Adam Michnik, former Polish dissident: For me, the first breach in the wall came in August 1980, when a great wave of strikes broke out all across Poland, the most important of which were in Gdansk. This was the crucial first step in delegitimizing communism. The wall really fell in Poland on June 4, 1989, the day Poles rejected communism in democratic elections. Then it was clear that this system was finished.
Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic: During the 1970s and 1980s I kept trying in vain to explain to foreign journalists that when they encounter a totalitarian society, they must not be fooled by its surface. It only looks like everyone is loyal and that the regime will be there for centuries. I remember how various foreign visitors said that we were just a group of fools, people beating our heads against the wall without the support of the public. I told them that a totalitarian society functions differently. In such a society, just one written word or one individual, like [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn, can change the course of history more than half a million demonstrators could under other circumstances.
Lech Walesa, former Solidarity leader, ex-president of Poland: The pope significantly accelerated the end of communism, and at the same time he prevented bloodshed. He made people aware of certain truths, made them feel their power. Someone else played an important role–the journalists, especially the Western ones. If they hadn’t publicized our struggle all over the world we wouldn’t have had a chance. [Ronald] Reagan understood us the way the journalists did. He understood that the end of [communism] was imminent. He saw what was in his interest, and he collaborated with us. So, I’d put the Holy Father in first place, then the press, then Lech Walesa in third place, and then Reagan.
Joachim Gauck, former East German dissident: The most important wall that fell was not even visible–it was the wall of fear inside people. It’s very difficult to describe the role fear plays in a totalitarian state. The miracle of 1989 was that [East] Germans, who lived from 1933 to 1989 with this fear, could return to the great European and North American project of democracy. And it was a lucky coincidence of history that for the first time there was a Russian leader, [Mikhail] Gorbachev, who was not willing to see socialism as a matter of tanks.
