Part 6/8:
The combination of disillusionment with the government, a faltering economy, and newfound freedoms ignited a wave of uprisings across the Eastern Bloc. The first significant revolution occurred in Poland, where the Solidarity movement gained momentum, culminating in a non-communist government being elected in 1989.
This sparked similar revolutions in Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, where anti-communist movements gained traction and further eroded Soviet authority. In each case, the absence of Soviet military intervention marked a pivotal shift; the USSR, under Gorbachev, refrained from suppressing these uprisings, signaling a waning grip on its satellite states.
The Final Act of Dissolution