August 19, 1989 . Hungary opens Border to Austria!

[Rumpel]

and in November 1989 the wall in Berlin falls …

who remembers the brave action of Hungary?

 

[Rumpel]

it was a milestone then!

 

[Allan]

There were so many brave people who started and then kept the dominoes falling. Gorby, a Polish electrician, and even The Pope.

The most shocking aspect of this was the speed with which it unfolded.

 

[Rumpel]

three cheers for the Hungary of those days!
!

 

[Rumpel]

and the Wall then fell by a misunderstanding, so to speak

who remembes the details?

 

[Juin]

and in November 1989 the wall in Berlin falls …

who remembers the brave action of Hungary?

I remember the fall, but not the exact sequence, it unraveled very fast.

 

[Juin]

There were so many brave people who started and then kept the dominoes falling. Gorby, a Polish electrician, and even The Pope.

The most shocking aspect of this was the speed with which it unfolded.

The unraveling of the Communist block had to have been as close to a miraculous historical event as events can get. No one saw it coming. Not even psychics. And anyone who was around in the 60s, 70s, 80s recall that the eastern bloc was like an indestructible colossus we were resigned to live with for the rest of our lives. Add to that the fact that it was the communists who appeared to be on the march. When the communists flipped a country, the mechanisms of terror kicked in, and it stayed communist. The communist country flipped by the capitalist world were rare. It was like all the free world could do was hold its own. Then all of a sudden in '89 the unraveling started, and was unstoppable. And just like that the colossus was gone!

 

[Allan]

The unraveling of the Communist block had to have been as close to a miraculous historical event as events can get. No one saw it coming. Not even psychics. And anyone who was around in the 60s, 70s, 80s recall that the eastern bloc was like an indestructible colossus we were resigned to live with for the rest of our lives. Add to that the fact that it was the communists who appeared to be on the march. When the communists flipped a country, the mechanisms of terror kicked in, and it stayed communist. The communist country flipped by the capitalist world were rare. It was like all the free world could do was hold its own. Then all of a sudden in '89 the unraveling started, and was unstoppable. And just like that the colossus was gone!

And all it took really was Gorby allowing the ball to get rolling. His liberalization, reflected in his philosophy of Perestroika and Glasnost lit a spark in people yearning for freedom.

Gorbachev was never really appreciated in Russia as much as he was in the west. No doubt Putin thinks he was weak and was responsible for the erosion of the Russian empire.

 

[Juin]

And all it took really was Gorby allowing the ball to get rolling. His liberalization, reflected in his philosophy of Perestroika and Glasnost lit a spark in people yearning for freedom.

Communism was always a dream. An unattainable dream. It delivered a nightmare. The nightmare was justified as necessary for the attainment of the Utopia. Sacrifices were demanded. Deprivations were demanded. In the '20s a Civil War and invasions by White Armies justified the sacrifices. In the '30s and '40s the Nazi invasions justified the sacrifices. The old generation died off. Newer generations were born in the '60s, '70s, to whom the deprivations and sacrifices were harder and harder to explain.

I believe Gorbachev was pushing against an open door. After 70 years probably no one in the eastern communist bloc believed in communism anymore.

Gorbachev was never really appreciated in Russia as much as he was in the west. No doubt Putin thinks he was weak and was responsible for the erosion of the Russian empire.

What is also overlooked in the west was that the post communist Russia was terrible on Russians. Inflation. The little communism had guaranteed was gone. Pensioners pensions wiped out. Jobs gone. Factories gone. State assets sold at peanuts to oligarchs. At the very least they hoped Gorbachev and Yeltsin would alleviate the deprivations under communism. What they wound up with was unimaginablel chaos, theft, corruption and deprivation

 

[Allan]

I believe Gorbachev was pushing against an open door.

Perfect characterization.

 

[Tigerace117]

And all it took really was Gorby allowing the ball to get rolling. His liberalization, reflected in his philosophy of Perestroika and Glasnost lit a spark in people yearning for freedom.

Gorbachev was never really appreciated in Russia as much as he was in the west. No doubt Putin thinks he was weak and was responsible for the erosion of the Russian empire.

Less than twenty percent of the Russian populace had a positive opinion of Gorbachev as of 2017, and he never would have taken the steps he did if he’d known what would happen.

 

[Allan]

Less than twenty percent of the Russian populace had a positive opinion of Gorbachev as of 2017, and he never would have taken the steps he did if he’d known what would happen.

We'll never know. Certainly we know that you don't.

 

[Tigerace117]

We'll never know. Certainly we know that you don't.

