Thirty Years: The Changing State of Freedom in Central Europe

This is the latest in a series of articles on the legacy of the fall of the Iron Curtain 30 years ago. See more.

In a period of just six months, protest-driven popular movements swept away communist regimes in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania — all of which had consistently been rated "Not Free" by Freedom House.

Within a few short years, East Germany was reunited with the West, and the other former Soviet bloc countries had embraced democratic systems, with competitive elections, freedom of speech, and an array of other civil liberties. All moved ahead on a path to European and Euro-Atlantic integration.

For the next two decades, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rest of the Iron Curtain was celebrated as a symbol of democracy's triumph over tyranny in Europe.

More recently, however, this ritual has been complicated by the deterioration of democratic institutions in each of the Central European countries that made breakthroughs in 1989. 

The following excerpts are drawn from the Freedom in the World reports covering 1988, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2018.

Taken together, they tell the story of a crumbling communist system, the early challenges of the transition to democracy, the achievements of the post-Cold War era, and a new period of setbacks and outright attacks on basic freedoms.

A few major impressions stand out:

• The transition to a democratic political model took place quickly, with most countries conducting multiparty elections, introducing media freedom and abolishing strict communist controls over the economy within a year or two of their revolutions.
• Corruption has plagued every country in the region throughout the post-communist period.

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