Decline of communism

Under pressure from the Soviet Union, the Polish government outlawed the union and arrested its leaders, including Walesa. Still, unrest continued. Walesa became a national hero, and the Polish government eventually released him from prison. Pope John Paul II visited Poland, met with Solidarity leaders, and criticized communist policies. The pope was the former Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of the Polish city of Cracow. Unlike Poland or Hungary, East Germany resisted Gorbachev’s calls for change. In 1988, the rigidly communist . East German government banned Soviet publications, because it considered glasnost subversive. East Germany’s communists blocked moves toward a market economy or greater political freedom. However, East Germans could watch television broadcasts from West Germany. They were thus intensely aware how much more prosperity and political freedom existed on the other side of the Berlin Wall. When Hungary opened its border with Austria in 1989, thousands of East Germans fled through Hungary and Austria to West Germany. Thousands more held demonstrations across East Germany demanding change. In the late 1980s, Gorbachev declared that he would not interfere with Eastern European reforms. Poland legalized Solidarity and, in 1989, held the first free elections in 50 years. A year later, Lech Walesa was elected president of Poland. The new government began a difficult, but peaceful, transition from a command economy to a market economy. A flowering of opposition and reform movements spread across the Eastern European countries. By late 1989, a powerful democracy movement was sweeping throughout the region. Everywhere, people took to the streets, demanding reform. One by one, communist governments fell. In Czechoslovakia, Václav Havel (VAHTS lahv HAH vul), a dissident writer and human rights activist, was elected president. In East Germany, the gates of the Berlin Wall were opened, and the country started down the road to reunification with West Germany.