ABSTRACT
The ‘Spring of Nations’ that took much of East-Central Europe by storm last autumn was without doubt a political phenomenon. An apparent abandonment of the doctrine of military intervention in subordinated East-Central Europe by the Gorbachev regime had encouraged change for some time. The Hungarian decision to dismantle border fortifications at the border with Austria triggered a flood of East German refugees to the West that put pressure on the East German communist regime. Once Honecker fell, Czechoslovak neo-stalinists found themselves isolated and the pressure applied skillfully by the opposition resulted in the smoothest possible transfer of power. The fall of Ceausescu completed the domino effect.
