An editorial headed “The Berlin Wall, 20 years later” goes on to say “By 1987, the communist regime was under great pressure from world leaders, notably President Ronald Reagan….Other countries in the region, such as Poland and Hungary, also did their part to accelerate the fall of Communism.…Today, Germany is celebrating.”
WATCHDOG: The editors are to be praised for not falling into the trap of ‘American Exceptionalism.’ Below is an excerpt from a brilliant article by Timothy Garton Ash appearing in the November 5 edition of The New York Review of Books, entitled “1989”:
“In truth, the essence of 1989 lies in the multiple interactions not merely of a single society and party-state, but of many societies and states, in a series of interconnected three-dimensional chess games. While the French Revolution of 1789 always had foreign dimensions and repercussions, and became an international event with the revolutionary wars, it originated as a domestic development in one large country. The European revolution of 1989 was, from the outset, an international event—and by international I mean not just the diplomatic relations between states but also the interactions of both states and societies across borders. So the lines of causation include the influence of individual states on their own societies, societies on their own states, states on other states, societies on other societies, states on other societies (for example, Gorbachev’s direct impact on East-Central Europeans), and societies on other states (for example, the knock-on effect on the Soviet Union of popular protest in East-Central Europe). These portmanteau notions of state and society have themselves to be disaggregated into groups, factions, and individuals, including unique actors such as Pope John Paul II.
“The end of communism in Europe brought the most paradoxical realization of a communist dream. Poland in 1980–1981 saw a workers’ revolution—but it was against a so-called workers’ state. Communists dreamed of proletarian internationalism spreading revolution from country to country; in 1989–1991, revolution did finally spread from country to country, with the effect of dismantling communism. Yet the story is as much one of unintended consequences as it is of deliberate actions—let alone of historical necessity.”
I see. The United States, and particularly with the leadership of Ronald Reagan, obviously had nothing to do with the liberation of eastern Europe.
Not. How far do you think the Polish workers’ movement, led by Lech Walesa, would have gotten without American support? It would have been another 1956 Hungary or 1968 Czechoslovakia.
Another fabulous whitewash job by the “America Last” team. How inspiring.