As a militant anti-communist, pro-democracy student and activist who had studied in communist Poland and the USSR in the 1980s, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a fantastic day in my life.
Chance, of course, provided the precipitant in the final events. But anti-communist, pro-democratic movements in Poland and Hungary and popular mobilization in East Germany also played a critical role in the run up to fall of the Berlin Wall .
The "free world", symbolized most vividly by Reagan's speech, also was a key component. Liberal democratic ideas won the Cold War, not tanks, missiles, or soldiers. & the "winners" were also those in East Germany, Poland, Estonia, Russia, Ukraine etc who ALSO embraced these ideas
And please dont forget that one Russian, Mikhail Gorbachev, also played a positive and central role in the fall of the Berlin wall. No Gorbachev, no Berlin Wall collapse.
