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A crowd of protesters waves flags showing Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, beside President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a rally in Budapest. Orban announced later dropped a proposed tax on Internet usage that angered thousands, who felt that the tax was an attempt to cut off one of the few sources of information not controlled by Orban's allies. Photo: New York Times

Budapest:A quarter-century ago, as Hungary helped ignite the events that would lead to the collapse of Communism, the ferment produced a new political star.

Viktor Orban was 26 then and a long-haired law graduate. In June 1989, five months before the Berlin Wall came down, he lit up a commemoration of the failed 1956 revolt against Moscow with a bold call for free elections and a demand that 80,000 Soviet troops go home.

Now, days after the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hungary is a member of NATO and the European Union and Mr Orban is in his third term as Prime Minister. But what was once a journey that might have embodied the triumph of democratic capitalism has evolved into a much more complex tale of a country and a leader who in the time since have come to question Western values, foment nationalism and look more openly at Russia as a model.

Looking east: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Photo: AFP

After leading his right-wing party Fidesz to a series of national and local election victories, Mr Orban is rapidly centralising power, raising a crop of crony oligarchs, cracking down on dissent, expanding ties with Moscow, and generally drawing uneasy comparisons from Western leaders and internal opponents to President Vladimir Putin.

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"He is the only Putinist governing in the European Union," said Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister.

Some other Eastern European countries, especially Poland, have remained oriented toward the West and still harbour deep suspicions of Russia long after the Cold War ended.

But Hungary is one of several countries in the former Soviet sphere that is now torn between the Western ways that appeared ascendant immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union and the resilient clout of today's Russia. Money, culture and energy resources still bind most regional countries to Russia as tightly as to Europe. Mr Putin's combative nationalism is more popular here than what many see as Western democratic sclerosis.

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Putin protege Viktor Orban spreads his wings in Hungary

Communism in Albania: A True Story
A narrative about the rise and fall of Commuism in Albania during the cold war.

By: A Rose #39;sthorns

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Communism in Albania: A True Story - Video

Sources:Data are latest available as of Nov. 12, 2014 from thefollowing sources: World Bank, United Nations DevelopmentProgramme, Freedom House, and Transparency International. Methodology:

Gross Domestic Product per capita figures are in 2011 international USD. Life expectancy figures are for all persons at birth. Child mortality rates are the number of deaths of children under the age of 5 per 1,000 live births. Average years of schooling are for all adults 25 years old and older.

Freedom House awards countries two scores: one for political rights and one for civil liberties. Each country receives a score from 1 (best) to 7 (worst). For this presentation, scores are inverted and averaged into an overall freedom score of 1 (worst) to 7 (best)

Data for Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index begin in 1999 for most countries. TI scores countries on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best). This presentation inverts scores so that 100 represents the most corruption, 0 the least. Prior to 2012, TI had an identical scoring system, but on a scale of 0 to 10. These scores were multiplied by 10 to equalize the scale across the entire time span.

UNDP education data is provided at irregular intervals (1990, 2000, 2005 and annually onwards). For gaps between years of data, graphs show interpolated results. For other indicators, gaps between data are treated the same way. If no data exist prior to a certain date, graph data begin at the first available data point.

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Legacy of the Berlin Wall: Communism's 25-Year Shadow

This week we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and with it communism. However, as we approach this anniversary, I am disturbed to see a resurgence of this destructive ideology right here at home.

Communism as a political structure is a failure. We know this to be true based on itshistory. We have seen theimages of despair from behind the Iron Curtin. We know that when the state crushes theindividual that failure of the society is sure to follow.

Why then, with these lessons less than 30 years behind us, do our leaders seek to embody this damaging ideology here in America under the guise of a different name: progressivism?

Our very own president is on the record as having said things such as, You didnt build that. He is also famous for his talking point of everyone getting his or her fare share.

We are a nation of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. This administration hasdedicated itself to replacing the individual with the state. If the current regulatory scheme of the EPA or the IRS is not enough proof that communism is growing here at home, then I present to you exhibit A:Obamacare (or the Affordable Care Act for my liberal friends).

This disastrous policy is the single largest attempt in this nations history to bring theindividual to his or her knees in a state of perpetual dependence upon the government.

This, my friends, iscommunism in the guise of a helping hand.

Just because you do not see Soviet style force in our towns and cities does not mean that the ideology of the former USSR is not present and thrivingwithin academia andgovernment here at home.

Here in America, communism goes by a different name.

Progressivism is communism. Make no mistake about it.

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Stay vigilant against communism

The revolutions in Eastern Europe paved the way for the collapse of communism in East Germany, otherwise known as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), in 1990. One of the most important government officials in West Germany at the time was Rolf Nikel. Today, he serves as unified Germany's Ambassador to Poland.EurActiv Poland reports.

Rolf Nikel is Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Poland. He was interviewed by Editor-in-Chief & Managing Director, EurActiv Poland Karolina Zbytniewska.

What would have happened if the Berlin Wall hadnt fallen down?

At that time, I was working in Chancellors Helmut Kohls office, where I was responsible for Polish-German relations. We were amazed how the situation on the Eastern side of Iron Curtain evolved thanks to people taking their fate into their own hands. It was just incredible.

The situation as of 1989 made it inevitable in the context of the pro-democratic revolution that set off in the summer of that year in Poland with the first semi-democratic elections and first non-communist PM Tadeusz Mazowiecki (and) developments in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. History was happening in front of our eyes.

The Berlin Wall had to fall down. It was inevitable. It was only (a) question (of) when, under which circumstances, and whether it would be stable or not.

Seeing this peaceful uprising made you predict that Germany might be the next in line.

Yes, but we couldnt predict the Soviets reaction. After coming to power in 1985, it took Mikhail Gorbachev some time to consolidate his authority. And no one really knew how he might have reacted to the changes that were occurring. You have to keep in mind that in the GDR, there were 380,000 Soviet soldiers and that the Soviet Union (SU) had a track record of military intervention crashing down on anti-communist demonstrations as in 1953, 1956, 1968 etc.

In 1989, Gorbachev made the right decision not to intervene which allowed the whole democratic processes in Eastern Europe to happen peacefully. But the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more generally, of the Iron Curtain was a natural consequence of what began in Poland. So Germany is very much indebted to the liberation movement in Poland and other countries, but especially to Poland, which was very much advanced in the democratic process, thanks to Solidarno.

Why did Gorbachev decide not to intervene?

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Interview with Rolf Nikel, Germanys Ambassador to Poland