Contacts

Revisiting the Wall

Dec 2009, Vol. 154, No. 6
By Victor Sebestyen

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe is a familiar story, and was widely revisited for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the commonly held Western narrative enshrines a number of exaggerations and myths. Communism did not fall because of Star Wars or firm rhetoric from Reagan and Thatcher. More important was the humiliation of defeat in Afghanistan and collapsing oil prices, which sealed the fate of communist Europe – and the people themselves.


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