Wakes From Coma to Find Communism Gone

      Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

     (Image from newsimg.bbc.co.uk)

Tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of Reagan's landmark speech in Berlin.  Standing before the Berlin wall, and against the advice of his aides and the State Department, he said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"  The roar of the crowd as they responded echoed around the world.

That was 20 years ago, and a new generation has no memory of that day.  But at least they have heard about it, and about the unimaginable difference it made.  Why unimaginable?  Because only a handful of people in the world believed it could ever happen.  Still, it is hard to picture the difference it made to people who lived through it.

Now a Jan Grzebski, a Polish railway worker, has just emerged from a 19-year coma that began just before the fall of communism in his country.  He had to take in that stupendous change in just a few days.  John Fund writes of his story in the Wall Street Journal today, here.  Here is Grzebski's take on the change.

"Rip Van Winkle has nothing on Jan Grzebski, a Polish railway worker who just emerged from a coma that began 19 years ago--just prior to the collapse of communism in his country.  His take on how the world around him has changed beyond recognition comes at an appropriate time.  It was 20 years ago tomorrow that Ronald Reagan electrified millions behind the Iron Curtain by standing in front of the Berlin Wall demanding, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'

"Mr. Grzebski is, of course, thrilled to see the wife who cared for him and the 11 grandchildren he didn't even know he had.  But he is also shocked at how his homeland has changed.  'When I went into a coma, there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge gas lines were everywhere,' he told Polish TV.  'Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.  What amazes me is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning.  I've got nothing to complain about.'"

His fascinating view of this earth-shaking event is a good jumping-off point from which to review the changes that have taken place since the "day the wall came down."  Tomorrow all around the world, memorials to that day will be dedicated and events held to celebrate it.  But not in Russia. Writer John Fund comments:

"It shouldn't surprise anyone that Russia has resisted efforts to erect memorials about the communist era.  In 2005, Vladimir Putin, Russia's autocratic president, let slip in a speech that 'the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'  Under Mr. Putin's leadership, Russian officials are conspicuously re-creating some of the institutions of oppression.  Their frosty silence about three-quarters of a century of communist oppression does not augur well for Russia's future."

The Day the Wall Came Down is one of the hinges of history.  Read the whole, short article here.