Thirty years ago this June 4, Poland held its first honest election since the country was subjugated by Stalin and communism was imposed on an unwilling society. The election results were an across-the-board sweep for the anti-communist forces led by the Solidarity trade union movement. Communist power was shattered. Poland qualified as the first in a series of Soviet puppet state dominoes to topple throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Six months later, nothing remained of the archipelago of satellite regimes that the Red Army had imposed after World War II, and shortly thereafter, Western-style democracies prevailed throughout the region.That seminal …read more
Source: The American Interest
