We’re fast approaching the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, which helped spell the end of communism. East Germany was morally bankrupt the moment the wall was built: it’s not paradise if you have to lock people up in it. But demolition was by no means inevitable and history owes a debt of gratitude to all those who risked their lives to oppose such a rotten system.
Someone else who deserves a little credit is Mikhail Gorbachev. His attempt to reform the Soviet Union inspired dissent across Eastern Europe and his refusal to prop up failing regimes reduced the likelihood that local communists would resist upheavals with violence. In the Soviet Union itself, Gorbachev almost voluntarily divested his party of power – almost.
