Introduction
In 1989, after nearly 40 years of Soviet control, Czechoslovakia once again became an independent nation, the Czech and Slovak Federalist Republic. This transition from Soviet socialism to democracy culminated throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the literal collapse of the Berlin Wall in East Germany, the heroic Gdansk Shipyard Strikes in Poland. The student and worker protests in Prague and Budapest were no less important.
The Czechoslovakian revolution took place peacefully and over a much longer period of time than events in other former Soviet Union or Warsaw Pac…