Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of one of the most important events in modern European history-- the August Agreements that led to the creation of Solidarity in Poland. Even though a few years later Poland imposed martial law and forced the movement underground, the genie was out of the bottle. Solidarity was at the forefront of the destruction of Communism in Europe in the late 1980s.
There's a lot of arguing and pontificating about the roles that various great power personalities like Reagan, Gorbachev, and Bush played in ending the Cold War and the collapse of European Communism. What we frequently lose sight of is how much depended on Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Hungarians, and Romanians seizing control of their own destiny and rejoining their common European, Western home.
There's a lot of arguing and pontificating about the roles that various great power personalities like Reagan, Gorbachev, and Bush played in ending the Cold War and the collapse of European Communism. What we frequently lose sight of is how much depended on Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Hungarians, and Romanians seizing control of their own destiny and rejoining their common European, Western home.