What if the Berlin Wall didn't fall?

Daily Mail ^ | July 25, 2009 | Peter Hitchens

[C19fan]

In 1989, more than 100,000 East Germans took to Leipzig's streets protesting against their hardline communist rulers and demanding an end to repression. The pro-democracy surge spread rapidly, forcing East Germany's leaders to open the Berlin Wall to the West, before it was finally destroyed. It was a seismic moment that sent shockwaves around the world. Now PETER HITCHENS, who was there at the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia, imagines how it could all have gone terribly wrong, and contemplates the repercussions that would have followed...

[C19fan]

If the Berlin Wall did not fall I seriously doubt the US would indulge in electing a neophyte and hardcore leftist like Zero.

[sonofstrangelove]

The Soviet Union would of collapsed anyhow. It was a matter of time.

[JLS]

What an interesting article, but of course we have to cheer the freedom of eastern Europe and Russia and win our own battles at home.

[Luke21]

We never would have had Clinton, and probably wouldn’t have gotten stuck with the current clown.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

His most interesting point is how the left in the West had the albatross of Communism taken from around their necks. This is the worst aspect of the end of the Cold War for the United States, bar none.

I’m afraid to ask what percentage of Americans under the age of 30 find Communism truly evil as opposed to an abstract. Almost none of them would identify national health care as anything remotely resembling Communism.

It’s frigtening that the world’s largest Communist state is a primary debt holder of ours and see our actions as a threat to their investments. Never would I have imagined that China would have embraced capitalism to its extent without corresponding political freedoms while we step away from free market capitalism as we give up political freedoms.

Truly the fall of the wall has done more harm to the west than we would have ever imagined.

[VeniVidiVici]

The money quote:

I think the stupid Left in Britain were on the verge of being utterly defeated, largely because they still had a lingering sympathy with communism. Another few years and we might have said goodbye to them for good. As it is, the end of the Warsaw Pact freed British socialists to do immense damage. They no longer had the albatross of Soviet communism round their necks. And, switching their energies into political correctness and constitutional vandalism, they have become the dominant power in our lives.

As with us.

Things had come too far by the time Gorbachev and Honecker celebrated the DDR 40th anniversary. If a coup had indeed deposed Gorbachev permanently I think the genie could not be put back in the bottle. Leipzig massacre or not.

The people by then were used to the government preparations and response to protests and planned accordingly. Holes had already opened in the Warsaw Pact and those that had tasted freedom for the first time in 50 years were not going to lose it so easily should troops come out to play.

Pictures from the DDR 40th anniversary celebrations in East Berlin:

[SoCalPol]

In 1989, more than 100,000 East Germans took to Leipzig's streets protesting against their hardline communist rulers and demanding an end to repression That was 6 years after I was in Leipzig, standing next to Russian Soldiers. The areas I was in, in East Germany was was an example of Communist oppression.

[lowbridge]

What if the Berlin Wall didn't fall?

I suspect Reagan would have kicked it in with his foot.