WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The collapse of the Berlin Wall was the culminating point of the revolutionary changes sweeping East Central Europe in 1989. Throughout the Soviet bloc, reformers assumed power and ended over 40 years of dictatorial Communist rule. The reform movement that ended communism in East Central Europe began in Poland.

Detailed explanation-2: -In Western Europe, the term Eastern Bloc generally referred to the USSR and Central and Eastern European countries in the Comecon (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania).

Detailed explanation-3: -By the summer of 1990, all of the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe were replaced by democratically elected governments. In Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, newly formed center-right parties took power for the first time since the end of World War II.

Detailed explanation-4: -After World War II, local communist parties came to power in Eastern Europe. They became the Soviet Union’s satellite states, implementing five-year plans with a focus on heavy industry instead of consumer items. Agriculture was controlled by the state and noncommunist parties were eliminated.