“However, he remains a controversial figure in former Soviet-occupied and administered countries such as the Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Poland, after violent repressions against the local populations who sought independence. Locals have stated that they consider western veneration of the man an injustice and have said they do not understand his positive legacy in the west, with a group of Lithuanians having pursued legal action against him.[648]”

The historian Mark Galeotti stressed the connection between Gorbachev and his predecessor, Andropov. In Galeotti's view, Andropov was "the godfather of the Gorbachev revolution", because—as a former head of the KGB—he was able to put forward the case for reform without having his loyalty to the Soviet cause questioned, an approach that Gorbachev was able to build on and follow through with.[656] According to McCauley, Gorbachev "set reforms in motion without understanding where they could lead. Never in his worst nightmare could he have imagined that perestroika would lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union".[657]“

Mikhail Gorbachev - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Historical record seems pretty damn clear, actually.

 

[Rumpel]

those were dramatic times

 

[yankintx]

and in November 1989 the wall in Berlin falls …

who remembers the brave action of Hungary?

The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and eventual disolvement of the USSR occurred so quickly.

This was the age before cell phones, and the news out of Eastern Europe was often chaotic.

I had grown up in the Cold War, and never thought I would see a reunification of Germany much less the USSR break up.

The Wall coming down is an event i shall always remember vividly. I knew the Cold War was finally over.

Hungary got the ball rolling, and the Eastern Bloc went with the wind.

 

[Rumpel]

our re.unification cane when nobody had expected it

 

[Juin]

I had grown up in the Cold War, and never thought I would see a reunification of Germany much less the USSR break up.

The Wall coming down is an event i shall always remember vividly. I knew the Cold War was finally over.

Hungary got the ball rolling, and the Eastern Bloc went with the wind.

There is one profession that was rubbished by the sudden and non violent fatal collapse of the Soviet Union, the psychics, fortune tellers, card readers, Nostradamus interperaters etc.

Throughout out my life not one of them remotely foresaw the collapse. Especially in the context that it's end was a peaceful one. If anything members of this discipline foresaw a fiery apocalyptic end.

 

[Rumpel]

There is one profession that was rubbished by the sudden and non violent fatal collapse of the Soviet Union, the psychics, fortune tellers, card readers, Nostradamus interperaters etc.

Throughout out my life not one of them remotely foresaw the collapse. Especially in the context that it's end was a peaceful one. If anything members of this discipline foresaw a fiery apocalyptic end.

Well said!

Nobody expected this outcome!

 

[Juin]

Well said!

Nobody expected this outcome!

It was easily the miraculous event of our time. If not of all time. I don't recall in history a military colossus of the size of the Soviet Union fizzle away in an instant like that. You get up one day, and poof, it's gone. Usually it's a slow decline over decades

 

[yankintx]

There is one profession that was rubbished by the sudden and non violent fatal collapse of the Soviet Union, the psychics, fortune tellers, card readers, Nostradamus interperaters etc.

Throughout out my life not one of them remotely foresaw the collapse. Especially in the context that it's end was a peaceful one. If anything members of this discipline foresaw a fiery apocalyptic end.

Exactly

Do you recall the books in the 1980s predicting the battle between the bear and the eagle?

What a load of BS

 

[Rumpel]

And where has the hope of eternal peace gone?

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

And all it took really was Gorby allowing the ball to get rolling. His liberalization, reflected in his philosophy of Perestroika and Glasnost lit a spark in people yearning for freedom.

Gorbachev was never really appreciated in Russia as much as he was in the west. No doubt Putin thinks he was weak and was responsible for the erosion of the Russian empire.

Gorbachev was a failure for the Russian people.

The collapse of nearly every organization and commercial enterprise lead to years of economic hardship for the Russian people. Along with the oligarcs looting the country blind.

Yeltsin was even worse. A more orderly reform would have been much better for Russians rather than the chaos Gorbachev created. The average lifespan for Russians declined drastically, emigration skyrocketed.

He would have been liked in the west as he destroyed an opponent from within and helped western companies loot the country

 

[Lovebug]

The unraveling of the Communist block had to have been as close to a miraculous historical event as events can get. No one saw it coming. Not even psychics. And anyone who was around in the 60s, 70s, 80s recall that the eastern bloc was like an indestructible colossus we were resigned to live with for the rest of our lives. Add to that the fact that it was the communists who appeared to be on the march. When the communists flipped a country, the mechanisms of terror kicked in, and it stayed communist. The communist country flipped by the capitalist world were rare. It was like all the free world could do was hold its own. Then all of a sudden in '89 the unraveling started, and was unstoppable. And just like that the colossus was gone!

Putin is still crying about it.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Putin is still crying about it.

It is one of the main things that drove him into politics in the first place. He wrote about in one of his books and he has mentioned it from time to time in some of his speeches. It wasn't so much the fall of the Communist apparatus in the USSR that fueled his white hot anger as much as it was the collapse of what he viewed as a society that operated under what he viewed as the permanent rules of order in his part of the world.

How the Kremlin viewed economics wasn't what was important to him, the USSR's standing as a world power is what was important to him.
He was a KGB station chief in Berlin when the Wall fell, he felt personally humiliated by that event.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

By the way, Hungary is no longer seen as being a democracy according to EU experts.
Congratulations Mister Orban.