ABSTRACT
Without doubt, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the events that followed it contributed to a systems change in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union of enormous proportions. The scale and scope of what has occurred is such that history is likely to judge it as comparable with changes such as those associated with the collapse of feudalism or the social and economic effects of the Industrial Revolution. The extent of the system collapse is illustrated by the number of former Soviet republics which have struggled to restore GDP per head to its 1989 level, in real terms.
