What were some unintended consequences of Gorbachev's decision to normalize relations with the West and democratize the Soviet Union?

Protests and collapses of communist regimes in Eastern Europe

Unintended consequences of Gorbachev's reforms included protests and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who had become General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, sought to reform this system. Reforms were necessary to keep the USSR abreast of the information and technological revolutions taking place in the West. However, Gorbachev’s decision to normalise relations with the West and democratise and reform the Soviet Union had some other effects that neither he nor anyone else intended or anticipated. The people in the East European countries which were part of the Soviet bloc started to protest against their own governments and Soviet control. Unlike in the past, the Soviet Union, under Gorbachev, did not intervene when the disturbances occurred, and the communist regimes collapsed one after another.