For the first time in the Soviet Union, there is detailed reporting on an ecological catastrophe: the Soviet magazine "Ogoniok" reports that excessively large hydraulic engineering projects have caused the water level of the Aral Sea to sink so dramatically over the past decades that large tracts of land are now barren and salty.
4 January
1988
Since the start of the year, passports are being issued in Hungary with which Hungarian citizens can travel to the West without a visa.
12 January
1988
During a state visit to Poland, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher meets with the leader of the banned Polish union "Solidarity", Lech Walesa. He promises the Polish dissident movement the support of the West German government.
15 January
1988
The "Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humankind" is founded in Moscow, the first independent institution in the Soviet Union.
17 January
1988
During the annual demonstration in East Berlin commemorating the two socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who were murdered in 1919, more than 150 dissidents and people applying for permission to emigrate are arrested by the Ministry for Security. They have joined the demonstration march bearing their own placards with the Luxemburg quote: "Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently."
In the following days, a number of prominent members from dissident groups are arrested, and some of them are deported to the West.
RIAS report on the arrests on the sidelines of the Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration in East Berlin, 18 January 1988 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Guten Morgen, Moderator/Reporter: Götz Ulrich Loch, Wolfgang Hauptmann)
