took it as acceptance by the CPSU of their positions (I am over simplifying). The Star was slavishly pro Gorbachev almost to the bitter end. e.g. it opposed the August 1991 coup.

Some of the harder left elements supporting the Star did oppose Gorbachev a couple of years in, mainly as the mirror position to the Euros. e.g. "he's releasing all those dissidents".

The Straight Leftists and broader left supported Gorbachev as evidence disproving the Euro position i.e. that the Soviet Union was capable of internal reform and renewal. I remember Kevan Nelson (now CPB International Secretary) announcing in a factional meeting "The Soviet Union is advancing inexorably towards full communism."

I believe the NCP started to part with slavish pro Gorbachev line with the public emergence of the so-called Ligachev Opposition from 1987 onwards, initially siding with this Opposition. By the time of the 1989 collapse of the Eastern European regimes, the NCP was clearly condemning these as counter revolutionary and the restoration of capitalism. The Star was describing them as the renewal and democratisation of socialism.

Subsequently, the NCP seemed to adopt the neo Maoist position, now put forward by the CPBG-ML and the YCL, that Khrushchevite "revisionism" was the source of all the problems facing the USSR and leading to its collapse.

I never detected a clear evolution of the Straight Left position after it became clear the Gorbachev changes were running into serious trouble. They just seemed shell shocked by the collapse 1989-91 and I believe this led to their own collapse as a distinct organisation, with the majority of the remaining SLers joining the CPB in the mid 90s.

The CPB's majority position (which was originally only just adopted by a majority of one on the EC at the time although since never seriously challenged) is that the political and economic problems facing the USSR were structural and basically required democratisation, more flexible, innovative and decentralised economic planning and delivery (obviously politics and economics are linked), that the reforms in the late 50s, 60s and 70s should have been deeper and more sustained etc. It (rightly) doesn't hold with the conspiracy theory "Gorbachev was a traitor" etc, although that was was the essence of the amendment which only just failed to be approved by the EC. As well as focusing on the "personality" of Gorbachev, it also criticised major ideological weaknesses in the CPSU as contributory factors to the collapse.