在阿奇·布朗的权威性著作《共产主义兴衰论》中就记述了出国访问是怎样打开了米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫的眼界，令其发现了一生寄身其中的社会体系的失败之处。
In his magisterial book The Rise and Fall of Communism, Archie Brown notes how travel abroad opened Mikhail Gorbachev’s eyes to the failure of the system that he had lived under all his life.