Fifteen years ago, in 1989, a sudden change occurred in Central and Eastern Europe. Communist governments in CEE were push away one after another and instead by new democratic governments. This event happened so abruptly and quickly that almost nobody had imagined it before. This process was completed in Poland within 7 months, in Hungary within 70 days, in Romania within only 7 days. Most of these shifts were peaceful, except the dictator of Romania was sentenced to death. This Event shocked the world and led to a new appearance of Europe as well as the whole world.
Why those communist governments were overthrown by people? Before the breakup of communist system, CEE countries had been a same picture of “vast worker’s prison”. In detail, this picture is made up of the central planed economy and the abandon of free market, the tyranny of one ideology, the totalitarian control of a single party in the grip of a privileged few, and above all, it deprived the dignity of people and restrained the initiative which is important for social development. All those were against people’s interest. So, the breakup of communist in Europe is inevitable. From 1989 on, all those evil things were got rid of.
How we evaluate the performance after shift? The results are very mixed; but generally they are good.
Firstly, in economics. At the beginning, the economic situation was full of contradiction and chaos, the life standard of people was dropped. Some countries carried out radical reform, which famous as “shock therapy”. Although this strategy was once unpopular and described as “too much shock, too little therapy”, the good results of the reform have appeared after mid-1990s. For example, new middle-class was steadily emerging and free-market system came into being by and large.
Secondly, in term of peace. In those ex-communist countries outside the Balkans, ethnic tensions have been kept under better control, partly because the help and supervision from EU and NATO....