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Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the Berlin Wall memorial. Photograph: Kay Nietfeld/dpa/Corbis

Marx and Engels proclaimed in 1848 that a spectre was haunting Europe the spectre of communism.

As it turned out, the spectre did eventually materialise, in the form of Soviet communism, which spread after the second world war to eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall was built 16 years later, in 1961, to put a stop to the way East Germans were voting about communism with their feet.

There have been celebrations recently to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall in November 1989. That fall was followed in 1991 by the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, a Soviet Union about which President Putin appears to harbour nostalgic feelings.

After those events there was an inevitable burst of triumphalism in the west. Some of us feared that, with the disappearance of the communist threat, some of the worst instincts of casino capitalism would be evinced; and so they were.

I myself had what I thought was a bright idea of writing a book called The Spectre of Capitalism. I hoped the catchy title would make my fortune indeed, make me a capitalist but it has to be said that sales fell woefully short of anything written by Marx.

Now the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has followed Marx with a declaration last week that a spectre is now haunting Europe the spectre of economic stagnation.

This phrase received about as much attention as that book of mine. It was uttered during the presentation of the monetary policy committees quarterly inflation report, and people were much more interested in the outlook for interest rates: the story remains that rates went outside after the financial crash, and will continue to remain outside for some time.

But, as the Bank is keen to emphasise, the outlook for the British economy is a lot better than that for Europe in general: it may be the slowest recovery in centuries, but our economy is now on the mend. However, there is a still a long way to go to make up the ground lost after Chancellor Osbornes woefully misjudged decision to abort the 2010 recovery he inherited with a needlessly deflationary and (literally) counterproductive fiscal policy.

Which brings us back to the spectre haunting Europe. Carney was not referring to David Cameron, but it intrigues me that when the prime minister and a legion of others go on about the need for reform in Europe, they are barking up the wrong tree. As Llewellyn Consulting points out in its current bulletin, the universal chant when the subject of the eurozones plight comes up is that what is needed is more structural reform.

Read more:
The spectre of communism? Europe should fear the spectre of austerity

Its easy to be pessimistic about the future of liberty. Yet sometimes freedom advances with extraordinary speed. Like 25 years ago in Europe.

As 1989 dawned communism had ruled what was the Russian Empire reborn for seven decades. The system failed to fulfill its promise of human liberation, but survived with the backing of secret police, gulags, and the Red Army.

Then in an instant it all was swept away. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was open. One of the most dramatic symbols of human tyranny was gone.

Tens of thousands of East Germans were imprisoned for Republikflucht, or attempting to flee the East German paradise. Some 1000 people died trying to escape East Germany, about 200 from Berlin.

As 1989 dawned there was obvious unrest in what Ronald Reagan had called the Evil Empire. Hope was rising, but no one could forget that previous popular demands for freedom always had been crushed by Soviet tanks.

In 1989 Hungary led the way. Plans were made for multiparty elections. The Communist Party dissolved. When the new leadership tore down Hungarys wall with the West the Iron Curtain had a huge hole.

Polands communist regime made a deal with a revived Solidarity Union and held free elections. The liberal tide rose in Czechoslovakia, sweeping away the hardline leadership installed to squelch the Prague Spring of 1968.

The East German regime remained tough. Frustrated East Germans began escaping through Hungary, with its open border.

Protests spread, causing the communist leadership to temporize. On November 4 a million people gathered in East Berlin.

On November 9 visibly struggling Politburo member Guenter Schabowski declared that East Germans would be free to travel to the West immediately. Border guards desperately sought guidance as tens of thousands of people gathered demanding to be let through. Just before midnight the security forces stood aside.

Continue reading here:
When Liberty Knocked Down the Berlin Wall

Published November 15, 2014

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, puppet designer and film maker Miroslav Trejtnar prepares a map for animations of his movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, Alzbeta Berankova takes a photo for animations for the movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, puppet designer and film maker Miroslav Trejtnar prepares a map for animations of his movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

PRAGUE The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. Try explaining that to children who have only known democracy.

That's the challenge tackled by two veterans of the uprising as the massive student protests faded ever further into the past. They wanted to capture the excitement of the rallies, the brutality of police beatings and the surreal repression of a nation that Vaclav Havel later president dubbed "Absurdistan."

So renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution now parents through the magic of animation.

"The parents are telling their children why they joined the demonstration, why they wanted a change," Trejtnar said. "It's about a turning point that they didn't experience."

"We used animation to present it in a form familiar to them," said Markova, "so the story becomes lively for them."

In the movie, the parents choose a toy a small human figure or animal and tell their own story by moving it on a big map of Prague. The toys are then animated to play out the drama of the events that toppled communism in Czechoslovakia.

Read this article:
Former students, now parents, use animated toys to explain 1989 Velvet Revolution to children

Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled potential terrorists #39; by U.S. government
Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled #39;potential terrorists #39; by U.S. government Learn more: ...

By: strongtower0914

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Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled potential terrorists' by U.S. government - Video

Stan Persky, author of 'Post-Communist Stories,' talks to The Tyee.

Author Persky: 'The failure of communism (or Stalinism, or Soviet-style communism, if you prefer) raises the profoundest questions for a socialist like me.'

[Editor's note: As you've no doubt been reminded this week, the Berlin Wall fell just about 25 years ago, ushering in an era that philosopher and writer Stan Persky, who splits his time between Vancouver and Berlin, reflects upon in his new book Post-Communist Stories: About Cities, Politics, Desires. An excerpt runs today on The Tyee. And Persky's old friend Tom Sandborn caught up with him to have the conversation below.]

Tyee: This book is based on your 1995 release Then We Take Berlin. Although you have added lots of new material reflecting your experiences and observations in Eastern Europe over the quarter century since the Wall fell and revised and updated the material that first appeared in 1995, you must have had a reason to revisit your earlier work rather than write an entirely new text. Tell us about the process that led to this book's creation.

Stan Persky: The obvious reason for putting together a book of both new and revised writings about post-communist Europe is that this year is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emblematic image of the Cold War. I was worried that people wouldn't remember what had happened.

Many of the students I teach in university today have never heard of the events of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of them have never heard of the Soviet Union, whose dissolution occurred in 1991, shortly before they were born. In fact, many of them have never even heard of communism.

It turns out that 2014 is a year of many historic anniversaries. In addition to being the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, its also the 25th anniversary of the popular uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China that was crushed by the Chinese Communist Party's army, and then erased from people's memories by methods described in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It's also the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I in 1914, and the 75th anniversary of the joint Soviet-Nazi attack on Poland that began World War II in 1939. And, for those keeping track of such things, it's the quarter-century mark for the introduction of the World Wide Web, the now-ubiquitous http://www.whatever that takes us everywhere and nowhere. As someone who writes "for the record," I see it as part of my job to prevent forgetting, and to not only remind fellow citizens of what happened in our past, but to try and figure out what it meant so that we won't be doomed to repeat our historical mistakes.

Second, as a writer, I want to show the connections between the past and the present. By coincidence, 2014 also is the year in which the majority of the people of Ukraine overthrew their corrupt, Russian-dominated government in order to try to establish a society that's moving closer to the European Union, the rule of law, and a decent standard of living, and away from the influence of Vladimir Putin's authoritarian Russia.

Link:
'I'm Still Waiting for Someone to Come up with Communism 2.0' (in Culture)