the late eighties was remarkable for both its rapidity and its scope.

The specifics of communism's demise varied among nations, but

similarities in both the causes and the effects of these revolutions

were quite similar. As well, all of the nations involved shared the

common goals of implementing democratic systems of government and

moving to market economies. In each of these nations, the communist

regimes in power were forced to transfer that power to radically

different institutions than they were accustomed to. Democracy had

been spreading throughout the world for the preceding two decades, but

with a very important difference. While previous political

transitions had seen similar circumstances, the actual events in

question had generally occurred individually. In Europe, on the other

hand, the shift from communism was taking place in a different context

altogether. The peoples involved were not looking to affect a narrow

set of policy reforms; indeed, what was at stake was a hyper-radical

shift from the long-held communist ideology to a western blueprint

accomplished through accession, it meant, strangely enough, that

self-imposed, and "neither submission nor voluntary self-submission is

surveillance programs and so forth, there is very little room for

the short-term integration of two extremely different societies - one

state; it was not designed to address the lack of national identity

authoritarian political regime and its concomitant command economy to

transition to democracy and market economics. According to Preuss,

effective democratic society. There seemed to be, at first, a tension

Some topics in this essay:
Central Europe, According Preuss, Basic Law, East Germans, West Germany, Central European, West Germany's, East Germany, Basic Law's, Democratic Republic, basic law, east germans, unification germany, self-purification collective amnesia, west germans, east west, governmental economic, according preuss, capitalist economy, backward justice, social economic classes, eastern central europe, self-purification collective,