[fse-esf] 'Communism's Overthrow:Inspiration for Tough Times'.FT jan 2 2009.

[CymruEuropaPress]

Dear All ( Especially ex-Soviet Union/Eastern European Friends, Companieros),
What do you all think of this analysis - 20 odd years on ??

Drawing on the rich legacy of 1989 :
Communism’s overthrow is an inspiration for tough times.

Financial Times:  Fri. Jan 2 2009.

In a decade grimly dominated by Islamist terrorism, global warming and financial crisis, it is difficult to recall the heady days of 1989 when Communism collapsed in Europe and the world seemed set for a sunny future.
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” wrote Wordsworth of the French Revolution. His thoughts were echoed by millions who participated, 20 years ago, in the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the overthrow of Soviet rule in eastern Europe and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union. Unlike the French Revolution and the 1917 Russian Revolution, the upheaval of 1989-91 and its aftermath was largely free of violence.
Largely, but not entirely. Over 100,000 died in the disintegration of Yugoslavia; thousands more perished in small wars elsewhere. But, for most of the 350m people of the former communist bloc, totalitarianism ended peacefully. There was no Communist revanchism, no descent into anarchy and no nuclear Armageddon. 
Of course, joy soon gave way to disillusion as economic restructuring tore through people’s lives. It was years before incomes returned to pre-1989 levels, even in the most advanced countries. In the poorer states, many still struggle to buy food, clothes and winter fuel. 
But, 20 years on, the world is a better place for the demise of the Soviet empire. We no longer live in the shadow of nuclear war, even though arsenals, unnecessarily, remain big enough to destroy the globe. The reduction in military spending left states with more to spend on public services, though whether the peace dividend was wisely used is another matter.
In Europe, the divisions left by the second world war have been eliminated by the enlargement of Nato and the European Union. Their frontiers have advanced from the Elbe far to the east, bringing security, liberty and the promise of prosperity to tens of millions.
The Soviet/Russian empire has been pushed from the heart of Europe. In recent years, a resurgent Moscow has sought to restore its influence, blocking the Nato membership hopes of Georgia and Ukraine. But the balance of advantage of the last two decades lies firmly with the west.
The whole transformation was driven largely by the peoples of ex-Communist Europe. They pushed forward the frontiers of freedom, not western officials who often advised caution. It is not the west as such that triumphed but the universal values that the west, for all its many shortcomings, upholds.
The Kremlin has fought back by restoring authoritarian rule in Russia and trying to block the further advance of democratic forces in the region following their success in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Moscow has succeeded in holding the line but only by resorting to war, last year in Georgia. The result is an east-west stand-off in the countries between the EU and Russia. This zone is emerging as Europe’s new fault line, though it is far from being a new Iron Curtain.
Today’s Russia is no totalitarian state. Having tasted the benefits of trade, travel and the internet, Russia’s elites do not want power at any price. They want power plus national modernisation plus holidays on the Cote d’Azur. How they strike the balance will determine Russia’s fate – and heavily influence its neighbours’.
Twenty years is more than a convenient anniversary. With the world economic crisis striking ex-Communist Europe hard, it is the end of an era. The eastward advance of the western alliance has reached, for now, its limits. Russia will resist, with force if necessary, any further gains. But governments will be preoccupied with the economic turmoil. As they struggle to chart their futures, they must seek to preserve the legacy of 1989-2009. Yes, times were often tough. But in most of the region there was a pervasive sense of progress. Would that this sense is not lost in the difficult years ahead.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

In Solidarity merlin, xxx
//openesf.net   ESF Activists News Agency/Forum

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