Eastern European Revolutions and Their Global Context

The paper deals with the phenomenon that the revolutionary events of 1989 in East Central Europe and East Berlin have been “unthinkable” until they really happened. Whenever before the fall of the annus mirabilis people discussed the issue, how to open the Brandenburg Gate , how to end the communist rule in the lands called the Eastern bloc, no peaceful solution was envisaged under Cold war conditions . However, Gorbacev’s perestojka-policy inside the Soviet Union and for a renewal of the European house paved the way towards the first holes in the Iron curtain, when the barded wire was cut of between the Warsaw pact member state Hungary and the still neutral Austria in September or the Round table in Poland, later on called the “negotiated revolution”. This and the demonstration taking place in Leipzig every Monday, the chattering with bunches of keys during mass manifestations at the Wencelslas square of Prague or finally most symbolic the Fall of the Berlin Wall proved to be the most unpredictable solutions of all – except perhaps the killing of the dictator in Bucarest. The World have been attracted but inactive and this created free spaces which after a short time started to shrink in a time of building new blocs which immediately started and continues until now.