I remember 1989—not just the moment the Iron Curtain finally buckled, but the months and years leading up to its collapse. There was a rhythm to it, a strange and accelerating cadence in how the regimes behind it softened, cracked, and finally caved. The Hungarians were the first to loosen their grip. People used to say Hungary opened slowly but early—ten years early, if the old joke is to be believed. Then came Poland, supposedly making the same journey in ten months. Eastern Germany followed, managing the transition in ten weeks. After that, Czechoslovakia, in ten days. And Romania, the last and most stubborn of the bunch, took ten hours.
It’s a neat little parable, and no, the numbers don’t line up quite that beautifully in the real world—but there’s truth in the sequence. There’s truth in the momentum. Societies don’t collapse all at once; they unravel at increasing speed, especially when the rot has been ignored long enough.
But there’s another truth in that story—one people tend to gloss over. Hungary, opening early, had time. The change, even for its communist leadership, was still soft enough to manage. East Germany’s top brass? They didn’t get a gentle transition; they were shoved out of the way with all the ceremony of clearing a clogged drain. And those who held back the longest—those who fought the hardest to smother the spark—that would be the Romanians. They didn’t get to retire or negotiate. They got shot.There is always a price for resisting the tide once it’s turned. Some systems bend. Some shatter. And the ones that refuse to move at all tend to end up face down, dragged out of history by force.
https://www.politico.eu/article/what-green-backlash-says-eu-climate-chief/