While the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the
symbolic end of communism, the Iron Curtain was first
breached in Hungary months earlier
The Economist reflects on the events which spurred a
revolution in human liberty:
The images of crowds hacking at the Berlin Wall in November
1989 while bemused East German border guards watch helplessly
are now iconic. But it's often forgotten that the Iron Curtain
was first physically breached not in Berlin, but just outside
Sopron, Hungary, on the Hungarian-Austrian border in the summer
of 1989. As tens of thousands of fleeing East Germans poured in
to Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the pressure built and built
until it could no longer be contained.
When you cannot dam a wave, it's better to try and ride it.
Which is why in June 1989 Gyula Horn, the Hungarian foreign
minister, travelled to the border with Alois Mock, his Austrian
counterpart. They brought a large pair of wire-cutters and
started snipping (pictured above).
By then the Hungarians had been working with the West Germans
against their supposed comrades in hard-line East Germany for
years. The wily Magyars had joined the International Monetary
Fund as early as 1982. One western official involved in
negotiations between Budapest and Bonn told me how, as the one
party state began to collapse, the Hungarian communist
leadership would even travel to Germany with lists of reformist
candidates for the Germans' approval.
It's hard to say what exactly was the tipping point that made
the Communists realise that the game was truly, finally, over.
The most likely event was the June 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy,
the leader of the failed 1956 revolution. Nagy was arrested by
the Soviets and executed two years later after a show trial. He
was buried in an anonymous plot known as "Section 301" of a
Budapest cemetery. (Ironically, historians such as Johanna
Granville and Charles Gati argue that Russian archives show
Nagy had been an informer or agent for the Soviet secret
police, known as "Agent Volodya" during his time in Moscow in
the 1930s. Others argue the documents are fake.)
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
