WHY DID COMMUNISM COLLAPSE?
There are two curious things about the “collapse of communism.” One is that the policy changes “perestroika” and “glasnost,” for examplewhich resulted in the “velvet revolutions” in Eastern Europe were initiated by Communist leaders themselves. A second is that, in most cases, the same elites, even the same individuals, are still in charge. The Communists have become capitalists. Whats going on here? I traveled in Eastern Europe in February and March, 1990 to study the fall of Communism. Three months after the revolution in Romania, I asked a senator representing the Hungarian minority of Cluj-Napoca the cause of the economic crisis under Ceausescu. He said, “Workers in Romania have been on strike for five years. They show up for work, yes, but nobody works more than two hours a day. They smoke, drink, play cards, talk. Nobody works.” I asked my guide and translator in Torun, Poland, the same question. We were in a hotel bar at the time, around 10 a.m. on a Thursday. He said, “You want
