European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 03, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse East bloc in revolt one of the great ironies of the revolt in Eastern Europe was the resurrection of Alexander Dubcek the Leader of the doomed Prague Spring of 1968. Here Dubcek addresses a rally in the czech capital. East Europe throws out the old continued from Page 3 As the soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. We be Learned our but As Vernon Walters . Ambassador to West Germany often Points out Gorbachev is mortal. Will he survive the events he set in motion per troika is not the Success inside the soviet Union that it is outside. After four years there is increased rationing and the distribution of goods is worse. The armenian and turkish populace Are at each other s throats and the Baltic states want out of the Union. Suddenly Gorbachev the reformer has become in some respects Gorbachev the conservative. With the fall of Ceausescu Only one East bloc nation has failed to open its political system to opposition parties the soviet Union. While Gorbachev refuses to take thai Slep his allies push Forward with Little restraint. On the eve of the proclamation of the hungarian Republic three members of the provisional government confided that the peaceful revolution was possible Only because they did t fear an invasion by the soviets As in 1956. It was the hungarians who took the decisive step that triggered the rapid changes in Eastern Europe. On May 2, they began dismantling the Iron curtain on the austrian Border. East germans More than anyone understood the significance of that act. They d been using Legal trips to Hungary for years to illegally leave their , no one in the East or West envisioned the flood of refugees to come. Least of All East German Leader Erich Honecker who was saying the Berlin Wall would last another 100 years even while his country was Haemorrhaging its Lifeblood its citizens. Dressed in the Modem International uniform of Blue jeans with baby in Arm Bright faced and hopeful the East germans streamed toward a vision they knew Only from television. They left behind the loth largest Industrial nation in the world but to them the ranking was meaningless. In return for a lifetime free of poverty they had Given up Hope of fulfilment and perhaps most important of All the Chance to fail in life. When the masses went into the streets of Leipzig on oct. 9, shouting we Are the people the government was prepared for a Bloodbath to Stop them. Several stories circulated to explain How a massacre was averted. The most widely accepted was offered by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt who said the soviet officers in the East German caverns played the crucial role. They blocked the Gates with tanks to prevent mobilization. Without the Iron fist the party disintegrated quickly. The rank and file began deserting the leadership in droves. Honecker and his successor Egon Krenz though a reformer fell like the Berlin Wall. January 1990 the East German communist party must face the people in free elections in May. The part that controlled society for 40 years will be Lucky to survive. The new Reform parties in East Germany sprouted from the old underground 9pposition which began in the Church. Many of these parties want a separate East German state under some kind of socialism with a human face the ill fated slogan of Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia. It seems that most East German intellectuals want another try at creating what they Call a real socialist state and not a stalinist but the cry on the streets of Leipzig East Berlin Dresden and elsewhere is for unification with West Germany now. The demonstrators say they arc tired of socialist experiments. They say they can Sec that a free Market society works at least much better than socialism. The next socialist attempt without me was a popular protest sign in Dresden. It is Likely that the two Ger Many will find a route to confederation and then unification sooner than anyone would predict. With the rest of Eastern Europe changing course thus far Only Albania has seemed immune. Its ingrained xenophobia and system of grand isolation has served in leaders Well. Yet How Long can it hold out to these seemingly irresistible forces the people Peai can Europe Hae shown what they Are willing to risk and what they can gain with their courage. The West has made Clear the benefits that await those who join the Community of Freer men and women. Soho wants to be caught watching the Lail Miglus of history two Young East German women rejoice after being allowed to enter West Germany. They were among 3,500 who had taken Refuge in the West Gorman embassy in Prague Czechoslovakia. A stars and stripes special report 1989 chronology of a revolution Jan. 11, Hungary in ram evil v
