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Do you think the USSR and Eastern Bloc would have collapsed anyways without the Berlin Wall being opened and the August Coup taking place?
I think they would have continued to exist but perestroika would have made them open to the global economy. I think by the late 1980s the global economy was pretty much inevitable. The USSR would probably be like China now - still powerful and not wholly integrated with the West, but much more Westernized and capitalistic. Even the Soviet Union of the 80s was somewhat more open than in past decades and I think that if it made it to the 90s and beyond this would have continued.
I do however think that neoliberalism and privatization wouldn't have gone as far if they did if the communist party run countries didn't collapse in a revolution though.
The Fact they needed a wall to keep people in, signaled that the Soviet Uion would not last, so I don't think it could have survived.
I don't think it was just that, I think it had more to do with the fact West Berlin was an exclave and they needed an effective way of securing the border.
You pretty much answered your own question. Changes were inevitable. The falling of the Berlin Wall was just the coup de grace.
Yes it was very symbolic. Though actually the Iron Curtain was first punctured in Hungary along the Austria border a few months before the Wall came down.
Ronald Reagan's speech in Berlin and his emphasis on military spending including "star wars" --- Pope John Paul's visit to Poland and his friendship with Poland's labor leader Lech Walesa --- and the general growth in international communications such as television which broadened peoples' perceptions / awareness --- these were all factors in the fall of the Iron Curtain.
I went into East Berlin when the wall was intact. The guards at check-point Charlie had to be chosen by their looks, the roughest, toughest men who ever guarded a place. Like actors, trying to be as tough appearing as possible. Of course, it could have been just my wide-eyed American innocence.
So many rusty cranes parked here and there, with the guide trying to make it seem like much building was taking place. I was glad to get back to West Berlin.
Do you think the USSR and Eastern Bloc would have collapsed anyways without the Berlin Wall being opened and the August Coup taking place?
I think they would have continued to exist but perestroika would have made them open to the global economy. I think by the late 1980s the global economy was pretty much inevitable. The USSR would probably be like China now - still powerful and not wholly integrated with the West, but much more Westernized and capitalistic. Even the Soviet Union of the 80s was somewhat more open than in past decades and I think that if it made it to the 90s and beyond this would have continued.
I do however think that neoliberalism and privatization wouldn't have gone as far if they did if the communist party run countries didn't collapse in a revolution though.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a sign of what was happening, not a cause.
The Berlin Wall didn't come down until November of 1989.
This came months after Solidarity was legalized and trounced the communists in free elections in Poland in June. In August, Poland got its first non-communist Prime Minister in over 40 years, and in September a non-communist government was approved by parliament.
Hungary abolished the Communist Party's monopoly on power that summer and had already begun dismantling its portion of the Iron Curtain.
If anything, the opening of the Berlin Wall probably extended East Germany's life a little - had Honecker's shoot to kill orders been followed (before he was replaced in mid-October), the change in East Germany from authoritarian to democratic regime would have been rather violent, and unification probably would have come sooner simply out of necessity.
Violence on the East German leadership's part certainly would not have done anything to placate the restive Czechoslovak, Romanian or Bulgarian masses. And it certainly wouldn't have allowed Gorbachev (or any potential successor) to hold the USSR together.
The system was collapsing globally. It’s a question of whether they were willing to send in the tanks. The Chinese were (i.e., Tiananmen); the Soviets—not so much. Gorbachev was not Deng Xiaoping.
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