20 years later
Dear comrades friends, tomorrow Berliners will celebrate 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - a huge event which changed so much in the world. Now, 20 years later, lots of people, especially at this side of the former Iron Curtain, are looking back and contemplating on the past two decades. Drawing the line and checking the balance. What
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The Soviets were too preoccupied with their own troubles, to send any tanks. Later, when the events lead the people on the streets to bring down the Socialist government which had come back to power after several years of Democrat government (long story), it occurred that the Parliament building was assaulted by the mob. The then president (a Socialist, former Communist) Petar Mladenov was heard saying in front of the TV cameras "I wish the tanks came". Later, he interpreted it as "Call for Stanko" (the internal minister). The two sentences sound very much the same in my language. But he remained as the "tankist" president. That government was brought down by the street (the Parliament slightly damaged in those events). The memory of the communists was too fresh, to allow another socialist government. I also suspect that, because the 1989 coup was made so bloodlessly (much unlike Romania, where Ceausescu was shot and hanged down in a Mussolini style), and the Commie nomenclature transformed into Socialist nomenclature, people were left with this dissatisfaction that the anti-communist revolution hadn't taken place. So it happened with a few years' delay.
Eventually, the socialists came back to power 4 years ago, in a centrist-leftist coalition, only to be brought down in their turn by the current right-centre government. We've never had a government complete two consecutive terms, and that must be telling volumes about the stability of the country.
The good thing is, we somehow avoided the ethnic tensions of the West Balkans.
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